Books

Cecilia Moretti

It isn't easy to think about the kind of power we want, especially when we believe in a freedom that is opposed to any kind of authoritarianism. It becomes even more difficult because, over the centuries of human history, the word power itself has been contaminated with notions of authority and domination.

Vesna Terselic

Buzz words. You catch them here and there--in peace, environmental or women's initiatives and United Nations documents. They change from season to season, from year to year. "Empowerment" has appeared in the language of my colleagues who are working on social change as an attempt to explain to ourselves and to others what we are actually doing.

This report was commissioned by QUNO, the Quaker United Nations Office in Geneva, and has been published by CONCODOC in London.

Testimonies of Conscience Sent From the Soviet Union to The War Resisters' International 1923 - 1929,

Toronto 1997. Edited by Peter Brock, Professor Emeritus of History in the University of Toronto; 42 pp., £3 (including postage). Available from the WRI office.

The widespread movement of conscientious objection during the first twelve years of Soviet rule remains a topic almost unexplored by scholars. Yet it is one of the most important themes in the history of pacifism before the nuclear age. Until near the end of the Communist era the few writers who broached the subject, e.g.. the hard party-liner F.M. Putintsev or the erudite sociologist of religion A.l. Klibanov, did so in an extremely tendentious fashion. With the collapse of Communism, the situation of course changed.

Our Human Rights: A Manual for Women's Human Rights Education is the first comprehensive training manual that addresses many aspects of women's human rights in an ´interactive format' which is suitable for many audiences, from school teachers, to advocates for women's rights, to general human rights groups.

On the Move

The international feminist network Isis-WICCE (Women's International Cross-Cultural Exchange) has moved from its office in Switzerland to Kampala, Uganda. The group's next exchange program between feminist action organizations, scheduled for early 1996, will focus on "Freeing Ourselves from Violence: Mechanisms for Change". The program will look how specific mechanisms for monitoring and ensuring accountability for women's human rights can be developed. Applications are due June 1, 1995.

Learning True Love: How I Learned and Practiced Social Change in Vietnam by Chan Khong, 258 pages, 1993, US $16 paperback. Parallax Press, P.O. Box 7355, Berkeley, CA 94707, USA.

reviewed by Shelley Anderson

"Death Without Weeping: Daily Life in Northeast Brazil" is the theme of the April 1994 The New Internationalist. Based on the book Death Without Weeping (600 pages, 1992, University of California Press) by anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes, the lives of slum women and their children in Brazil's poverty-stricken Northeast are shocking and moving by turns. The exploitation, by sugar cane plantations, is endless and gives rise both to desperation and resistance.

Hear My Testimony by María Teresa Tula (1994, 224 pages, $14).

Published in 1991 by War Resisters' International and the Myrtle Solomon Memorial Fund Subcommittee (of the Lansbury House Trust Fund; Charity Reg No 306139)

This book is a memorial to Myrtle Solomon, a committed pacifist who inspired people by her example. It brings together her major writings, into each of which she succeeded in injecting a nugget of significance, of originality, of creative intelligence. Her interviews for oral histories give her a voice and reveal something of her personality even to those who did not know her. The tributes at her death, culled from numerous expressions of appreciation for her as a person and a leader, help explain why this book was seen as a suitable commemoration to a woman who engaged all her formidable energy in the cause of peace. The book primarily reflects Myrtle Solomon's work as chair of the War Resisters' International from 1975 to 1986.

Order a paper copy at WRI's webshop.

Index of individual chapters

Published in 1991 by War Resisters' International and the Myrtle Solomon Memorial Fund Subcommittee (of the Lansbury House Trust Fund; Charity Reg No 306139) c/o War Resisters' International, 55 Dawes Street, London SE17 1EL, Britain.

A grant towards the production of this book was received from the Puckham Trust

ISBN 0 903517 14 0

Edited by Shelley Anderson and Janet Larmore

Production by Howard Clark and Ken Simons

All copyrights are