January 31, 2011

Stuff You May Have Missed in the Egypt Protests; In Other News, Egyptians Still Incredible.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Arab version of the Berlin Wall is falling.

And you, me, and everyone else with half an eye on the news, is watching.

I've been watching the Al Jazeera liveblog, refreshing every few nanoseconds. My love of AJE is the stuff of epic poetry, but it seems for once everyone else is watching it too, recognizing what good journalism looks like, and noting the sizeable difference between it and CNN. The President was watching it, and they barely even allow it on US cable.
I've also been following a fairly decent Guardian liveblog, which gives a slightly geopolitically-broader look at the whole crazy-inspirational Egyptian revolution story.

And it has been inspirational.

In case some of you have been under a rock waiting for me to sass about this, here's the extreme-Coles-notes-version: after Tunisia's regular folks overthrew their authoritarian government a few weeks ago, 30 years of regime under Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak is falling apart. There have been approximately 7 days of protests in major cities all over Egypt, with women, children, lawyers, judges, teachers, tradespeople and youth demanding free and fair elections and the removal of Mubarak. They've been withstanding police brutality, country-wide internet and SMS shutoff, increasingly early military curfews, and the stubborn refusal of their leadership to listen to their demands. They've decided that they're not budging until they get what they're entitled to as human beings.
Tahrir Square, in Cairo, on the 28th

Considering the coverage of this issue has been practically omnipresent on most major news networks, I get the rare opportunity to report on some stuff I've read that maybe isn't on the CBC basic breakdown at 6.

-You may have noticed footage of burning buildings in Cairo, and riots in Suez and Alexandria played over and over. What you might not have noticed is the community-led vigilante groups setting up roadblocks in Cairo suburbs, to prevent looting. Or the protesters stopping to pick up garbage, and distributing food during the marches. Clearly, these are dangerous anarchists.

in front of the Antiquities Museum.
Note the business attire. Incredible.
-What about the human chain of protesters preventing looters from getting into the National Antiquities Museum, where a few thousand years of human history lives?

-Or the sleepover of a few thousand people in Tahrir Square tonight with a "feeling of community", despite the fact that they had to defy curfew, step over barbed wire and avoid tanks and military helicopters to get there?

-Or the recent statement from the Egyptian military verbalizing their admirable practice thus far, saying that they will not attempt to harm protesters?

-Or the reports of soldiers defecting to join the protest?


Mubarak's first address to his country a few days ago paid the usual lipservice to freedom, democracy and the protesters, and hammered home that even though he's been identified as the problem, he wasn't going anywhere. But even though governments all over the world are cautiously, diplomatically issuing statements, it's become abundantly clear--it doesn't matter how much he shuffles his cabinet, the guy simply can't stay in office.

Today, the Egyptian government tried to shut down Al Jazeera, storming the office, temporarily arresting reporters, and taking all their gear. Because nothing says "We totally take your request for democracy seriously" like hobbling the most effective and visible agents of the free press with police goons. Sends just the right message.
The small amount of Egyptian government face that wasn't already covered with proverbial egg is now thoroughly smeared, with news organizations and international governments from all over the place making statements of support. Even Anonymous has sent out an open letter of support to Al Jazeera and to the Egyptian population in general. And they signed it with a "We love you", which might be the most genuine display of affection ever recorded from those cheeky trolls.

In the meantime, in the face of the continued internet shutdown, the folks at Skyne--er, Google, have developed a speech-to-tweet function so that people can call in their social networking updates.

Make no mistake, things are far from rosy. Police stations, National Democratic Party and other government offices have been burned to the ground. The death toll is rising from 150 (which is an admirably small number, considering the thousands that have been in the streets for a week). There are many, many people missing in Egypt (and many attempts to organize to find them).
The Egyptian army has troops in the Sinai peninsula for the first time since their peace treaty with Israel, which is making them anxious and causing a great deal of talk about the Islamization of the Middle East (though my personal opinion is that fear's a mite bit self-absorbed at this point, isn't it?). And considering it tends to happen every time someone Arab sneezes or stubs his toe, the price of crude oil is going through the roof again.

