Although nonviolent struggles continue to be comparatively ignored, several former UNPO members who embraced and practiced nonviolent struggle have succeeded in gaining autonomy, including Abkhazia, Armenia, East Timor, Estonia, Georgia, and Latvia. Other former members, like Aceh, Albanians in Macedonia, Bougainville, and Gagauzia have withdrawn their membership after their nonviolent struggles achieved agreeable settlements with the states that govern them.
If you wish to support peaceful struggle, please consider making a donation by clicking here. If you wish to read about civil rights struggles and issues of autonomy for under-recognized people around the world that I’ve acknowledged on this blog, check out whichever regions interest you: Balochistan, Chechnya, East Turkestan, Little Bangladesh, Ngulu Mapu, Ossetia, Palestine, Papua, Southern Africa’s Bushmen, Tatarstan, Unrecognized Caucasia, Unrecognized Eastern Europe, Unrecognized North Asia, and Unrecognized South Asia.
On a final note, no doubt President Obama will invoke King’s name and say some nice things about him today. Just remember, candidate Obama promised to spend more of our money on the military than any president in history. President Obama merely kept his word, every year since taking office spending over $680 billion on funding two wars, proliferating nuclear weapons and the military’s over $500 billion “base budget.” As MacGruber said, “Oh mamma, that’s a whole lotta wampum.” Meanwhile we spend less than $34 billion annually on foreign economic aid. I have to wonder what the world might look like if those figures were reversed. Don’t just pay lip service to the Reverend, but take a moment to actually consider his words. RIP Dr. King and PEACE!
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Eric Brightwell is an adventurer, writer, rambler, explorer, cartographer, and guerrilla gardener who is always seeking writing, speaking, traveling, and art opportunities — or salaried work. He is not interested in writing advertorials, clickbait, listicles, or other 21st century variations of spam. Brightwell’s written work has appeared in Amoeblog, diaCRITICS, and KCET Departures. His work has been featured by the American Institute of Architects, the Architecture & Design Museum, the Craft & Folk Art Museum, Form Follows Function, Los Angeles County Store, Skid Row Housing Trust, and 1650 Gallery. Brightwell has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Magazine, LAist, Eastsider LA, Boing Boing, Los Angeles, I’m Yours, and on Notebook on Cities and Culture. He has been a guest speaker on KCRW‘s Which Way, LA? and at Emerson College. Art prints of his maps are available from 1650 Gallery and on other products from Cal31. He is currently writing a book about Los Angeles and you can follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
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