Mosaic on Bamako, Mali's Martyrs Monument, commemorating the 1991 protests. Click for source.

As the one-year anniversary of the Arab Spring is being celebrated in the media, some journalists have asked, “What about the rest of Africa?” Lisa Mullins of PRI’s The World put it this way on January 24: “The pro-democracy revolts of last year … got people in sub-Saharan Africa wondering if they’d ever see an African Spring. That hasn’t happened.”

Yet it has happened before, as my research assistant Max Rennebohm recently reminded me, and it could happen again. There was a startling wave of pro-democracy struggles in Africa—seven countries with mass people-power campaigns—around the early 1990s. All seven were sub-Saharan: Benin, Madagascar, Cameroon, Mali, Togo, Malawi and Kenya. As with the Arab countries currently in the headlines, the seven from the early ’90s had varying outcomes. What is striking is that, on our Global Nonviolent Action Database’s success scale of 0 to 10, while one was rated 4 and another 7, the rest scored 9 or 10.

Following through

Benin was one of the most successful among the seven. High school and college students launched the campaign there with a student strike in January of 1989. The dictatorial government immediately tried to crush the campaign with troops and arrests. Rennebohm describes what motivated the students to act; the economy had been failing and the government wasn’t paying out student scholarship money—nor salaries to teachers and civil servants.

Inspired by the students’ bold action, the teachers and civil servants themselves began striking. The campaigners attracted allies despite—or because of—government repression; the broader movement added a demand for democracy to their economic grievances. By the end of a 15-month struggle, the government yielded on both counts: the economic demands that began the campaign and the demand for a democratic election that arose during it.

In Madagascar, the ruler Didier Ratsiraka had been in office for 15 years, and in the late 1980s the economy was going from bad to worse. Researcher Elena Ruyter writes that a broad coalition of opposition groups launched a general strike in May 1991, followed by mass demonstrations. They demanded that Ratsiraka step down in favor of free elections.

The government responded with guns and grenades. When the National Council of Christian Churches failed in its mediating attempt, many churches threw their support behind the campaign. The military began to back away from Ratsiraka, which forced him to accept a transitional government and free elections.

Madagascar illustrates a general strategic principle of any struggle: a campaign’s success may be only temporary unless campaigners take additional steps to defend the victory. Although Ratsiraka was ousted—he ran for president in the free election, lost and went into exile—he returned to the country in 1997 and resumed the presidency.

Women holding up more than half the sky

In both Mali and Kenya, women played important leadership roles in successful struggles. In the Malian case, as Aly Passanante and Max Rennebohm tell us, repression escalated soon after the campaign’s start, even though 100,000 people joined the initial demonstration on March 17, 1991. Days later, troops opened fire on students and other protesters and killed at least 22 people.

Women then stepped up, taking a highly visible role in demonstrations because of cultural taboos against killing women. Even though the women didn’t quench the violence fully—soldiers did kill five of them—they had an impact.

As a result, the Malians regained their momentum and mounted a general strike. Many soldiers put down their weapons and joined the protesters. In that atmosphere, a group of military officers arrested General Moussa Traoré (just a week and a half after the campaign began!) and promised free elections. A national congress of civil and political groups soon drafted a new, democratic constitution, and Malians democratically elected a new president.

Kenyan mothers between 60 and 70 years old launched a direct action campaign with a public hunger strike in 1992, camping in Freedom Park across from the parliament building. They demanded that the dictator release their sons who had been detained as political prisoners. Researcher Aden Tedla explains that the women, led by Wangari Maathai—who later received a Nobel Peace Prize—rapidly gained public support. Police beat up and tear-gassed the women. Three of the mothers stripped off their clothing, shook their breasts, and shouted “What kind of government is this that beats women! Kill us! Kill us now! We shall die with our children.” The police retreated.

The movement grew rapidly as the news spread, and many kinds of nonviolent methods, as well as riots, were tried. There was a general strike. The mothers continued to occupy the moral high ground through the growing tumult, and their sons were finally released to them. It would take more extended struggle to democratize Kenya, though; conditions were not as ripe as in Mali. But the 1992–93 campaign initiated by the bold mothers gave Kenya an important step forward.

General strikes: the downside

In the African pro-democracy wave, the campaigns in Mali, Togo, Madagascar and Benin all included general strikes, as did Kenya’s—although it’s unclear how widespread Kenya’s strike was. As anarchists and socialists have long claimed, the general strike can be a powerful nonviolent method. Cameroon, however, reveals a downside of the general strike, which seems to be related to timing.

By April 1991, pro-democracy organizers had managed to gain a rough unity of many political parties who opposed the authoritarian government of the Cameroonian People’s Democratic Movement. The stage was set for a direct action campaign. Sachie Hopkins-Hayakawa tells us that students were among those taking the initiative, and the government didn’t hesitate; in five days, eight demonstrators were killed and several were wounded.

The movement responded by declaring an immediate general strike across Cameroon: “Operation Ghost Town.” The plan was to strike from Monday to Friday, giving the people a chance to restock on weekends.

The government responded by creating a new organization to act as the enforcer, sometimes even outstripping the military in authority and violence. The government also began a crackdown on mass media. It asked for and received international aid, evidently having decided to wait out the campaigners.

This strategy worked. By October, the strain of the strike on the population was too great; too many people were suffering without enough signs of progress. The coalition splintered, and many of the factions agreed to a negotiating conference with the government. The conference failed to achieve their hopes.

The fact that the Cameroon campaign started with a general strike at the beginning—while the other campaigns relied on multiple tactics early on, saving “the big one” for later—raises a strategic question for further study: is the timing of a general strike critical to its success?

