The Contagious Effects of Rural Violence: Social Pathologies and Injured Bodies in Blasco Ibáñez’s La barraca (The Cabin)

Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s La barraca (The Cabin, 1898) presents a vivid portrait of the struggles of the rural population of the Valencian huerta. When the local people prevent a plot of land from being cultivated as an act of popular resistance against the landowning class, the arrival of Batiste Borrull provokes a campaign of marginalisation and aggression against his family. The collective violence of the mob enacted by men, women and children is unleashed against his daughter Roseta, his sons, and finally five-year-old Pascualet, who is pushed into an irrigation ditch by hostile boys and contracts a fatal infection. The mounting brutality that culminates in the death of a young child becomes a powerful manifestation of social pathologies including rural primitivism, alcoholism and entrenched poverty. This article explores ideological and discursive contexts for the portrait of rural violence at the turn of the twentieth century, including class-based theories of degeneration and crowd psychology. It also examines the trope of stagnant water that courses through the plain as a symbol of contamination, echoing the moral sickness of rural society. Critics have argued that in his social protest novels, Blasco Ibáñez denounces the idle and degenerate bourgeoisie, following instead the anarchist and socialist argument that the vices of the proletariat are the result of capitalist exploitation (Fuentes 2009). By contrast, this article proposes that La barraca underscores the primitivism and pathological violence of the landless rural labourers, thereby reinforcing a bourgeois ideological foundation for the exposition of social injustice in late nineteenth-century Spain.

Social Movements for Democracy in Post-Communist space: two Revolutions in Czechoslovakia (1968, 1989)

This article is a comparative analysis of two revolutions in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and 1989. The main question of this article is: Why did the revolution in 1968 fail, but the revolution in 1989 succeed? In this article the main reasons, common features and differences of those two revolutions were analysed and defined. The main conclusion of this article is the fact that a necessary condition for the victory of popular resistance is the support of these manifestations by the military or their non-interference. The 1968 revolution was suppressed as a result of the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops under the leadership of the Soviet Union, but the events of 1989 were marked by a decision by the country’s military leadership on their neutrality.

Visual Creativity of Protests in Romania (2016-2019)

After the pictorial turn, it is not surprising that political messages are more and more often presented in a visual form. Today, the battle between great ideas is not only fought via texts, but also through real and virtual images, or, through imagetexts. This paper tackles the image politics of the Romanian post-2016 anti-government popular resistance through some typical cases of imagetext: hashtags, symbols, video mapping, posters and some cases of visible space-occupation. These examples can present the anonymous (in some cases professional) artistic creativity, which helps the formation of social solidarity and crystallizes the message of the resistance.

Conclusion

The Conclusion brings together many of the most important themes of the book. It underlines the extent to which the great majority of Parisians—and no doubt the French population more generally—in no way anticipated the Revolution. It notes the near absence of any direct influence before the Revolution of the canonical “Enlightenment” on an intelligent and well-read member of the elite like Colson—except in the most general sense of an openness to very practical reforms. It documents the complete absence of a putative “desacralization” of the monarchy before 1789—sometimes argued by historians to link the Old Regime with the Revolution. It describes Colson’s long, patient, and forgiving support for the king, at least until his attempted flight in 1791. It also underscores the incessant circulation and power of rumors of impending disasters in Paris, not just in the summer of 1789 (during “the Great Fear”), but also as they continued from the autumn of 1789 throughout the Revolution, and how such rumors affected popular psychology and behavior. Finally, it stresses the strong popular resistance in Paris, even among the great majority of the “sans-culottes” radicals, to “dechristianization”—and the possible role of the attack on religion in the failure of many such radicals to support Robespierre on the 9th of Thermidor (July 27,1794).

Postscript

The book’s Postscript considers the monumental events in Sudan in 2019, from the deposing of President al-Bashir under the pressure of a popular uprising to citizen demands for civilian rule, from the vantage point of the arguments of this book. The Postscript allows for the Arendtian approach to politics, which anchors the peacemaking critique in this book, to explore a more generative terrain. The chapter observes that political action by citizens ‘in concert’, as Arendt would say, was manifest in the neighborhood popular resistance committees, sit-ins and marches that sought to reclaim politics as of and for the Sudanese in their plurality. The Postscript argues that, in navigating the treacherous waters of revolutionary political change, it is sustained and multitudinous civil political action that might be the ultimate guarantor of Sudan’s revolution. This counterfactual from Sudan’s own political experience is a lodestar that both illuminates and grounds the book’s arguments on the tragic shortcomings of means-end peacemaking.

