In October 2023, when the cast of the iconic play Les Misérables performed at the Sondheim Theatre in London, they launched into their famous protest song, ‘Do You Hear the People Sing?’ as a part of their act. But what happened after that was entirely unscripted. The stage was abruptly taken over by activists from the Just Stop Oil movement as their t-shirts and banners proclaimed, while they chanted to the audience to ‘join the rebellion’.
The controversial figure, President Leonid Kuchma, had ignited the public’s fury in 2000 through his infamous ‘Cassette Scandal’, wherein he ordered the murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze, the founder of the online paper, Ukrainska Pravda. Gongadze’s assassination was fundamental in building up the momentum for the Orange Revolution, and would later come back to haunt Kuchma’s chosen ‘successor’, Viktor Yanukovych, as Ukrainians reached a breaking point.
The French Revolution, renowned for its transformative revolutionary politics and societal impact, initiated substantial changes in the pursuit of liberty and equality. While the revolution is often celebrated for its achievements, like the abolition of the absolute monarchy and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in 1789, the same efforts did not extend to women’s rights.
The liberation of Korea from its 1910 annexation by the Japanese Empire is officially recognised as having taken place in 1945 upon Japan’s surrender to the Allied forces of the Second World War. However, Korean civilian activism against the regime had a long-standing history, culminating in the 1919 March 1st Independence Movement, which saw more than a thousand individual demonstrations nationwide.
Dubbed ‘the bloodiest war in history’, the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) shook China, its scars both present and still healing today. In 1843, Hong Xiuquan was converted to Protestantism by Western missionaries and founded a God-worshipping society.