The embedded dictator: a contrast

Dictatorships can have remarkable staying power; Togolese President Gnassingbe Eyadema was in power for 23 years by the time the 1990 pro-democracy campaign started. Malawi’s President Hastings Banda had been ruling for 30 years when the 1992 campaign began.

Rennebohm tells us that the Togo campaigners had two goals: a national conference to set the stage for democratic reform, and the resignation of Eyadema. A ten-day campaign was initiated by students and shortly blossomed into a general strike. The organizers quickly gained such wide participation that Eyadema announced the legalization of political parties in addition to his own, and he accepted a national conference. Once the pressure of direct action was off, however, the dictator was able to outmaneuver the campaigners and remained strong enough to defeat several military coups. He remained in power until his death in 2005.

The Malawi campaigners also wanted to legalize political parties and end single-party rule; in the short term, they wanted to release political prisoners. Their campaign went from March 1992 to June 1993, GNAD researcher Lindsay Carpenter writes. In Malawi, the leadership was taken by Catholic bishops rather than students and opposition politicians, and the bishops leaned hard on the church’s infrastructure and support from the pope to build their campaign.

That didn’t stop Banda from arresting the bishops, nor did it keep the university students from joining the struggle. In this context the army decided to stay neutral; junior officers even protected the students from the police and encouraged them to protest. When tapes were discovered in which government members discussed assassinating bishops, the people responded with even larger demonstrations.

Three thousand textile factory workers went on strike, demanding democracy. The Presbyterians and other Protestants, as well as Muslims, joined the campaign. Because Banda wasn’t getting support from his army, he organized his own enforcers, the Young Pioneers, to beat and intimidate protesters, supplementing his police. Later in the campaign, however, the army intervened to disband the Young Pioneers.

Banda realized he was finished and a free election was set. His own party, in control for thirty years, was defeated, and democracy came to Malawi.

Even while the Global Nonviolent Action Database includes dozens of cases of sub-Saharan African nonviolent action going back to 1906, we realize that there are thousands of cases we haven’t yet researched. But there is at least enough to know that the common assumption that Sub-Saharan Africans don’t do nonviolent struggle is just an unfounded stereotype.

• On Saturday, more than 100,000 turned out in the pale winter sunshine for a march in downtown Moscow against election fraud and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s plan to return to the presidency next month.

• Over 10,000 Bahrainis gathered on Sunday to begin a week-long sit-in protest in Meqsha, north of Bahrain, ahead of the one year anniversary of the revolution.

• Hundreds of flights in France were cancelled today, including 40 percent out of Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport, as unions ratcheted up pressure on day two of a strike over labor rights.

• Antiwar groups held rallies on Saturday in about 80 cities across the United States protesting a possible strike on Iran.

• In Singapore, two hundred foreign workers staged a sit-in on Monday morning in protest over unpaid wages.

• At least one activist died, and another 39 were injured on Sunday after police tried to break up a protest by indigenous groups—who have blockaded the Pan-American Highway for days—against the recent approval of mines and reservoirs in their region.

• In Canada, close to a thousand people marched through Prince Rupert’s streets on Saturday as part of a rally hosted by local first nations against Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline and the oil tanker traffic it would generate on British Columbia’s northern coast.

• At least 11 Occupy D.C. protesters were arrested Saturday just blocks from the White House as the U.S. Park Police evicted activists who had been sleeping in McPherson Square since October 1. On Sunday, police also cleared a second encampment at Freedom Plaza.

• In one of more than a hundred protests planned across Europe on Saturday, about 2,000 people marched in the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

• Some 20 residents of Khirbat al-Tawil village, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, went on a 24-hour hunger strike on Friday to protest against Israel’s occupation of their lands.

• Just after the National Park Service’s noon deadline Monday, by which protesters in Washington’s two Occupy D.C. camps were required to decamp, protesters fought back by stringing up a giant blue tarp in the middle of McPherson Square, which they called the “tent of dreams.”

• Belgium’s first general strike in almost two decades brought parts of the country to a halt on Monday in an anti-austerity protest aimed at the new government and at EU leaders meeting in Brussels.

• Hundreds of Romanians protested on Saturday against a plan to set up Europe’s biggest open-cast gold mine in a small Carpathian town, joining a wave of anti-government rallies.

• Three topless Ukrainian protesters were detained Saturday while trying to break into an invitation-only gathering of international CEOs and political leaders to call attention to the needs of the world’s poor.

• Thousands of cars flying white ribbons or balloons circled central Moscow on Sunday in a show of protest against Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

• Argentina’s powerful truck drivers’ union blocked postal distribution centers in several cities on Monday to protest the firing of 200 workers.

• About 200 Indonesian Christians held a prayer vigil in Jakarta on Sunday urging President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to re-open their church and stop intimidation by Muslim hardliners.

• Last Sunday, dozens of Detroit’s undertakers drove a motorcade of hearses through the city’s most violent neighborhoods to protest the high murder rate.

A march in Ådalen, Sweden, in 1931.

