Cynthia Cockburn
Every one of us, proclaims Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 'has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion'.
However, there are many ifs-and-buts standing between the rights codified in the world's several international instruments and the respectful treatment of actual conscientious objectors (COs) to military service in any given country today. Őzgűr Heval Çinar, lawyer and activist in support of CO rights, has produced a valuable analysis of…
A small group of Cypriot women, calling themselves “Hands Across the Divide”, has started actively campaigning for peace in Cyprus. They have to communicate by email, because face to face meetings between people living in north and south Cyprus are so difficult to achieve.
Since 1974, the island of Cyprus has been divided by a barbed-wire fence, which runs from coast to coast and through the heart of the principal city of Nicosia. This UN partition line was set up during a period of…
War and militarism are highly gendered phenomena—they are difficult if not impossible to understand without reference to gender.
In the first place, national leaders who want to shape our ideas so that we favour fighting a war often address us in gendered terms. They appeal to the nation's manhood to stiffen its spine, recall its heroic past and protect its women-and-children. They represent warriors as manly; draft resisters as wimps and sissies. The technologies of war fighting…
Cyprus isn't in the headlines much these days but, 26 years on from the nationalist-inspired fighting that resulted in its partition, it remains a sharply divided country. The UN-guarded Green Line is all but impenetrable, except by tourists and other internationals.
South of the Line is the actual Republic of Cyprus, now monoculturally Greek. North of the Line is an unrecognised entity known as the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus, remote-controlled from Ankara.
Heavy…