Ecuador’s CONAIE to present a major challenge to Lasso

Significance Iza, a central figure in 2019 anti-austerity protests, replaces Jaime Vargas, who was expelled from CONAIE after backing 'Correista' candidate Andres Arauz in April’s presidential election run-off. Vargas’s expulsion illustrates divisions within Ecuadoran indigenous politics. CONAIE nevertheless remains a powerful force that will challenge the government. Impacts Private media channels will attempt to discredit Iza and CONAIE and undermine wider support for the indigenous movement. Correa will attempt to strengthen links within CONAIE and the Pachakutik party and build a broader leftist alliance. Popular resistance to Lasso’s economic reforms might undermine investor confidence in Ecuador.

PALESTINE: POPULAR NON-VIOLENT RESISTANCE. DEBATING TERMINOLOGY AND CONSTRUCTING PARADIGMS

The main goal of this research paper is to examine the core role of popular nonviolent resistance in transforming the Israeli Palestinian conflict through all available peaceful means. We have deeply gone through different definitions of nonviolence as an international concept and we explored the various historical stages and prominent stations of this type of nonviolence. To elaborate more on this goal, we can say that the strategic aim is to bridge the gap between theories and approaches of conflict transformations and the current study of peaceful resistance. Nonviolence is one strategic options for the Palestinians if we realize that the political alternatives and narrow and limited. Methodology adopted in this research is primarily qualitative with analytical and empirical connotations and implications, we relied on both primary and secondary data to reach the final results and conclusions. As far the final findings are concerned, this paper concluded that there is a gap between nonviolence peaceful resistance in the field in one hand and the decision makers on the other hand. There is a gap those who practiced or who embraced nonviolence as strategic resistance and those who put political goals and practiced political leadership. There is a lack of a proper understanding of peaceful nonviolent resistance and its role in liberating and emancipating Palestine from the occupation. Keywords: nonviolence, occupation, popular resistance, Gandhian model.

Sam C. Nolutshungu: Race, Reform, Resistance and the Black Consciousness Movement

This paper excavates and historically contextualizes the political theory of a largely neglected thinker within South African black intellectual history, Sam C. Nolutshungu. It seeks to rectify the current imbalance in South African intellectual history which largely neglects or effaces the contribution of black thinkers in the colonial or Apartheid period notwithstanding significant black contributions in theorizing racial submission, domination, reform and popular resistance in the context of state oppression. In this paper I argue that two such areas of inquiry are present in Nolutshungu’s overall position on political reform. The first is with regards to his intervention in the race- class debates which dominated political and intellectual discussions during the late Apartheid period. Here, Nolutshungu, argues that political domination could not be reformed with simple concessions as a result of its racially exclusionary nature. Thus Nolutshungu argued that race rather than class was the fundamental source of domination. The second is the theoretical evaluation of the social and political significance of the Black Consciousness Movement as an important symbol of resistance and racial solidarity. The link between these two aspects of his thought, I argue are not insignificant and should be carefully considered. Nolutshungu’s valuable analysis on the route to political reform is strengthened by his evaluation of the role of the Black Consciousness Movement, which for Nolutshungu was an instance of how resistance was mobilized along racial rather than class lines. Moreover, the Black Consciousness Movement not only prioritized the question of race as a primary factor in its mode of resistance but served to illustrate how and why meaningful change in South Africa was contingent on the abolition of racial oppression and the overturning of the institutions of Apartheid. Finally, I argue that there is a contextual urgency in undertaking projects that seek to establish the importance of black intellectual ideas and reclaiming these ideas in order to give content and meaning to contested contemporary debates on justice, legitimacy, liberty, equality and land rights in South Africa. While the discourse of the negotiated settlement and reconciliation sparks intense debate often resulting in greater forms of racial polarisation, historical rumination and reflection offers a powerful and enduring opportunity for collective inquiry.

