Enduring Issues Essay Assignment - End of Year

…Bordeaux’s workers also greeted the start of the [French] Revolution with a mixture of enthusiasm for its promise and a fear of a royal reaction. Equally important, they worried about a return of bread shortages, which had periodically plagued the city over the course of the eighteenth century. These fears crystallized [formed] around the medieval royal fortress of Chateau Trompette, called the “Bastille of Bordeaux.” Built in 1453 and significantly enlarged after the Fronde,* Chateau Trompette served as a massive—and for some—unwelcome symbol of royal power. It also proved to be a tempting target for those Bordeaux workers afraid of a royal insurrection [rebellion] and anxious about the supply of bread. By August 1789, rumors circulated that royal troops garrisoned at Trompette were mining [setting traps to] the approach to the fortress and waiting for orders from the king to reduce the city to rubble. Other rumors warned of royalist sympathizers ready to take control of the fortress and bring the Revolution to an abrupt halt. In response, the city’s workers hatched a plan to seize the fortress, secure its cache of weapons, and liberate the grain and flour that was rumored to be stockpiled inside.

On 20 February 1913 The Times reported: ‘An attempt was made yesterday morning to blow up a house which is being built for Mr Lloyd George [Chancellor of the Exchequer*] near Walton Heath Golf Links’. One device had exploded, causing about £500 worth of damage, while another had failed to ignite.

With discarded hairpins, hairpins and the sound of a motor car as their only clues, it was fortunate the police soon had a confession. For that evening, at a meeting held in Cory Hall Cardiff, Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst, one of the leaders of the militant suffragette society, the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), declared ‘we have blown up the Chancellor of Exchequer’s house’ and stated that ‘for all that has been done in the past I accept responsibility. I have advised, I have incited, I have conspired’….

In the early stages of the campaign, militants had confined their attacks to government property, but from 1911 onwards had begun to attack private property. At first this had been confined to smashing shop windows and setting fire to letter boxes [mailboxes] but, as frustration with the government’s refusal to concede votes for women mounted, these attacks became increasingly violent and spectacular. In 1913 the militants began a concerted [coordinated] arson campaign, which included setting fire to residential houses, golf courses, schools and even churches. The bombing of David Lloyd George’s house was part of this campaign….

…It was April 1977, a year since the military had launched a fierce wave of repression against left-wing activists and people accused of collaborating with them.

Ms de Bonafini’s* first son had been arrested two months earlier by the security forces.

“We went to the square that Thursday with the intention of handing over a letter to (military ruler Jorge) Videla.

“I remember there was a small group of mothers, some were terrified. Many of us came from small towns outside the city. Some, like me, hadn’t even finished primary school. Others couldn’t even read or write,” she says.

Their inquiries were met with silence. Officials would refuse to meet them or tell them where their children were.

At the time, Ms Almeida says, the concept of “the disappeared” was unknown.

“We thought our sons had been imprisoned and kept in solitary confinement, but were surely alive.”

That Thursday, 30 April 1977, a small group of mothers had assembled on the square by mid-afternoon.

The authorities had forbidden public gatherings of more than three people, so the police immediately approached them to demand they clear the place.

“But, by absolute chance, in response we started grabbing each other in pairs, arm to arm, and started walking in circles around the square. There was nothing illegal about that,” says Ms de Bonafini, now 83.

It was the first act of a movement that would slowly raise international awareness of one of the most brutal episodes of state-sponsored repression in South America….

As part of a series of conversations marking 1979 as a seminal [important] year in the Muslim world, Steve Inskeep talks to Iranian-born journalist Kasra Naji about the Islamic Revolution. Naji was a student in Iran at the time and has been in and out of the country since then. He is a special correspondent for BBC Persian television in London. He is also the author of Ahmadinejad: The Secret History of Iran’s Radical Leader….

STEVE INSKEEP: The ouster of Iran’s ruler and the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini created the Islamic government that rules Iran to this day, and that now faces its own street protests. BBC journalist Kasra Naji was a young demonstrator then.

Give me an idea. What was it like to be an Iranian on the street of Tehran in early 1979?

Mr. KASRA NAJI (BBC Journalist): It was most exciting. We were university students in those days in 1979. The dominant population of universities was leaning towards the left, if you remember. And those days, a revolution was something we were all looking for, anyway. And what happened in Iran was exactly what we were looking for. We wanted democracy, and the revolution was promising that.

INSKEEP: And there are images of what looked like millions of people on the streets of Tehran as the shah of Iran, the ruler of that time, abdicated and left the country.

MR. NAJI: Yes. It was a most popular revolution, you can imagine, throughout Iran, not just the capital Tehran. Even in remote villages, people were up in arms against the shah and were demonstrating. I was part of some of these demonstrations when I was in Tehran. These demonstrations, mostly in and around parts of the capital Tehran, mostly, and invariably confronted the police and the soldiers who were in charge of maintaining the security, and they used to shoot in the air and occasionally, very occasionally, into the crowds. They used to fire tear gas at us. We used to run away and sort of regroup down the street. And this is how it went. We used to shout these slogans: Down with the shah. And that was the unifying slogan, if you like….