| Subject: Is this the kind of stuff you want? |
| From: Karen Lancaster <lancaster.karen@gmail.com> |
| Date: 4/10/12, 10:26 |
| To: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> |
Quotes re: Tunisia and Arab Spring:
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In December 31, 2010 Al Jazeera, by analyst Lamis Andoni:
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The rebirth of Arab activism |
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How one young Tunisian is emerging as a symbol of disenfranchised and impoverished Arab youth. |
Mohamed Bou'aziz, the young Tunisian who set fire to himself on December 17, is emerging as a symbol of the wider plight of the millions of young Arabs who are struggling to improve their living conditions.
Like many across the Arab world, Bou'aziz, who is now being treated for severe burns, discovered that a university degree was insufficient to secure decent employment. He turned to selling fruit for a living, but when the security forces confiscated his vending cart he torched himself - igniting a series of protests across Tunisia.
The roots of this Tunisian 'uprising' are to be found in a lethal combination of poverty, unemployment and political repression: three characteristics of most Arab societies.
But it was Bou'aziz's heart-wrenching attempt to kill himself that most accurately represented the loud cry of the millions of impoverished and aching citizens against the yoke of politically and economically repressive systems. His act was one of extreme despair. But he is not alone. Lahseen Naji, another young Tunisian, followed - electrocuting himself to death - and at least five others attempted to commit suicide but were stopped.
These actions should not go down in history as mere tragic incidents: if the Tunisian protests do indeed signal the return of social movements to the Arab world, their stifled hopes may just be turned into an outcry against injustice.
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Tunisias Protest Wave: Where it comes from and what it means
Shortly before the December protests began, WikiLeaks released internal U.S. State Department communications in which the American ambassador described Ben Ali as aging, out of touch, and surrounded by corruption. Given Ben Ali's reputation as a stalwart U.S. ally, it mattered greatly to many Tunisians -- particularly to politically engaged Tunisians who are plugged into social media -- that American officials are saying the same things about Ben Ali that they themselves say about him. These revelations contributed to an environment that was ripe for a wave of protest that gathered broad support.
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Wyre Davies BBC News, Tunis
14 January 2011 Last updated at 20:13 ET
Tunisia: President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali forced out
The protesters have put their bodies on the line, and many people have been killed. Tonight, they ignored the curfew to celebrate on the streets.
At the end of a dramatic day, President Ben Ali fled, no longer able to hold back the growing tide of public discontent and anger with his regime.
Now the protesters will want to see the fruits of their demonstrations.
They won't settle for meagre reform, they won't settle for the same elite remaining in power. They're very happy that the president has gone, but they don't like the regime that surrounded him, and they'll want his cronies out as well.
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The Middle East has been riveted by the success of the grass-roots revolution that ended Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year reign.
Everyone is watching this hundreds of millions of Arabs, Muslims, and who knows who else? says Shadi Hamid, the director of research at the Brookings Doha Center, speaking from Cairo.
The Arab world is never going to go back to what it was. We are going to wake up to a new Egypt tomorrow, and well also wake up to a new Arab world, says Mr. Hamid.
What has changed is that Arabs know that they can change their own situation without the help of the US, without the help of the international community, they can just go out on the streets and do it on their own and no one can take that away from them, he says.
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'Facebook Generation' continues Mauritania protests
By Mohamed Yahya Abdel Wedoud, For CNN, on February 27 2011
"The purpose of the youth demonstrations that we are leading (is) aimed at pushing the ruling regime to make urgent social, economic and political reforms for the sake of better life conditions," said protester Mohamed Ould Sidie. "We don't belong to any one of the political parties, and we don't want to.
"Mauritania is a very rich country, but unfortunately the huge riches of the country, including gold, oil, minerals, fish, are mismanaged by the corrupt, political regimes," said Sidi. "It's time to make a change."
Protesters carried banners calling for job creation, economic and political changes and an end to corruption.
The organizers declared the birth of what they called "Youth Coordination" and promised to continue the protests over the next days.
The call to action started last week on Facebook, which is said to be very popular in Mauritania, a journalist told CNN Friday.
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From New York Times:
September 3, 2011, 5:45 pm
My Sunday column tells the extraordinary tale of Salem al-Madhoun. A year ago, he was a senior naval officer in Qaddafis Libya. Six months ago, he was a defector and a leader in the underground battle to overthrow Qaddafi. Two weeks ago, he was enduring torture in prison. And now hes the military commander for the Tajoura area.
I wanted to write about Salem partly because there is so much American concern about who the rebels are. The concerns are legitimate weve learned from Afghanistan and Iraq that the figures we back arent always as wonderful as we initially think but also I think somewhat overrated. There are all kinds of people in the rebel forces, but a significant number seem to me to be people like Madhoun: well-educated middle class folks who just got sick of Qaddafis repression, corruption and incompetence.
Battling the Qaddafi forces now seems heroic and adventurous. But at the time, for the Madhouns, it was scary and full of sacrifice. If things had turned out a bit differently, they could all have been killed. And Salems commitment to revolution inevitably meant that he did sacrifice his familys interests to some extent. He told me that his eldest daughter was 13; she corrected him, saying she was now 14. When youre fighting 24/7 to overthrow a brutal dictatorship, you cant be the family man you want to be.
This sense of sacrifice, commitment, vision is something Ive seen at every step of Arab spring, from Cairo to Bahrain to Libya. And while there are huge difficulties ahead, Im hoping those qualities will keep the movement on the right path.