While many of us are working to ensure that the Occupy movement will have a lasting impact, it’s worthwhile to consider other countries where masses of people succeeded in nonviolently bringing about a high degree of democracy and economic justice. Sweden and Norway, for example, both experienced a major power shift in the 1930s after prolonged nonviolent struggle. They “fired” the top 1 percent of people who set the direction for society and created the basis for something different. Both countries had a history of horrendous poverty. When the 1 percent was in charge, hundreds of thousands of people emigrated to avoid starvation. Under the leadership of the working class, however, both countries built robust and successful economies that nearly eliminated poverty, expanded free university education, abolished slums, provided excellent health care available to all as a matter of right and created a system of full employment. Unlike the Norwegians, the Swedes didn’t find oil, but that didn’t stop them from building what the latest CIA World Factbook calls “an enviable standard of living.” Neither country is a utopia, as readers of the crime novels by Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbø will know. Critical left-wing authors such as these try to push Sweden and Norway to continue on the path toward more fully just societies. However, as an American activist who first encountered Norway as a student in 1959 and learned some of its language and culture, the achievements I found amazed me. I remember, for example, bicycling for hours through a small industrial city, looking in vain for substandard housing. Sometimes resisting the evidence of my eyes, I made up stories that “accounted for” the differences I saw: “small country,” “homogeneous,” “a value consensus.” I finally gave up imposing my frameworks on these countries and learned the real reason: their own histories. Then I began to learn that the Swedes and Norwegians paid a price for their standards of living through nonviolent struggle. There was a time when Scandinavian workers didn’t expect that the electoral arena could deliver the change they believed in. They realized that, with the 1 percent in charge, electoral “democracy” was stacked against them, so nonviolent direct action was needed to exert the power for change. In both countries, the troops were called out to defend the 1 percent; people died. Award-winning Swedish filmmaker Bo Widerberg told the Swedish story vividly in Ådalen 31, which depicts the strikers killed in 1931 and the sparking of a nationwide general strike. (You can read more about this case in an entry by Max Rennebohm in the Global Nonviolent Action Database.) The Norwegians had a harder time organizing a cohesive people’s movement because Norway’s small population—about three million—was spread out over a territory the size of Britain. People were divided by mountains and fjords, and they spoke regional dialects in isolated valleys. In the nineteenth century, Norway was ruled by Denmark and then by Sweden; in the context of Europe Norwegians were the “country rubes,” of little consequence. Not until 1905 did Norway finally become independent. When workers formed unions in the early 1900s, they generally turned to Marxism, organizing for revolution as well as immediate gains. They were overjoyed by the overthrow of the czar in Russia, and the Norwegian Labor Party joined the Communist International organized by Lenin. Labor didn’t stay long, however. One way in which most Norwegians parted ways with Leninist strategy was on the role of violence: Norwegians wanted to win their revolution through collective nonviolent struggle, along with establishing co-ops and using the electoral arena. In the 1920s strikes increased in intensity. The town of Hammerfest formed a commune in 1921, led by workers councils; the army intervened to crush it. The workers’ response verged toward a national general strike. The employers, backed by the state, beat back that strike, but workers erupted again in the ironworkers’ strike of 1923–24. The Norwegian 1 percent decided not to rely simply on the army; in 1926 they formed a social movement called the Patriotic League, recruiting mainly from the middle class. By the 1930s, the League included as many as 100,000 people for armed protection of strike breakers—this in a country of only 3 million! The Labor Party, in the meantime, opened its membership to anyone, whether or not in a unionized workplace. Middle-class Marxists and some reformers joined the party. Many rural farm workers joined the Labor Party, as well as some small landholders. Labor leadership understood that in a protracted struggle, constant outreach and organizing was needed to a nonviolent campaign. In the midst of the growing polarization, Norway’s workers launched another wave of strikes and boycotts in 1928. The Depression hit bottom in 1931. More people were jobless there than in any other Nordic country. Unlike in the U.S., the Norwegian union movement kept the people thrown out of work as members, even though they couldn’t pay dues. This decision paid off in mass mobilizations. When the employers’ federation locked employees out of the factories to try to force a reduction of wages, the workers fought back with massive demonstrations. Many people then found that their mortgages were in jeopardy. (Sound familiar?) The Depression continued, and farmers were unable to keep up payment on their debts. As turbulence hit the rural sector, crowds gathered nonviolently to prevent the eviction of families from their farms. The Agrarian Party, which included larger farmers and had previously been allied with the Conservative Party, began to distance itself from the 1 percent; some could see that the ability of the few to rule the many was in doubt. By 1935, Norway was on the brink. The Conservative-led government was losing legitimacy daily; the 1 percent became increasingly desperate as militancy grew among workers and farmers. A complete overthrow might be just a couple years away, radical workers thought. However, the misery of the poor became more urgent daily, and the Labor Party felt increasing pressure from its members to alleviate their suffering, which it could do only if it took charge of the government in a compromise agreement with the other side. This it did. In a compromise that allowed owners to retain the right to own and manage their firms, Labor in 1935 took the reins of government in coalition with the Agrarian Party. They expanded the economy and started public works projects to head toward a policy of full employment that became the keystone of Norwegian economic policy. Labor’s success and the continued militancy of workers enabled steady inroads against the privileges of the 1 percent, to the point that majority ownership of all large firms was taken by the public interest. (There is an entry on this case as well at the Global Nonviolent Action Database.) The 1 percent thereby lost its historic power to dominate the economy and society. Not until three decades later could the Conservatives return to a governing coalition, having by then accepted the new rules of the game, including a high degree of public ownership of the means of production, extremely progressive taxation, strong business regulation for the public good and the virtual abolition of poverty. When Conservatives eventually tried a fling with neoliberal policies, the economy generated a bubble and headed for disaster. (Sound familiar?) Labor stepped in, seized the three largest banks, fired the top management, left the stockholders without a dime and refused to bail out any of the smaller banks. The well-purged Norwegian financial sector was not one of those countries that lurched into crisis in 2008; carefully regulated and much of it publicly owned, the sector was solid. Although Norwegians may not tell you about this the first time you meet them, the fact remains that their society’s high level of freedom and broadly-shared prosperity began when workers and farmers, along with middle class allies, waged a nonviolent struggle that empowered the people to govern for the common good. Correction: In an earlier version, Henning Mankell was mistakenly referred to by the name of Kurt Wallender, the protagonist in several of his books.

