So Egypt Wins....So What?

If you've been within eyeshot of a major media outlet in the last two weeks, you probably have clued in that big things are happening in Egypt. If you've been reading this blog, or basically any news anywhere, you probably have also clued in that a) a peaceful, populist democratic revolution has ousted an authoritarian president that has been seated for 30 years, and b) this is unabashedly awesome.

What you might not totally get is why. And that's completely understandable.
So Why the Hell Is This So Important?
The reasons that the success of the Egyptian revolution has everyone atwitter (haha. ha. Ash you're lame.) can be clumsily classed into the following three categories:
Egypt leads the way.
Being the most populous Arab nation, geopolitically centrally located, and generally containing a little bit of everything important about the region, Egypt tends to lead the way in the Middle East. Things they do tend to set standards and precedents on an international level--and they also tend to trend.
The fact that they just overthrew their US-propped-dictator added such crazy burgeoning momentum to the regime-toppling force released by the Tunisian revolution that protests intensified in Yemen, Jordan, Algeria, and the Gabon. It's resulted in a lot of speculation about whether or not this practice of insisting on responsible government was going to keep up--and which world leaders are in trouble if it does.

Democratic Egypt = Irritating Cracks in US Imperialism

stay classy, New York Post. Derp.

The change of the guard means that the US has less control over the region. The now-deposed Mubarak regime received 1.3billion USD in military aid every year, which tended to buy a lot of party-line-toeing on its participation in the war on Iraq, or their shared border with Gaza and the 30-year peace treaty signed with Israel. The lack of US involvement in this Egyptian democracy business makes Israel and the US very nervous, seeing disrupted trade, islamofascist regimes and the spectre of pesky Iran ruining their perfectly stable, if perfectly brutal, middle-Eastern setup. That setup, it's worth mentioning, includes cosy relationships with many of the aforementioned authoritarian world leaders possibly in trouble for political douchebaggery.

Also, it's problematic that the majority of the Western world was seen hmming and hawing about the protests, being diplomatic and shaking fingers without actually coming to the support of the most popular revolution since at least the 70's. This is a problem for two reasons: 1) the aforementioned 1.3 billion in military aid meant that the power that Mubarak had--and abused--for so long was a direct result of the US giving it to him; and 2) the US has spent trillions of dollars and thousands of lives trying to INSTALL democracy in the middle East, so anything less than an unequivocal joygasm of unqualified support for such an overwhelmingly popular democratic movement seems patently spurious to me.

And finally,
A Peaceful Democratic Revolution Just Happened. And that's kind of a miracle.
In Tahrir Square, a functional, unified community sprang up out of the craziness of sectarian violence and a divided population, because of a shared vision for a better Egypt. Within days, the protesters had clinics, sleeping areas, food and water stations, phone and computer charging access, and media screens broadcasting AJE for anyone who needed them. Twentysomethings spontaneously organized the sexy revolutionary duties of trash pickup every morning. When "pro-Mubarak" thugs stormed the square, they set up checkpoints to screen for weapons and welcome people to the demonstrations. They organized local musician and artist showcases. They organized football tournaments in the square for kids. They held Christian mass in the Square, just as they protected each other during Muslim prayers. They protected foreign journalists from angry police during media crackdowns.

They did all of this without central leadership.

That is the most fundamentally inspirational thing about the Egyptian Revolution to me--the fact that I just watched democracy -happen-, in such an unadulterated, people-first way that Western powers barely recognized it as democracy, springing from the grassroots alone.
This matters because it reaffirms, in the eyes of the entire world, that stuff of this incredible calibre CAN  ACTUALLY STILL HAPPEN.
Egypt reminded me that the struggle against power is neither futile nor unreasonable.
And that is absolutely invaluable.

So that's what.

Breaking in Egypt: Mubarak's Gone--the Real Work Starts!

AJE just announced that Mubarak has stepped down and that the control of the country has been transferred to the military.

Maybe now I can get some sleep.

Watch the biggest party in the Arab world here, on Al Jazeera English.

Egypt Update: Excellence Roundup

The protests that began on Jan 25th are still strong across Egypt. Millions of people are still in Tahrir Square. The army is still present, still doing very little. Mubarak is still entrenched.

I am still intently watching in awe of the women, children, men and youth of Egypt.