Concluding reflections

In October 2020, Chilean voters resoundingly elected to abandon the constitution left behind by the Pinochet dictatorship. A new charter will be written by a fully elected, gender-balanced, constitutional convention. Given that Chilean political leaders have floated the idea of jettisoning the 1980 constitution for the last 35 years, what accounts for their decisive step at this point? Summarising and reflecting on the contributions to this special issue, I argue that the October 2020 vote was, in a sense, the result of decades of popular resistance, nurtured and informed by rich and tragic historical memories and experiences. The October result demonstrated an understanding of how to mobilise and energise a huge and diverse base of popular support as well a keen awareness of how to prepare for the violence that inevitably was launched against it.

A ESPIRITUALIDADE TRANSRELIGIOSA NAS ROMARIAS E PEREGRINAÇÕES: O caso do Juazeiro do padre Cícero Romão

RESUMODestaca a importância da pluralidade das expressões de fé no bojo do catolicismo popular. Saber que os diferentes sistemas religiosos particulares são complementares, e não excludentes. A romaria a Juazeiro do Norte/CE é um desses sistemas e constitui-se em um dos maiores eventos religiosos do Brasil e, por seu caráter de resistência popular, tem atraído a atenção de pesquisadores e pesquisadoras em diversas áreas do conhecimento, que buscam explicar suas origens e motivos, bem como os seus processos e transformações. Analisar as transformações na experiência religiosa dos romeiros do Juazeiro do padre Cícero Romão, no contexto de mudanças culturais mais amplas, buscando compreender as estratégias de hibridação como mecanismos de preservação e ressignificação da romaria. Esta pesquisa em Ciências da Religião situa-se dentro do marco teórico e metodológico transdisciplinar, que destaca o conhecimento brotado entre e além das diversas áreas e sujeitos. Oferecer elementos para uma compreensão abrangente do diálogo interreligioso, entendido como uma atitude positiva e construtiva de abertura e escuta da tradição religiosa do outro, o que possibilita um enriquecimento recíproco através do compartilhar das riquezas éticas e espirituais que está cada vez mais presente no mundo moderno, plural e secularizado. Para entender a dinâmica de uma espiritualidade transreligiosa o estudo aprofunda a tipologia das romarias que constitui estudar as várias expressões de fé do povo. A pesquisa mostrou que a pastoral ecumênica deve ser entendida como uma abertura espiritual na qual cada pessoa assume profundamente a sua tradição de origem e a abre a outra.Palavras-chave: Religiosidade popular. Romaria e espiritualidade. Diálogo intereligioso. Ecumenismo e diálogo.ABSTRACTIt highlights the importance of the plurality of expressions of faith in the heart of popular Catholicism. To know that the different particular religious systems are complementary, not exclusive. The pilgrimage to Juazeiro do Norte / CE is one of these systems and constitutes one of the biggest religious events in Brazil and due to its character of popular resistance has attracted the attention of researchers in several areas of knowledge which seek to explain its origins and motives as well as processes and transformations. Analyze the changes in the religious experience of the pilgrims of Father Cícero Romão in Juazeiro within the context of broader cultural changes seeking to understand hybridization strategies as mechanisms for the preservation and redefinition of the pilgrimage. This research in Sciences of Religion is located within a transdisciplinary theoretical framework and methodology which highlights the knowledge that emerged between and beyond the different areas and subjects. Offer elements for a comprehensive understanding of interfaith dialogue understood as a positive and constructive attitude of opening up and listening to the religious tradition of the other, which makes possible a mutual enrichment through the sharing of the ethical and spiritual riches that is increasingly present in the modern world, plural and secularized. To understand the dynamics of a trans-religious spirituality, the study deepens into the typology of pilgrimages which constitutes studying various expressions of faith of the people. The research has shown that ecumenical pastoral must be understood as a spiritual opening in which each person deeply assumes his or her original tradition and opens up to another.Keywords: Popular religiosity. Pilgrimage and spirituality. Inter-religious dialogue. Ecumenism and dialogue.