• Thousands of Yemenis protested on Sunday against an immunity law protecting  outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh from prosecution and demanded he be put on  trial for offences they say he committed during his 33-year rule.

• More than 50 students from Tuscon High School walked out of class on Monday and marched toward Santa Rita Park in protest of the recent ban on Mexican American studies at TUSD schools.

• In Egypt, dozens of employees at the state-run Nile News TV Channel started an open-ended strike Sunday at the Maspero building, as they protested policies still in place since Mubarak’s rule.

• Malawi lawyers across the country Monday protested in their court regalia to pressure the governement to act on the ongoing judiciary strike.

• Truck drivers across Italy went on strike on Monday against increased fuel prices, while taxis also held a national protest over government reforms to increase competition, causing disruptions nationwide.

• Scores of protests were held across the country on Friday to protest the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, which ruled corporations have a right to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns. A dozen demonstrators were arrested on the U.S. Supreme Court steps.

• In Lebanon, severe electricity cuts fueled several protests Friday as residents and  lawmakers staged a sit-in in the mountain town of Aley and small groups of protesters blocked roads in the south of the country.

• Several women and children staged a sit-in outside the Karachi Press Club (KPC) on Friday to protest against the kidnapping of Baloch youths and the dumping of their bodies in different parts of the province.

• Protests in two West Bank universities have shut down classes in recent days, as students call for easing of tuition fees amid financial crisis in Palestine.

• Beginning last Tuesday, about 100,000 teachers from 24,000 non-government primary schools in Bangladesh held a three-day strike to demand that they be brought onto the government’s payroll.

Fast forward 13 months: Monday, January 16, 2012 was a particularly important day in modern Nigerian history. With the government under increasing pressure based on a week of intensive strikes and street protests, and a wave of repression which included the murder of at least 12 activists by members of the Nigerian military and police forces, the early morning had a quiet beginning; the national labor organizations had called for a suspension of the strike while negotiations took place. Despite little progress at the mediation table, President Goodluck Jonathon—dubbed “bad-luck” by most of the Occupy campaigners—addressed the nation in a late morning broadcast, announcing that the price of petrol would be set at a compromise rate, below what had been charged since the first of January but more than the fixed rate which had prevailed in previous years. By late in the afternoon, several labor leaders asserted that the entire strike was to be called off, while other activists began making plans for continued street actions. Amongst the pressures on the protesters and the regime is the fact that international oil prices were beginning to rise, with the fear that even in the U.S. individual car owners would soon begin to feel the pressure at the pump.

Occupy Nigeria leader and chair of Friends of the Earth International Nnimmo Bassey is calling this ongoing impasse “a smoldering rage.” The strongly united front of government and business is somewhat uncharacteristic of the sometimes-chaotic Nigerian political scene. Anger over back-room deals, and scandalous amounts of wealth in a country with pockets of extreme poverty, has set up a situation which is unstable at best. Writing for Pan-African Pambazuka News, researcher Uche Igwe calls the corrupt politicians and businessmen “Nigeria’s vampire elite.” Likening the Nigerian state to “a giant on a keg of gunpowder,” Igwe suggests that a complete breakdown of government and infrastructure is possible. It is noteworthy that in this same three-week period since the beginning of widespread mobilizations, headlines across the country have been screaming stories of the multi-million dollar shenanigans of Nigeria’s own Minister of Justice (who also serves as the country’s attorney general) Mohammed Bello Adoke, whose recently-discovered international bank holdings far exceed any legally earned income.

Of course some prominent Nigerians have quickly spoken up in strong support of the Occupy and labor movements. Nigeria’s foremost novelist (and author of the most widely read book of modern African literature) Chinua Acebe wasted no time in publicly encouraging the actions, stating that it is the duty of every artist to “side with the people against the Emperor that oppresses.” An ardent and consistent supporter of nonviolent direct action, Acebe has suggested that the challenge now is uniting the culturally diverse 150 million-strong population. And in spite of fears and rumors about what might take place following the price “compromise,” reports suggest that millions of people have thus far taken part in some form of Occupy demonstration.

As of January 19, Occupy Nigeria activities resumed in earnest, with a major march to the Lagos state house of assembly. Rallying at the site where mass protests last week were met with the aggressive use of tear gas, Saharareporters.com reported that no such attacks were unleashed on this week’s actions—which combined a call for a lowering of the fuel rate to 2011 rates with a demand that the military send its soldiers “back to their barracks.” An important feature of the Occupy protests which has also gained recent momentum is the international character of the movement, bringing together Nigerians living outside of the country in numerous solidarity actions. “What we are seeing now is different from past movements,” noted O. Rotimi, New York-based educator and daughter of famed Nigerian playwright and dramatist Ola Rotimi. “It is a world-wide effort bringing together voices of the Nigerian community internationally. It is time that we recognize ourselves as part of the struggle.”