But considering the scale and consequence of this revolution--and the fact that a huge protest is planned for tomorrow that may wind up being a crux point for the government--it's looking rather positive.

And with the whole world watching, too.

January 28, 2011

Egypt Protests: Wow.

Last night, I found the pamphlet being distributed non-digitally throughout Egyptian cities, giving demonstrators some tips on how best to get out their message, and survive, during today's planned biggest-demonstration-yet. I looked at it, thought long and hard about posting it before now, decided against, and tried to go to sleep to blog another crazy news day.
I failed in the sleeping bit. It just felt like what was brewing was going to be really intense.

Lo and behold, within seconds of Friday prayers letting out, it was.

They detained ElBaradei after they saw him in the streets. They shut down the internet and texting functions again, "in select areas" (namely, anywhere a protest was likely--upwards of 8 cities all over the country). The UN issued a stern fingerwag, as they are wont to do.

Some selections from the excellent Guardian.co.uk liveblog that I am checking every 3 minutes:
A Human Rights Watch advocate on the scene says that police are withdrawing in the city he's in.

Journalists from every stripe have been beaten--AP, Reuters, the Guardian, Al Jazeera, CNN...mostly by plainclothes police.

In Suez, two soldiers were disciplined overnight for refusing to fire on demonstrators. Al Jazeera now has footage of police throwing tear gas canisters....and demonstrators throwing them back.

In Cairo, a female protester has been killed in the central plaza--but the police are throwing teargas canisters away and siding with the protesters.

In East Alexandria, as soon as security arrived they began shooting teargas and rubber bullets. When they ran out of those, the protesters blocked in police in the yard of a mosque. Now they're begging the protesters to stop--and the protesters are begging them to join them.

It's afternoon prayers, and police are putting down their weapons and praying with the people in the streets.

This whole situation is absolutely blowing me away--and I could wax poetic all day about the right to democracy or about how the Egyptian example is an amazing, brave and ballsy physical manifestation of the desire for government accountability in the face of overwhelming craziness. But everything that I could say turns into paltry internet crap--watch the footage. Be inspired that people from all walks of life care enough about their situation that they put their lives on the line to change it for the better.

Praying, in Alexandria. With the people previously trying to bash your head in.
Amazing.
The US and the UK are both on the fence, issuing largely ambiguous statements calling both sides to end the violence. This is probably due to the fact that their significant aid money to Egypt paid for every bullet being fired at those protesters--and to the fact that they already knew about the huge problem with police brutality in Egypt. Thanks, cables!


Meanwhile, a protest begins in Jordan...

January 27, 2011

Egypt Gets Concerning, with Yemen Not Far Behind

Things are crazy all across Egypt right now.

The protests that started on the heels of Tunisia's regime-overthrow are still raging, and they're not looking like they're going to stop. Suez, Giza, Cairo, North Sinai--they're all crammed with people vowing not to stop demonstrations until they get responsible government.
They're also crammed with police in the middle of an insane, brutalist crackdown on demonstrators. As of Wednesday, 800 people had been detained. Tear gas is flying all over the place, and police are trying everything they can think of to prevent marching.

Reuters has footage of a protestor being shot to death and dragged back into the crowd.
Apparently, this is the way Egyptian police
deal with permitless marches

Wide reports are surfacing that the government (or someone) has shut down internet and text message services across the entire country--something that's never happened before, ever.
Human Rights Watch is nervously watching, because they're worried that the police will open fire on the crowd. Which would be terrible.


Mohamed ElBaradei, Egyptian winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and former nuclear chief at the UN, is being seen as the best bet for alternative leadership after the Mubarak regime falls apart under the pressure.  He returned to Egypt after 30 years away, and is pledging to join the protests.

this is Yemen. this looks familiar.
Meanwhile, Yemen is brewing some protests of its own: tens of thousands of folks in the capital, calling for the disposition of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The difference here is that the president appears to have his own chunk of supporters running counter-marches. 
Yemen also has people serious enough about getting rid of the government that they're self-immolating.

