Orders in Decay

Producer: Olivia Stanek. On 18th November 2019, in the city of Valparaíso, the women of Chile used their voices and dancing bodies to speak the truth of their fate. The Chilean anti-rape anthem, ‘Un Violador En Tu Camino’/ ‘A Rapist in Your Path’, sought to speak for the women whose voices have been silenced by violence. In this podcast, Olivia Stanek explores how a variety of factors such as deeply-embedded cultural values, low conviction rates for femicide, female sexual abuse, and presidential responses have contributed to the creation of the performance by Chilean theatre collective, Lastesis. These elements connected to ignite the anthem’s spread across all continents and for women to come to a collective effort to fight against this brutality.

Content warning: descriptions of graphic violence

Producer: Payal Shah. In 2012 a horrific gang rape in Delhi lead silenced women all over the country to raise their voices against cultural oppression and gender-based violence. Massive protests spread across the country, demanding justice, protections against sexual violence and igniting a new wave of feminism in India. The protests challenged the cultural stigmatisation of rape, perceptions of male dominance and patriarchal social power structures. The podcast explores the effects of these protests on Indian feminism.

Producer: Ala Alysik. The Black Protests took to the streets of Poland in October 2016, challenging a new legislative initiative to ‘Stop Abortion’. The podcast explores the movement, unraveling the 'style' of the strike by decoding its symbols. Coat hangers and umbrellas were the material culture of the strike. But by changing registers, these objects became symbols and icons of injustice and activism.

Producer: Saskia Kaltenbrunner. The River Cauca in Colombia has become a graveyard. Until recently, the bodies of unnamed victims of the armed conflict were thrown in the river. Now, Colombia is trying to recover from the violence of the last decades. New economic projects are being set up, but not everyone is benefitting from them. This podcast looks at the significance of bodies and memory, the particular role of the River Cauca, and the efforts of Ríos Vivos to reclaim it.

Producer: Laman Ahmed. One doesn't have to look very far to understand the complexities that disorders encapsulate; simply point to one moment of unrest and a map opens up that lays bear the reasons and intersecting factors that lead up to its eruption and to its end. 'Anatomy of a Coup' seeks to navigate this map, dissect its twists and turns and, understand why any of these events could happened - all in the uniquely complicated situation of the 1977 protests in Pakistan.

Producer: Sika Agopome. In an era of virulent and sensational news, stories surrounding the plight of white South African farmers and how their land is being forcibly taken from them – through the process of land expropriation without compensation – have been emerging. Some argue that these land grabs, enacted by the government, aim to drive South Africa’s white population out of the country. This podcast seeks to address the question of land reform in South Africa, examining expropriation without compensation. In this it hopes to explain what South Africa’s land reform is one of the favorite talking points of far-right groups.

Producer: Marina Pinedo Ocaña. A giant Miss America puppet, a trash can, a very peculiar sheep and around 400 women were enough to make history on September 7, 1968. On this day, theatre and rebellion converged to bring forth one of the most memorable protests of American feminism. This podcast explores, with the help of three excellent professors, the events that occurred during the famous Miss America pageant protest. We analyse the singular techniques used in the protest and unveil the hidden symbolisms behind them. We explain its origins as well as its impact, and explore some of the controversies around it, triggered primarily, as we’ll see, by a very unsympathetic press.

Producer: Tehran Saleh Azzam. Lebanon today is a haunted house: it stands, haunted by the ghosts of a civil war it has yet to recover from and a constitution that discriminates against its own people based on their religious sect. In this podcast, we go on a journey from the Holiday Inn in Beirut, to the little village of Kfarnabrakh, in an attempt to unravel the causes of the war and exorcise the demons that haunt the streets of Lebanon today. The question I ask is ‘Where do we go from here?’ I don’t have a great answer, but I will say one thing: Beware the chameleon.

Producer: Anoshamisa Gonye. In January 2019, Zimbabwe's busiest cities were rocked by turbulent demonstrations and clashes between protestors and police. The images and messages of resistance in the streets were projected to the world through the Internet and social media—until the ZANU–PF Government initiated a full Internet shutdown. Zimbabwe is not alone in this experience; Internet shutdowns are a phenomenon on the rise around the world. This investigation of Zimbabwe’s shutdown explores classic theories of the crowd and delves into the concept of resonance to answer the central question: why do Governments shut down the Internet when faced with civil unrest?