The future of Occupy Nigeria and the mass movement against neocolonial conquest is far from certain. Whether the loose network which has brought people together since the first days of 2012 will coalesce into a force capable of continuing strategic initiatives is an open question. The tactical nature of civilian resistance is based on more than just short-term reaction to the headlines; in addition to a long history of peaceful protest, trainings in nonviolence have marked the last decade of organization-building in Nigeria—including the convening of the 2007 Global Conference on Nonviolence and Peace brought together by civil rights icon and close King associate Bernard Lafayette in conjunction with the prominent Foundation for Ethical Harmony in Nigeria.

One suspects, though, that the deepest inspiration for the uprising stems from the events of the poorly-worded “Arab Spring” (wrongly named both because of its limiting seasonal designation as well as its inaccurate geographic scope, having always included mass actions throughout the African continent). After a year of many advances as well as defeats in North Africa, Egyptian academic Samah Selim noted that the mutual support being forged across borders and ideological lines was “the kind of solidarity which is the life-blood of any revolution.” Speaking last week at a War Resisters League-sponsored event examining the lethal use of tear gas as a global means of general repression through police violence, Selim passionately noted the radical nature of people coming together in public, open spaces. This nonviolent solidarity so graphically exhibited throughout Nigeria bears witness to the revolutionary steadfastness Selim reported upon. “They are the ones who use the violence,” she stated, “and we are the ones who stand our ground.”

Denja Yaqub, a leader of the Nigerian National Labor Congress and supporter of Occupy Nigeria, noted that the solidarity shown in the mass strikes and protests was successful and the beginning of a “collective ability to unite against [a] very tiny clique.” Yaqub, whose blog banner quotes Martin Luther King’s query “What are YOU doing for others?” added that the suspension of the strike should be seen merely as an interim phase designed to save lives and to save organizations from being destroyed.

No revolutionary can precisely determine or accurately predict which last straw will be the one to break the back of any given despot. Many differing and sometimes divergent tactics and strategies and organizational forms may ultimately have to converge before effective actions build into movements which successfully challenge power. The martyrs and the mobilizers all play a role in creating lasting change. The Nigerian movement, which has had more than its share of both, is now poised for something greater than merely minor reforms. In the words of Denja Yaqub, “the revolution is just around the corner… It’s a matter of time, and the time is getting closer.”

• Thousands of Zimbabwean civil servants conducted a one-day strike Thursday to protest low wages.

• Some 40,000 people were out on the streets on Thursday in various provinces across Turkey to commemorate Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, who was shot dead outside his newspaper’s office in Şişli on Jan. 19, 2007.

• Air traffic controllers in Cyprus walked off the job for four hours on Wednesday to protest a two-year government worker wage freeze and other deficit-reduction measures.

• Inmates in 13 Kyrgyz jails started a mass hunger strike on Wednesday to support inmates in detention center No. 1 in Bishkek, where security troops violently quelled a prisoner riot on January 16.

• On Tuesday, about 6,000 workers began an indefinite strike for higher wages at a $5.25 billion project to widen the Panama Canal to accommodate larger ships.

• Dozens of orphans in Jordan on Tuesday staged a sit-in in front of the Royal Court in downtown Amman demanding better services.

• A new anti-austerity 24-hour strike and protest hit Athens on Tuesday, as auditors of international creditors returned to Greece for talks on the release of a second aid package.

• Women employees at the Palestinian Women’s Affairs Ministry began a “hunger strike till death” on Tuesday to protest against corruption and harassment.

• The teaching fraternity in Ranchi, India carried out a sit-in rally on Tuesday, to protest Maoist atrocities against them.

• Cairo and Alexandria witnessed a fresh wave of strikes and protests on Sunday, blocking roads and causing disruption to the work of the Ministry of Transport.

• On Monday, a week-long nationwide strike in Nigeria ended, after Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan announced in a televised address that fuel will be reduced in price.

• Kuwaiti riot police on Saturday used tear gas and batons to disperse hundreds of stateless demonstrators for the second day in a row and arrested dozens.

• About 4,000 Chinese workers protested over compensation and job security at a Sanyo plant in southern Shenzhen over the weekend in the latest outbreak of labor unrest in China’s manufacturing hub.

• In Oman, thousands of expatriate laborers working for one of the Muscat International Airport projects who have been on strike since Thursday protested in front of their company premises in Azaiba on Sunday. The government’s decision to ban the export of Omani fish to the UAE was “revoked” after over 400 fishermen held a sit-in at Khasab demanding the reversal of the decision on Saturday.

• Activists from a local peace group blocked entry to the main gate at the Navy’s West coast Trident nuclear submarine base Saturday for nearly a half hour in an act of civil resistance to nuclear weapons.

• Police detained a liberal opposition-party leader and another activist Saturday at a rally protesting alleged vote fraud in Russia’s parliamentary election.

• In Pennsylvania, nearly 300 students from two Chester high schools walked out of classes Friday, demanding an end to the financial crisis jeopardizing their school year.

• After five days of a sit-in protest, workers at a lingerie store in Ireland have won their battle for back pay.

• A flash mob of youngsters performed at the crowded Model Town market on Friday afternoon in Delhi as a way of celebrating Lohri with a message against corruption.

• Dozens of cars manned by Palestinians from the West Bank tried to leave Jericho on Tuesday morning in a non-violent protest action to protest and challenge the system of Israeli-only roads throughout the West Bank, but were stopped by Israeli forces, who blocked the four lanes entering and exiting the Palestinian city.

• On Monday, survivors of the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy staged a protest at a park as part of the international campaign to demand that the Organizing Committee of the London Games set to begin from July 27, cancel the sponsorship by Dow Chemicals.

• Workers at consumer goods giant Unilever staged a noisy protest outside the firm’s London offices in a dispute over pensions which is set to escalate into a series of strikes starting next Tuesday.