To all you brave folks out there demanding what's right from your government: you're inspirational and excellent.
And please, please don't get shot or trampled.

January 26, 2011

The Palestine Papers: In Which the PA and PLO Start Looking Really, Really Bad

Well balls, Palestinian Authority. You've done it now.

The first few dispatches from the Palestine Papers showed the PA as being strangely flexible with the notoriously inflexible Israeli negotiators, budging on things that have been at the base of the Israel/Palestine conflict for decades. Understandably, this approach on behalf of the entire Palestinian population isn't going over well, and everyone from Hamas to your average folks in Ramallah are none too pleased with the whole mess.

First of all, the overall reaction of the Palestinian cause to the leaks could be summed up in the word "Furious". There's a lot of naysaying from often-divided Palestinian officials, who call much of the papers "distortions of the truth". Even though they've been vouched and this complaint is basically nonsense, it's still making people angry.  

Former Hamas leader, killed by an Israeli missile
Add that to the fact that the PLO was getting in the way of Palestinian refugees' rights to demand full remuneration and the right to return to their homelands,
and the fact that the PLO bowed to US pressure to delay a vote that would look into Israeli war crimes during the 2008/09 Gaza war (that they might have known about before it happened) and suddenly they don't look like much of a Palestinian Liberation Organization. Suddenly, Hamas starts to look more appetizing for a great many folks in the area. Especially since the Papers show that the PA has been happy to conspire with the Israelis to kill them in the past.
this is what happens when it's war in Gaza

As an extension of the general rage, Al Jazeera is taking serious hits from angry Palestinians, with angry people invading their Ramallah office and vandalizing it with zionist slogans. Plus, they're not the most popular characters in the actual leaks themselves, with multiple Israeli sources cursing their name, and multiple Palestinian sources saying that Al Jazeera wrote them off.

Unfortunately, the Big Thing that people are taking from this is that the dream of the two-state solution is essentially over. Which means everybody's almost out of ideas.

Extra Credit:
Israel's big idea was to "swap" Arab villages in Israeli territory into Palestinian territory--as if Israel hasn't moved these people enough. And as if that doesn't sound suspiciously like ghettoization. Whoops.

And just in case you needed more proof that Condoleeza Rice is the devil: her suggestion was to send all those disenfranchised Palestinian refugees that American dollars have been bombing via the IDF for so  many years to South America.
effin' spooky.

Hey Canada: How much do you want your media to suck?

Cuz a few of our elected reps are really really into it.

Two big-ticket news items I've been foolishly sitting on while the east absolutely exploded are from right here at home, and they both have two things in common:

1) The CRTC (Canadian Radio and Television Commission) is behind them

2) They're both fucking terrifying.


so this is what the enemy looks like.
CRTC Nightmare the First: Internet Metering
The situation is this: while you were sleeping, going to work, and watching the game, major telecoms now have the right to charge you for -over-using the internet-. This makes per-byte billing for your home internet usage possible the same way we get gouged on smartphone data plans. It also makes any attempt at net neutrality (something that I think is as fundamental in this day and age as non-digital liberty, dag nabbit) basically unreachable.

Practically, this is what it looks like: loading data-intensive pages, streaming ANYTHING, listening to music, videos, or downloads of any kind, will get exorbitantly expensive. Because it's expensive, the internet will become more of the same sort of playing field as meatworld is now--where people with money get access to things that poor people can't.

You can't hear me, but I'm spitting in disgust by my shoes right now.

CRTC Nightmare the Second: Always At War with EastAsia.

While we were sleeping, watching the game and working like good polite little Canadians, the CRTC recently amended their broadcasting regulations to make it okay edit: EASIER to claim ignorance while broadcasting false or misleading news. (Thanks for keepin' me honest, Darryl)
What. 
The Harper government for the great and glorious 52nd state is already prepping for Fox News North; this is really just the first logical step.

I need to throw up now, but if this makes you angry/frightened/both, there's plenty you can do.



While I'm puking, feel free to make noise about this. Might be the last time we feel free in the media for a while.

