JoseManuelBarreto

Research Fellow, Goldsmiths, University of London


United for Global Democracy: A Manifesto

15 October 2011
Occupy Hong Kong 15.10.2011

On 15 Octo­ber 2011, united in our diversity, united for global change, we demand global demo­cracy: global gov­ernance by the people, for the people. Inspired by our sis­ters and broth­ers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain, New York, Palestine-​Israel, Spain and Greece, we too call for a régime change: a global régime change. In the words of ...
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OCTOBER 15TH: UNITED FOR #GLOBALCHANGE

14 October 2011
United for Global Change

On Octo­ber 15th people from all over the world will take to the streets and squares. From Amer­ica to Asia, from Africa to Europe, people are rising up to claim their rights and demand a true demo­cracy. Now it is time for all of us to join in a global non viol­ent protest. The rul­ing powers ...
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In Commemoration October 12, 1492: Manifesto of Decolonial Aesthetics

12 October 2011
by Teresa Diaz Nerio

A trans­mod­ern world has emerged, recon­fig­ur­ing the past 500 years of colo­ni­al­ity and its after­math, mod­ern­ity, post­mod­ern­ity and alter­mod­ern­ity. A remark­able fea­ture of this trans­form­a­tion is the cre­ativ­ity in/​from the Non-​Western world and its polit­ical con­sequences — inde­pend­ent thoughts and deco­lo­nial freedoms in all spheres of life. Deco­lo­ni­al­ity of know­ledge and being, two con­cepts that have been ...
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Mass Political Defiance: A Conversation with Gene Sharp

3 June 2011
Gene Sharp at the Albert Einstein Institution Picture courtesy of Ruaridh Arrow, genesharpfilm.com

Gene Sharp, the most import­ant the­or­ist on non viol­ent struggle, accep­ted to answer vari­ous ques­tions about his work for the blog cos­mo­pol­ita and the prin­ted edi­tion of El Especta­dor (20th of May 2011). In this inter­view Sharp speaks about his the­ory and also about recent polit­ical events, such as the revolt against Mubarak and ...
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War Crimes after the War Ended

1 June 2011
Many ethnic German refugees in the east were herded onto freight trains bound.

The his­tory of war crimes is one of the sites of the polit­ics of memory par excel­lence. The arrange­ments of world polit­ics today still seat on the con­sequences of the Second World War –the per­man­ent mem­bers of the UN Secur­ity Coun­cil being one of the more vis­ible. The legit­im­acy of the con­tem­por­ary world order depends ...
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The Suppression of the Arab Spring in Syria

27 May 2011
Syria

Syria video released by Amnesty International “Images of unarmed civil­ians shot in the head help explain why there have been so many fatal­it­ies. Together with foot­age of sol­diers cel­eb­rat­ing deaths, they doc­u­ment what appears to be a ‘shoot to kill’ policy,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Deputy Dir­ector for the Middle East and North Africa. ...
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What we are reading… I have no enemies: My Final Statement | Liu Xiaobo

1 January 2011
Shizhimin, a victim of torture, which is widely used in more than 300 forced labor camps located all over China.

This text was read at the cere­mony of the Nobel Peace Prize 2010, which was awar­ded to Liu Xiaobo ‘for his long and non-​violent struggle for fun­da­mental human rights in China’ “Twenty years on, the inno­cent souls of June Fourth are yet to rest in peace, and I, who had been drawn into the path ...
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Charter 08

10 December 2010
Tiananmen Square

Charter 08 was writ­ten by China’s Human Rights Defend­ers includ­ing Nobel Peace Prize Win­ner Liu Xiaobo. A hun­dred years have passed since the writ­ing of China’s first con­sti­tu­tion. 2008 also marks the six­tieth anniversary of the pro­mul­ga­tion of the Uni­ver­sal Declar­a­tion of Human Rights, the thir­ti­eth anniversary of the appear­ance of the Demo­cracy Wall ...
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We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families: A Cannibal, Surreal & Subaltern Approach to Human Rights

25 November 2010
Sliced-Censored-Version-by-Inanis

This paper explores – briefly – four ideas: the concept of the ‘turn to emo­tions’, the notion of a can­ni­bal the­ory, legal sur­real­ism and the sub­al­tern per­spect­ive on human rights. How we are to think and feel human rights today? This ques­tion is situ­ated in a spe­cific his­tor­ical con­text, that of our times, which is defined here as the age ...
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Human Rights and the Crisis of Modernity

19 October 2009

‘Truth’ emerges when a vic­tim, from his present cata­strophic pos­i­tion, gains a sud­den insight into the entire past as a series of cata­strophes that led to his cur­rent pre­dic­a­ment. (Wal­ter Benjamin) The hor­rors of the Second World War and, in par­tic­u­lar, the ‘real hell’ of Aus­chwitz’, are usu­ally seen as the back­ground from which the Uni­ver­sal Declar­a­tion ...
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