• More than 9,000 lawyers boycotted court proceedings in Pakistan’s major cities on Tuesday in protest of a senior attorney’s slaying outside his home in Lahore.

• Workers at a Freeport McMoran mine in Indonesia on Tuesday halted their gradual return to work one day after gunmen shot two contractors dead on the road to the Grasberg mine.

• As many as 231 Air India flight attendants refused to work on Tuesday, which delayed four international flights, to protest non-payment of salaries and sustenance allowance since August.

• A national strike paralyzed much of Nigeria on Monday, with more than 10,000 demonstrators swarming its commercial capital to protest soaring fuel prices and decades of government corruption in the oil-rich country.

• Tensions flared at the American Licorice factory Monday as protesters associated with the Occupy Oakland movement joined the month-old factory workers’ strike, blocking entrances and turning away delivery trucks.

• Over five hundred people in the French city of Clermont-Ferrand attended the silent march on Saturday, to show their support for Wissam El-Yamini, a thirty years old man who went into coma following his violent arrest on New Year’s Eve.

• Tens of thousands demonstrating in Yemen’s capital Sanaa on Friday chanted “freedom to the detainees,” a slogan chosen by protest organizers for demonstrations in 18 cities across the impoverished nation.

• Around ten thousand people blocked railways and the Aswan-Cairo highway in the Upper Egyptian City of Nagaa-Hammadi, Qena, late on Friday, to protest the results of the ongoing parliamentary elections in their constituency.

• More than 20 Omanis continue their prison hunger strike, which began in mid-December, in protest at what they say are unfair sentences for taking part in demonstrations last year.

• In Turkey, police dispersed scores of anti-NATO activists in the southern city of Adana on Friday as they were setting up tents to stage a three-day hunger strike to show their opposition to the NATO missile system that will be established in the eastern province of Malatya.

• On Friday, thousands of shopkeepers in the Indian portion of Kashmir went on a daylong general strike to protest the killing of a student and frequent power cuts.

• A group of parents whose children attend Chicago Public Schools slated for “turnarounds,” closures or other adjustments protested the plan with a sit-in at City Hall Thursday, where they vowed to stay until Mayor Rahm Emanuel granted them a meeting to discuss alternatives.

• Dozens of street dance enthusiasts in Hangzhou, the capital of east China’s Zhejiang Province, participated in a flash mob activity advocating environmental protection last Tuesday.

• Several hundred anti-Wall Street protesters marched in a “human float” behind the 123rd Tournament of Roses parade on Monday, unfurling a 250-foot banner of the constitution and also displayed an approximately 70-foot octopus made of recycled plastic grocery bags.

• More than 950 relatives of inmates are refusing to leave a Venezuelan prison in a protest to demand faster trial for inmates.

• Troops in Indian-controlled Kashmir have opened fire on hundreds of villagers who were protesting against frequent power cuts, killing one person and injuring two others.

• Thousands of Indiana workers rallied outside, and inside, their state capitol on Wednesday to speak out against Governor Mitch Daniels‘ renewed effort to force through so-called “right to work” legislation designed to undermine labor unions and workers’ rights protected by collective bargaining.

• Skipping New Year Eve celebration parties, hundreds of people in Guy Fawkes masks gathered in downtown Kuala Lumpur last weekend in a peaceful protest to demand greater democratic freedom in Malaysia.

• Indonesians have dropped thousands of old flip-flops and other footwear at police stations and a child protection group to protest the heavy-handed treatment of a 15-year-old boy accused of stealing a policeman’s sandals in the northern state of Central Sulawesi.

• About 2,000 Peruvians marched in the northern city of Cajamarca on Monday, resuming protests that started in November against plans to develop a gold mine that would harm their water supplies.

• Thousands of people in Bangladesh’s northwest gathered over the new year period to demand government action to save a dying river which they said is vital to their livelihoods.

• A group of Nigerian protesters marched in the Niger Delta on Saturday calling on Royal Dutch Shell to do more to clean up last month’s massive oil spill.

• The mayor of a remote Armenian village joined on Thursday more than 100 environmental activists in a protest against a German-owned company’s plans to expand open-pit mining in the southeastern Syunik region.

The Occupy movement is busy. Far from being dormant for the winter, occupiers are finding themselves with all sorts of new actions, challenges and plans. Though most of the 24-hour encampments have ended, the movement is beginning to focus much more on actions directed toward concrete demands. Last night I attended Occupy Wall Street’s Spokes Council—now finally active after weeks of turmoil—and caught the above video of documentarian Michael Moore’s unplanned speech. In it, he reminded the 100 or so people present that the fight ahead is a long one, and that they’re only just getting started. Here’s a glimpse at how the fight will be unfolding in the coming months:

• On New Year’s Day, President Obama signed into law the latest National Defense Authorization Act, which includes new powers for detaining US citizens and further entrenches the prison at Guantanamo Bay in American policy. Occupiers, some of whom see the new powers as likely to be directed at them, mounted a roving protest in New York on January 3. NDAA will also be a focus of the Occupy Congress action in Washington on January 17, which has reportedly just secured permission from the Park Police to hold a protest.