Big ol' Wikirecap: Assange, Manning, Legality, and Cableliciousness

Catchup time!


Wikileaks and Assange

-Because five media partners was not enough, rumours circulate that Assange and co. are looking for SIXTY for the release of the remaining 99% of the cablegate cable....gates. Which might be too much noise for me to keep up with, and sounds like a logistical nightmare, but whatevs. Assange is insisting on full name redaction, which wins points from me.
Also, he's got an extradition hearing on Feb 7th. Swedes, mark your calendars, and maybe rethink any internet transactions that day.

-NYT and other big news machines are considering setting up leaking infrastructure (which is funny to say), a la the Al Jazeera Transparency Unit. I temporarily overlook the hypocrisy of the New York Times in order to appreciate this little bit o' sense.

-CEO of google considered stopping the archiving of the cables, but kept on, because "it's legal". Another reason why I still like google, even though they're as close to Skynet as we're ever going to get.

-Those cheeky Anonymous guys are asking for help to take down the Egyptian government sites, presumably as punishment for being jerks and randomly beating people/press members.

-There's a new Wikileaks game app. You play a TSA agent. Ummm what.

-Apparently it's been impossible to find a direct, incriminating link between Assange and Manning that would get the former tossed into Quantico with the latter. Apparently, though, for many of the case's biggest adherents, that doesn't particularly matter.

Bradley Manning

-Yet more insanity surrounding Bradley Manning: approximately the same time that the FireDogLake folks showed up to drop off a petition in support of Manning, orders from on high barred any visitors from seeing him--even pre-approved guests, and his lawyer. Aforementioned guests and lawyer then got shaken up and threatened with arrest for showing up. Manning has been put on suicide watch, which is basically the only thing worse than what he's already been going through. Every time someone in the article mentions taking "appropriate action", a little part of me scoffs and a huge part of me dies inside.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International sends a letter to the chief of the Pentagon about the "breach of international standards" that their treament of Manning constitutes.


From the Cables:
-Cable naming names of corrupt Cuban officials on the take contains the amazing quote:

"Because most Cubans work for the state, the entire system -- from petty officials to Castro's closest advisors -- is rife with corrupt practices''
Which implies that work for the private sector is inherently less corrupt. Which caused me to spit tea through my nose remembering Enron.


Cuba (aka Raul Castro) claims to want "normal relations" with the States. In other news, there's still a standing committee of US politicians intent on meddling in Cubano affairs and "installing democracy" in the "outpost of tyranny" (two terms which still sound batshit to me).
No word on whether a similar Cubano group exists, intent on installing good cigars and cheap beach resorts to the US.


-Apparently there's a big ol' cache of nuclear waste just sitting around somewhere in Kazakhstan that the States is worried could be picked over by terrorists.
I feel like terrorists are a tertiary problem here, secondary to the problem of RANDOM NUCLEAR WASTE LYING AROUND. Jesus.
Clearly, this is a sub-optimal place
for a Walmart.

-Norway to Walmart et al: "Fuck you and your questionable ethics."
Walmart et al to no one in particular: "Uh oh."


-Mexico border issues and something to do with the US interviewing foreign aliens. I don't even know what's going on here, but here's the cable.

January 25, 2011

In Which Egypt Takes Cues from Tunisia, and Loudly Demands Some Sense Up In Here

Hey, remember that thing I said about the Jasmine Revolution being important because of its potential for replication in other Arab states?

Yeah, this is happening. In Egypt. Right now.
Welp, in true I-told-you-so form, Egypt has erupted into "anti-government demonstrations" calling shenanigans on the past 30 years of "torture, poverty, corruption, unemployment," and uninterrupted rule by President Hosni Mubarak. Protests are raging in eight cities all over the country. Cops are using rubber bullets and tear gas to try and restore zen, and because Egypt has a standing ban on all gatherings without permits, anyone in the streets is liable for detainment. Isn't that just awesome.

Two civilians and a police officer have been killed. Thousands of folks in Arab countries are taking notice, and a small handful of ruling elites are probably booking passage to the Grand Caymans about now.