In January 2019, Zimbabwe’s busiest cities were rocked by turbulent demonstrations and clashes between protestors and police. The images and messages of resistance in the streets were projected to the world through the Internet and social media—until the ZANU–PF Government initiated a full Internet shutdown. Zimbabwe is not alone in this experience; Internet shutdowns are a phenomenon on the rise around the world. This investigation of Zimbabwe’s shutdown explores classic theories of the crowd and delves into the concept of resonance to answer the central question: why do Governments shut down the Internet when faced with civil unrest?

Special thanks to:

Dr Anne Alexander, Co-ordinator, Cambridge Digital Humanities Network, University of Cambridge

Dr Illan Wall, Reader, School of Law, University of Warwick

Other Resources

Access Now, ‘Internet Shutdowns in Context’ last accessed 11 April 2019

Access Now, ‘#KeepItOn: Joint letter on keeping the internet open and secure in Zimbabwe’ last accessed 11 April 2019

Gordillo G, ‘Resonance and the Egyptian Revolution’ last accessed 11 April 2019

Gordillo G, ‘The Speed of Revolutionary Resistance‘ last accessed 11 April 2019

Magaisa A, ‘Zimbabwe – Silence of the Birds‘ last accessed 11 April 2019

Mawarire E, ‘THE NATIONAL STAY AWAY IS ON WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT’ last accessed 11 April 2019

Media Institute for Southern Africa, ‘High Court sets aside internet shut down directives’ last accessed 11 April 2019

Media Institute for Southern Africa, ‘Urgent Chamber Application’

Runyanga N, ‘The Case for Internet Shutdown‘ last accessed 11 April 2019

Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, ‘Monitoring Report in the Aftermath of the 14 January to 16 January 2019 “Stay Away” and Subsequent Disturbances’ last accessed 11 April 2019

‘150 percent price rise fails to fill Zimbabwe’s fuel pumps’ last accessed 11 April 2019

‘Fury as Zimbabwe doubles fuel prices’ last accessed 11 April 2019

‘Zimbabwe currency crisis: No cash, no bread, no KFC’ last accessed 11 April 2019

‘Zimbabwe election: Mnangagwa vows ‘brighter tomorrow’ last accessed 11 April 2019

‘Zimbabwe high court orders government to restore full internet’ last accessed 11 April 2019

‘Zimbabwe police fire live rounds during general strike protests’ last accessed 11 April 2019

‘Zimbabwe ‘state agents’ tried to cover up post-election violence, say doctors’ last accessed 11 April 2019

‘Zimbabwe warns brutal crackdown is ‘foretaste of things to come‘’ last accessed 11 April 2019

Music

Swiftwind by Lee Rosevere (Attribution-NonCommercial)

Thoughtful by Lee Rosevere (Attribution)

Past Catching Up, by Lee Rosevere (Attribution-NonCommercial)

Minus by Nctrnm (Attribution)

Cloudloop by Lee Rosevere, (Attribution)

Puzzle Pieces by Lee Rosevere (Attribution)

Fibonacci by Jahzzar (Attribution-ShareAlike)

Sound Effects

Power of the people from listentostatic (Attribution)

TrumpProtest from mloveless89 (Public domain)

Protest chant from fredzed (Public domain)

‘A Caravan of Protesters walking from Mabvuku Tafara towards Town.

14/1/2019 7am’ (used with permission)

Vibration from jazbavac (Public domain)

Texting from squashy555 (Public domain)

Texting from KevalP420 (Public domain)

Protest02 from karymronda (Public domain)

Malaysia’s first national election of 1969 was a momentous one, ending with the greatest record of political violence and death in its history. 60 years later, the events transpiring May 13 still haunt its citizens and the memory of which has been used to justify radical legal, economical and socio-political changes. This podcast digs deep into the sticky entanglement of race, identity and politics that have become pillars and banes of Malaysia’s history and contemporary culture.