Fighting Racism on the World Stage: Emperor Hailee Selassie by Onjoli Palmer Hailee Selassie, the last crowned Ethiopian emperor whose unrelenting dedication to reform, resistance to fascist powers, and allegiance to African unity forged the path for him to be seen as a renowned world leader. Although for some, Selassie is considered a character with colorful notoriety due to his partisanship for absolute monarchy in which he and only he was considered the main governmental power 1 . Though he was a monarch, he exercised the tools of democracy to protect the interests of his country on the world stage. On two occasions, nearly thirty years apart, he presented impassioned speeches at both the League of Nations and the UN attempting to appeal to the common humanity between Ethiopians and greater society. During both addresses, he argued for Ethiopia's right to exercise sovereign equality against invasive European powers and racial discrimination towards African nation...
by Marisa De La Villa Before being known as the architect of modern nonviolent resistance, Gene Sharp spent decades working in relative obscurity, developing a theory of power that challenged the very foundation of how governments are able to maintain control. 1 Unlike earlier thinkers who framed nonviolence as a moral or religious principle, Sharp approached it as a strategy– one that could be studied, refined, and applied across different political contexts. 2 Working through historical case studies and political analysis, he argued that power is not inherently possessed by rulers, rather, it depends on the obedience and cooperation of ordinary people. 3 This idea became the foundation for his most influential work: a systematic breakdown of nonviolent action into 198 different methods. These ranged from protests and symbolic acts to economic boycotts and institutional noncooperation. 4 Like a tactical manual, the list transformed resistance into something concrete and repeatable ...