A protester with the before and after images of Saeed
Many of the Egyptians out in the streets are mobilized from the We Are Khalid Saeed movement that started on facebook (and here in meatworld) in 2009 after Saeed, an Alexandrian small businessman, was dragged from an internet cafe by cops and beaten to death in the street. The campaign posts the names of abusive cops, and acts as a watchdog and protest group against police and institutional brutality. It's also yet another reason why I wish I read Arabic.

Al Jazeera has an interesting twitter feed next to the first story linked above, fed largely by people involved with the protests (which there appears to be no shortage of). However, there are also reports that twitter and facebook have both been blocked by the Mubarak regime, who make it no secret that they hate all this techy bullcrap. They've got a special seat in hell reserved for dissident bloggers, too, which gives me the warm and fuzzies. It's so nice to be thought of...

Also to toss in the two cents of the resident superpower: Hillary Clinton is calling Egypt's government "stable".
I wonder if she heard that on Fox.

January 24, 2011

Holy Pants, Palestine is Leaking.

In Which Ash loves Al-Jazeera, and Partially Outs her Sentiments on Palestine 

A couple months ago, someone got ahold of a treasure chest of confidential information--namely, a slew of documents chronicling the ongoing negotiations between Israeli, US and Palestinian Authority (PA) officials about the ubiquitous Israel/Palestine Conflict (tm). And as has happened since the dawn of print media, they took this important information to a news organization, because people should be talking about this shit.

The Palestine Papers, leaked to Al-Jazeera (which is so excellent I don't even know how to talk about it), were written between 1999 and 2010, and consist of a hodgepodge of stuff generated during a decade of pseudo-diplomatic arguing about who gets to live where and when they're going to stop bothering each other about it: memos, emails, powerpoints, notes on napkins. (Reason Ash Loves Al-Jazeera # 427: they admit highly relevant notes on napkins as legitimate journalistic input material.) 
The reason people care about this stuff is relatively easy to understand--there tends to be a lot of rhetoric, misinformation, oversimplification and over-complication of the entire conflict-and-negotiation-mess, often on both sides of the problem. As a cure for that, primary source stuff of any sort tends to cut the aforementioned bullshit fairly well.

The papers and attendant analysis are being rolled out to publication during the next three days, under this amazing rationale:
"We present these papers as a service to our viewers and readers as a reflection of our fundamental belief – that public debate and public policies grow, flourish and endure when given air and light."
(Reason Ash Loves Al-Jazeera # 239: despite all trends in the sector to the contrary, they doggedly persist in being an ACTUAL NEWS ORGANIZATION.)

Disclaimer about Discussion on Matters of Palestine/Israel
I don't know how closely you've been following the clusterfuck that is the Israel/Palestine issue, but there are a lot of concepts that may be unfamiliar to you that are fairly central to a) any discussion in depth about Palestine and b) any attempt to solve the problems. I'll link to explanatory articles wherever possible when carelessly dropping buzzwords, but it's in your court to click 'em and figure out exactly wtf I'm talking about.
Also, I want to make it abundantly clear my position on this highly-charged area of news, so that I don't get accused of discriminatory behaviour because of misunderstanding:  I believe the actions of a national entity NEVER represent every individual of that nation. When I'm talking about Israel, I mean the government, not the people; when I talk about Palestine, I mean the government, not the people. Nor do I equate Israel with Judaism, or Palestine with Islam. I reserve the right to engage Israel and Palestine as political, not religious, entities, and I reserve the right to distinguish between Zionism and Judaism, and fundamentalism from Islam. 
Phew. 

*DING!* Palestine Papers, First Round!

embiggening this will show
 lots of Palestine-to-Israel territory...
and not a whole lot of Israel-to-Palestine
territory. Hmm.
-2008: Land Swap! Sometime in 2008 the PA came to Israel with a proposal to basically hand over all the Palestinian land that Israel's been illegally settling, even in East Jerusalem. Their detractors spent a little while looking shocked--it appears that they didn't even try to keep the areas of East Jerusalem they were legally entitled to. From Al-Jazeera:

"The PA, in other words, never even really negotiated the issue; their representatives gave away almost everything to the Israelis, without pressuring them for concessions or compromise. Erekat seemed to realise this – perhaps belatedly – in a January 2010 meeting with [US president Barack] Obama's adviser David Hale.
Erekat: Israelis want the two-state solution but they don’t trust. They want it more than you think, sometimes more than Palestinians. What is in that paper gives them the biggest Yerushalaim in Jewish history, symbolic number of refugees return, demilitarised state… what more can I give?"