• The day after Occupy Wall Street’s General Assembly passed a Resolution to End Corporate Personhood by consensus, the New York City Council approved its own resolution against corporate personhood on January 4. This comes after similar resolutions in several cities, including Los Angeles, as well as Montana’s vow to uphold a ban on corporate campaign contributions, despite the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. Corporate personhood is the focus of Occupy the Courts, a nationwide day of action on January 20, the eve of the second anniversary of Citizens United, spearheaded by the preexisting coalition Move to Amend.
• A number of events are planned around Martin Luther King Day, including a worldwide “candlelight vigil for unity” on January 15, “Occupy the Dream” protests at all 13 Federal Reserve sites around the country on January 16, and Occupy 4 Jobs actions on January 14 and 16—which purport to fulfill King’s hope just before his death to mount a mass action against unemployment. Posters about Occupy 4 Jobs are among the first Occupy posters I’ve seen in my predominately African-American neighborhood, suggesting that the movement is enlarging its demographic reach. Then, for the anniversary of King’s death on April 4, Occupy the Dream is planning for big mobilization in Washington.
• Speaking of which. Occupy Washington DC, the occupation at Freedom Plaza that began on October 6, has just announced plans for its own “Phase II,” which includes several new organizing spaces, an Occupy Media project, a “co-operative sub-economy” fundraising program, and NOW DC, a renewed national occupation in Washington starting on April 1.
• Chicago will see action in the spring, too, with protests being planned for the G8 and NATO summits May 19–21 by antiwar groups like United for Peace & Justice and UNAC. Occupy Chicago has called for a subsequent Occupy Spring mobilization on April 7.
• On May 1, there’s a call for Occupy May Day—a worldwide general strike. Thousands have already signed up on Facebook.

The defining challenge that the movement in the US will face in 2012 will almost certainly be the presidential election. With billions of dollars being poured into directing the whole country’s attention at the candidates nonstop, the Occupy movement has to find a way to make the issues that matter to it take precedence over the personalities and advertisements of presidential hopefuls. Occupiers in Iowa, who called on people to vote “uncommitted” in the caucuses, appear to have had little impact at the polls. (Occupy the New Hampshire Primary is now gearing up with somewhat different tactics.) It is already taken as a given in the movement that there will be massive protests at both Republican and Democratic conventions. But if these are to be constructive, rather than simply chaotic, the movement will need to be able to offer people something more hopeful, more compelling and more tangible than any presidential candidate can promise to deliver.

This is a tall order, but if people can remember that political power begins in themselves, perhaps it’s not as tall as it sounds.

I blame my parents, who never once took me to the mall to visit Santa Claus when I was young. I also never wrote the old man a “wish list.” So here I am, at 37, sitting down to write my very first letter to Santa Claus.

Dear Mr. Claus,

I hope this letter finds you and the missus well. I know you are known by many names—Kris Kringle, old Saint Nicholas, but I will call you by your American commercial name for the purpose of this letter.

I have been very nice this year: kind to neighbors, generous with my time and energy, a compassionate ear in times of difficulty. I have tried not to complain or gripe or whine too much, even though there is much in the world to be grumpy about. I did not participate in as many “Occupy” events as I should have, but New Year’s Resolution time is almost upon us, and trust me when I tell you that will be on that list.

So, with that preamble, allow me to give you the list of things I want for Christmas this year.

Of course, there is very little that I need—other than very warm winter outfit that will not be too bulky or down-fashion (I am going to spend the first two weeks of January outside demanding that President Obama shut down Guantanamo, close Bagram, end torture and ensure accountability for the architects of this travesty).

So, put that at the top of my list, please. Warm, not bulky, winter coat. This Patagonia one is really nice, but it is made in China. Never mind about that. I’ll just layer up.

Other than that… hmm. I thought long and hard about how to make this a real Christmas wish list and not just a list of all the ills in the world that I want changed.

Food for hungry children. I know that you have an enviable distribution network, so in addition to toys and tchotchkes, could you also hit up all the hungry kids with nourishing food. There are about 16 million “food insecure” kids in this country, so it will take some effort.

Good places for all the Occupy folks to be for the winter. A lot of people dropped everything and “came home” to Occupy Wall Street, Hartford, San Diego and countless other upspringings around the country. They found community, meaning, a platform for their outrage and alienation—and the daily necessities in those anarchic and somewhat miraculous spaces. Now, with spots like Zuccotti Park closed to Occupiers around the country, many of those friends are looking for a place to go. In Providence, Occupiers put it to the city. We’ll leave the park if you open a day shelter for the homeless.

Peace. It’s not too hard, right? I mean, you can fly through the air behind eight tiny reindeer. That stretches the bounds of credibility just as much as the belief that humankind can all breathe air and share space without killing each other, right? Well, maybe it is all a stretch. But especially right now, as the killing returns to Iraq with a vengeance, we need a little help in the peace department. Wasn’t President Obama just crowing about the end of war in Iraq? And now, the papers are full of news of a new wave of bombings and a crippling political crisis: 63 dead in Baghdad and more than one hundred wounded on Thursday.

Good work and more time. I am happily unemployed and feel really privileged to spend my time doing things other than making money. But, I know so many people who are out of work or who are really unhappy in their jobs. And beyond being unfulfilled or bored, there are countless people working in dangerous and unhealthy environments—mining, machine shops, fishing vessels, farms—and who are being exploited. And then there is the modern scourge of slavery and human trafficking. I wish for good work that is meaningful and justly remunerated for all people. And while we are on the subject, just how much are you paying those elves of yours?

I could go on and on, there is a lot to wish for better in the world. But, I will conclude my letter by noting that if you are able to deliver all these things to me on Christmas morning, I would be most grateful (and I would not be the only one). My family is making chocolate peanut butter balls and beer to give to friends and family for Christmas, so we’ll leave some out for you.

By the way, I don’t have a chimney, but you should be able to figure it out.