In response, Ehud Olmert, former Prime Minister of Israel, made an offer to Mahmoud Abbas, former head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the PA.

Israel's Offer: we officially annex all the land we've already stolen from you and settled, and you get a small 5.5% of Israeli territory. You also get one safe road between Gaza and the West Bank that you can pass through, but that we still officially own. We acknowledge the suffering of Palestinian refugees (as long as we can also mention the suffering of Israelis in tandem), but we take no responsibility for them, for reasons that sasspot who's summarizing this doesn't understand.

Basically, 2008 Palestine said "Look, we're tired of this, just keep the stuff you stole, whatever", and 2008  Israel said "Yeah. You hand it all over. Plus give me your watch."

One of the biggest push-button issues in the talks was the Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, smack dab in the West Bank. With its position in the country, it's in danger of being annexed to Palestine if a two-state solution with 1967 borders is ever reached--but as it's basically an illegal bedroom community for Jerusalem, nobody's really pleased about any of the options. The Israeli's don't want to give it up; the Palestinians don't want to cede it, and the residents are worried about violence if either group has full control. 


Al Jazeera, being excellent, has meeting minutes posted between the two sides as they try redefining borders(Reason Ash Loves Al-Jazeera # 135: the AlJazeera Transparency Unit.) It's cool, and gives a feeling of the attitudes present in the room. Ten bucks says that if in three years no one's converted this into a screenplay and it's all over HBO, I'll do it myself. 


-Late 2010: What's Going On in the Wild World of Negotiation Now?
Look at those bad boys. Observe the strut. Ridiculous.
BBC has a fairly decent Q&A style article about what the talks looked like in late 2010, brokered by Obama. If your head is spinning a little, I'd recommend this one as the last link before web-curator-fatigue sets in.
They've also got a rehash of Israeli/Arab/Palestinian Press debating the rumours current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu planned on withdrawing from the illegal settlements in the West Bank, after the short freeze on illegal settlement activity expired.


-Now: Many Muslims: Who the Pants are the PA to Hand Over Jerusalem??
In the past, the perceived biggest issue in the way of the two-state solution was the delineation of the holy sites. For those of you who slept through geography, the area that Palestine and Israel occupy is kind of a big religious deal, with lots of big religious landmarks and heritage sites for lots of big religions. Understandably, non-secular groups don't particularly like their holy sites mucked around, and would generally like to be able to visit them when they like. Sounds sensible, even to a cold-certified Agnostic like me.
So the PA's flexibility on Jerusalem is ruffling feathers all over the Arab world. In the past, Yasser Arafat had hardlined on keeping the Arab portion of Jerusalem under Palestinian control in order to protect and connect The Haram al-Sharif (and other special sites) to the Muslim world. This approach was really, really popular--especially since so many people (especially Palestinians) have been killed there, and so many attempts to claim the space for Judaic holy ground have been made by Israel. Hell, Ariel Sharon's visit to the place sparked the Second Intifada. This is serious shit.
So the negotiator in this is catching a lot of flak for his flippant treatment of the issue, even from Israelis


And this rehash has exhausted me, so if things totally happen before tomorrow, I'll cover them later.

January 21, 2011

Wikirecap: Cables!

Let's see what cablelicious goodness we've got, courtesy of Wikileaks:

In a substantial dick move, the government of Botswana evicted Bushmen from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, after years of being relocated into "economically absolutely unviable situations without forethought and follow-up support". The kicker? They kicked them off the ancestral land to hand it over to diamond mining companies. Come on, Botswana--who do you think you are, Canada?




The prominent Yemeni journalist that wrote about the US's happy-missile-scapegoating-scam that resulted in US drones levelling a village they weren't technically allowed to bomb was locked up, tortured and sentenced to 5 years in prison for "recruiting young people, including foreigners, to an illegal armed organization by communicating with them via the Internet". The journalist, named Abdul Elah Hayder Shae, had been two important things: 1) an expert on Al-Qaeda, and 2) a thorn in the side of the Yemeni government for years, doing that pesky press-supported-public-accountability thing good journalists do. Quote from him that sounds too familiar in this day and age:
"I do not stand now in front of a judiciary but in front of a gang belonging to the national security apparatus." 
So many parallels, I don't even know where to start.


Haitian Elections in 2010--haggard with cholera, still votin'.
From the Department of Shit Everyone Already Knew,  we've got more proof of America's fairly dirty imperial hands all over Haiti. It appears the US is obsessed with keeping Aristide out of the country, and is still insistent on maintaining their occupier status. Rumours that American, Canadian and French officials "overseeing" the most recent voting process skewed the results to bar Jude Celestin (successor to Rene Preval) for being too "independent". We can't have that, can we. Add that to the occupation and raiding of the Cité Soleil slums by the UN and the mysterious "suicide" of one of the seasoned UN veterans opposed to meddling in Cité Soleil, and the situation in Haiti gets more and more fluid and weird.
So why the pants is the world's biggest superpower worrying about little old unnecessarily-cholera-stricken HaitiGwynne Dyer speculates with the sort of sense he's known for:
"Aristide, currently living in South Africa, could play a role in the Caribbean similar to that of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela if he regained power, but that is not currently on the cards."

Aside from the cables, there's been buzz about the possibility of persecuting Wikileaks under the CFAA for "systematically crawling P2P networks for secret files that might be accidentally shared". There's question as to whether or it's illegal to do that. Which might be irrelevant, because there's even bigger questions about whether or not Wikileaks actually DID any of that. Which hasn't stopped people trying to sink Wikileaks in the past, but whatevs.

That *BOOM!* You Heard Was Tunisia.

Tunisia (aka "The Jewel of the Mediterranean") is a former-French-colony Arab country in northern Africa, between Algeria and Libya. Its tourism guide implies that it's mildly desert-like, fairly metropolitan, and a swank place to bring your family, lie on the beach, and play golf. If you've seen Tattooine in the Star Wars films, you've seen a bit of Tunisia. It's got some substantial historical significance, looks pretty friendly, and actually looks like a really cool place to visit for awhile.

Except that I can't go there, because they're busy overthrowing their government.

It's regime change time in Tunis, so
here's my attempt to explain wtf is happening utilizing a handy combustion metaphor:


Spark!
-Over a month ago, the absurd economic/unemployment situation in Tunisia made Mohamed Bouazizi, a young guy trying to get ahead, so frustrated with his inability to find half-decent work (or any work at all) that he very dramatically attempted suicide in front of the town hall. His story mirrored the stories of a whole pantsload of young people frustrated with the lack of economic opportunity for them, and when he succumbed to his injuries, the brewing frustrations turned into a protest movement that shifted into the streets.



One of the objects of anger was the fact that in Tunisia, most of the government/seats of institutional power are held by a small cabal of higher-ups that seem to suspiciously resemble the mafia-esque-oligarchy that runs Russia. This mob scene tends to steal cash from banks, move in on successful businesses to overtake them, rig elections, and oppress any political protest with force. The President, a Mr. Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, assumed power in 1987 and hasn't moved much since then, despite multiple "elections". All of these got under the skin of Tunisians, and added teachers, lawyers and average folks to the burgeoning protesting youth being called the Jasmine Revolution.

Fire!
-And good god was it epic. Basically the whole country turned itself inside out in a popular uprising. 
The army, which is a force of 30,000 strong charged with protecting Tunisia, refused Ben Ali's orders to fire on the people and instead acted as a protective force for the protesters. Which is terribly awesome. Unfortunately, the Presidential Police force is 160,000 troops strong, and was busily looting, shooting and muting everyone they can. A hefty State of Emergency ensued. There's an intense curfew in place. There are tanks involved. Many people have been killed, twelve on the night of Jan 13th alone.