All the best,

Frida Berrigan

The message written on this protester's hands reads: "Our demand is the trial."

• Thousands of Yemenis marched toward the capital on Thursday to demand President Ali Abdullah Saleh face trial for killing protesters during 11 months of demonstrations against him and to denounce a new government that would spare him prosecution.

• Several thousand Eyptian activists gathered in Cairo after Friday prayers today for a mass protest against the ruling military and its handling of a series of clashes between security forces and demonstrators that killed 17 people and drew international criticism.

• In Somalia, residents of Sool’s provincial capital of Las Anod took to the streets and went on strike on Thursday, bringing the city to a standstill, to show solidarity with prisoners staging a hunger strike at the city’s main prison.

• On Thursday, holiday strikes to protest austerity measures paralyzed ground traffic in Belgium.

• Camped outside Hungary’s public broadcaster, a small group of television editors is on hunger strike to protest what they say is widespread news manipulation by the government.

• In Pakistan, more than 2,500 members of seven labor unions from across the country gathered at the Railways Headquarters on Wednesday to stage a sit-in against the government’s ‘inability’ to rescue the Railways.

• In Sudan, dozens of students held a protest assembly at Jackson Square on Tuesday in the heart of Khartoum to show solidarity with the month-long Manasir protest against the the Merowe Hydropower Project.

• A group of asylum seekers who survived last weekend’s boat disaster off the Indonesian island of Java have begun a hunger strike after being moved to a detention centre where as many as 12 people are sharing each cell.

• In Kuwait, police used tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons, and smoke bombs to disperse a large protest on Monday by the country’s stateless people in Taimaa. Around 30 men who entered a hunger strike were arrested.

According to a new study by the Census Bureau, 49.1 million people in the United States are below the poverty line, while another 97.3 million are “low-income” (gauged by a new “supplemental measure” devised by the bureau to provide a more accurate picture of poverty) for a total of 146.4 million, or a whopping 48 percent of the U.S. population.

There has been some back-peddling on these findings from the Census Bureau since the original story was published by the Associated Press, but its explanations—which focus on a lack of clarity about the new supplemental measure—seem to raise more questions than they answer, especially since it has now shied away from defining “low-income.”  (The confusion deepens in light of the fact that its past definition—which one news report says is still operative—was, indeed, anyone making less than 200 percent of the poverty level.)

However this definitional skirmish plays out, it is a safe bet that this somber assessment is more or less accurate.  If this is the case—that nearly half the 99% is poor or low-income—the crisis that has borne down on us for the past four years is deepening.

While the Census Bureau has backed away from typifying what this might mean (“We’re not characterizing what it’s like to be below 200 percent of the poverty line.  We don’t have any information to characterize what that would be like, ” Kathleen Short, the bureau economist who directed the report in question, told the press) millions know exactly what it signifies in light of the job losses, foreclosures, and spiraling cost of health care they have suffered.

It is unconscionable that nearly 50 million people in this country are poor and that tens of millions more are doing just a bit better.  “Scraping by” seems more than an apt description.

Statistics like these, dramatizing the economic struggle for survival millions are facing at this moment, can grab our attention. (They can be as riveting as the fact that 1 of 3 people in the US doesn’t have health insurance and nearly 1 of 3 people in the US will be arrested by age 23.)  But they also risk becoming the new normal—the sense that the financial catastrophe has kicked the struts out from under the economy and therefore we have to settle for scraps as well as for scraping by.

We cannot settle for this disparity.  This historical moment—sharpened by the Occupy movement and the renewed awakening for economic justice and equality—invites each of us to respond with powerful nonviolent action and solidarity to build a world where poverty and depressed wages are rightly perceived as human rights violations.

Transforming rampant poverty will depend less on charity and more on structural change and job creation. Law professor and long-time defender of human rights, Bill Quigley, published a book a few years ago whose title says it all: Ending Poverty As We Know It: Guaranteeing A Right to A Job At A Living Wage.  

Here’s a clear example of what Bill is talking about.

DePaul University in Chicago, where I teach part-time, had a problem for years.  Its food service workers, who put food on the table at the largest Catholic university in the nation, barely were able to put food on the table for their families at home.  They were making as little as $9.25 an hour with no health benefits.

From September 2009 through October 2010, DePaul students joined the workers, members of UNITE HERE Local 1, in carrying out a powerful, creative, and nonviolent campaign for change.  They alerted, educated, and mobilize the larger university community of students and faculty through grassroots organizing to support this vibrant Living Wage campaign.  They organized a campus-wide petition, a student-worker concert and rally, and engaged the school board of trustees.

After thirteen months of administration resistance, the university finally shifted its position and, siding with the workers, worked with its contractor Chartwells to meet the demands of the Living Wage campaign.  Together they achieved:

• Minimum wages of between $11.80 and $14.30 per hour (depending on job classification) for presently employed workers by the end of the contract;
• Single-coverage health plan for 80 full-time workers by the end of the contract, and only $85 per month for full family coverage; and
• Detailed and concrete language in the contract that protects immigrants from employer abuse.

After this agreement was reached, the workers and students celebrated with a rally and barbecue—see a powerful video here.

Some of my students were part of this campaign, as well as a similar effort at Loyola University Chicago.  They were imaginative, relentlessly persistent, and committed to the principles and tactics of liberating nonviolence.  They discovered that, in the face of the implacable resistance of the status quo, change is possible.  Like them, each of us can be part of local, national and international movements for economic justice.

More than ever, as the struggle for economic equality and financial security heats up in our communities and around the world, all we need to do is to look around—and join in.