Then, a few days ago, the Presidential Police invaded the airport in Tunis, and Ben Ali scurried into a plane and off to the Saudis to lick his wounds. In his stead, Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi has become president, making a lot of constitution-friendly-placating sounds. It is yet to be seen whether the new guy is basically the old guy in a new suit.

Smoke:
-For a deep (and overall excellent) analysis of this whole shit-show including more Why's and How's than I've got up my sleeve, Foreign Policy's got you covered. Probably because they're paid to do this.

For a less deep and more potentially legit/definitely overwhelming approach, good ol' Twitter is still being awesome at real-time fast-paced reportage. Even if it's noisy, easy to fudge, and difficult to understand
(And no, internet, I will not stop talking about Twitter revolutions.)

So what?
Quick recap here: a grassroots protest movement just overthrew a government that had been standing for 23 years, in under a month. If that's not enough of a "soit'sfuckingawesomethat'swhat", I don't know what else I can do for you.

But there's also the fact that Tunisia was basically cast in the mould of many Arab countries who might be in for the same fate. Egypt, Yemen, Libya--they're all saddled with autocratic rulers who have been in charge for an aeon, whose populations are facing worse and worse living conditions every year that are not being addressed. Even though CNN is sceptical that the revolutionary spirit will catch on, if I was Qaddafi, I'd be sitting with my nurse and having a little contingency planning meeting in case of the domino effect. It might be difficult to source my botox from exile.

**Sidenote: Many sources pointed to the Cablegate leaks as a spark for the whole Jasmine revolution. I've heard a number of complaints to the contrary, based on the (highly likely) idea that Tunisians were so fed up they didn't really need diplomatic cables to tell them their government leaders were dickwads. Nevertheless, there's some interesting stuff in the Tunileaks cables, and you can find them here.

January 20, 2011

In Which EWB Canada Temporarily Steals my Blog.

A small few of you may have been thinking "Gee, there's been slightly less internet-vitriol-spewing about news in the last few weeks. I wonder what happened to that girl who freaks out about Things Totally Happening."


She neglected to blog because she was working crazy-NGO-hours helping to run the largest international development conference in the history of Canada. And through sheer force of teamwork, will and caffeine, the 2011 Engineers Without Borders National Conference was modestly described as a fairly epic success. In the press, no less!


I've worked with EWB for a couple years now, in various capacities--they sent me overseas on a short-term placement in rural Ghana to help facilitate subsistence farming communities designing and implementing their own food security projects (specifically in the areas of getting them approved by other white people with purse strings in hand). I've also worked through EWB in high schools and with the public to try and connect Canadians to Africans, challenge the perception of "Africa" as the land of rape and lions, and engage people in activities like buying fair trade products that can help generate opportunity for the bottom billion.

I like EWB a lot, because they tend to encourage an engaged kind of self-criticism that makes it okay to publish a report of all the organization's f*ck-ups so we can stop putting our foot in it and start being effective.
And despite its cost and risk of being wanky, I really like the annual national conference--it gives EWB members across the country a chance to share best practices, troubleshoot their issues in creating impact, challenge their perceptions and approaches to poverty reduction/opportunity fostering, and experience a sense of community and motivation that volunteer organizations find really important when their members routinely work 20 hours a week for them for free.


Unfortunately, because I was on a small team of folks coordinating logistics like fiends the whole time, I missed all of the content of the conference. All of it. The rad-badical Owen Barder, people from the Gates Foundation and Google, Robert Chambers (who I saw jogging every morning and occasionally retrieved tea for, but never saw speak)--mere feet away, and still my headset, two cell phones and myriad responsibility halted my capacity to stretch my brain as a development worker.

Thankfully, my logistics co-agents thought of that, and taped practically everything.

Six Keynote Speech Videos from the 2011 EWB National Conference can be found HERE, compiled beautifully on vimeo. I recommend getting some fair trade tea in you, getting comfy, and getting critical.