In honour of two weeks of protest, sacrifice and bravery for democracy and human rights, here's a roundup of what I've been seeing:
(And it's in turns brutal, unsurprising, and totally, totally sweet.)

Rampant government interference and violence against the press.

Egyptian State media blatantly refusing to broadcast tens of thousands of their people protesting.

The UN pretending nothing is happening.

Two continuing liveblogs--two weeks in, and still warranting continual coverage from the Guardian and AJE.

Coptic Christians forming human chains to protect Muslims at prayer--just like Muslims formed a human shield during Coptic Christmas marches.

A medical clinic set up in front of a KFC in Cairo.


Community-led barricades, checking IDs, disallowing weapons, and welcoming people to the protests with "The Egyptians are here!"

The first Western hip hop solidarity song for Egypt, released for free (download here--it's good), and the video mashed from AJE footage.

Overwhelming UNITY in a country whose opposition to Mubarak has previously been characterized by its fragmentation.

And finally, the widespread internet fame of a guy wearing bread as a hat. 

Mubarak, your argument is invalid.

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.

The Kinshasa Symphony are Awesome.

Today, as I grimly don a riot hat to work a retail double on the busiest shopping day of the year, I find myself needing a reminder that while today is almost certainly going to suck a little, there are people surviving much worse, and generally with greater grace.


There's a documentary by a German guy about the Kimbanguist Symphony Orchestra--a group of people in the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) who play classical music.


The DRC is unfortunately known for its general lawlessness--war crimes, widespread sex crimes, and crimes against gorillas. A lot of this reputation is understandable, although the land-of-rape-and-lions-sensationalism over it is sometimes a bit tough to swallow. It is NOT known for its symphony orchestras. Not letting that stop them, the Kimbanguist Symphony gets together in Kinshasa to  make many of their own instruments, learn to play them, and perform. For free. In a place where poverty is rampant. Because music is good for people in general.

Article about the documentary and the film here. Read it, watch it, recalibrate and appreciate.

GLENN GREENWALD ladies and gentlemen!!

Glenn Greenwald, who I accused of accidentally trying to be my favourite person on the internet mere hours ago, is a lawyer, civil rights litigator, journalist and blogger. He writes for Salon, appears on television, and serves on the board of the watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

  Well, he used to. Until he wrote this letter:

 December 12, 2010

To the Board of Directors of CREW:

I am hereby resigning from the Board of Directors, effective immediately. I fully expected when joining the Board that CREW would periodically take positions with which I disagreed, and that was perfectly acceptable to me.

But the recent condemnation of WikiLeaks by Anne Weismann, purporting to speak on behalf of CREW, is both baffling and unacceptable to me. It is baffling because I cannot fathom how a group purportedly devoted to greater transparency in government could condemn an entity that has brought more transparency to governments and corporations around the world than any single other organization by far. And it is unacceptable to me because I believe defense of WikiLeaks has become one of the greatest and most important political causes that exists -- certainly one to which I intend to devote myself -- and I do not want to be affiliated with any group which works to undermine it.

I remain supportive of much of the work done by CREW and wish the organization nothing but the best.

Very truly yours,

Glenn Greenwald

Anyone with information on how I can personally thank Glenn Greenwald for being so unabashedly ballsy and awesome can contact me in the comments. I've gotta go cool down somewhere, I'm getting a case of the vapours.

UK Student Protests: 15 Year Old smashes generational apathy, is generally smashing

from anticuts.com

Suddenly I'm compelled to go teach in Britain. Watch the video, and come with me.

This kid (whose name might be Ady, or Rodney **But is actually Barnaby Raine--big 'ol hat-tip to  J.Z.!) comes from Wednesday's London Tuition rise protests (in which he was "kettled"--a word you might not know, but will probably recognize from somewhere) to speak passionately, eloquently and incredibly intelligently about how writing off the iphone generation is probably a bad idea--because they care, and they keep speaking up.

He also drops some sly jabs like this one:

 "I thought I was going to go down on lunch break and be back in time for lessons. Perhaps I should have known they put the guy in charge of the G20 in charge, perhaps I should have been more concerned with my life than for whether I was gonna get down for lessons, but when I tried to get out and I was told it was a sterile area, by police officers standing and not letting anyone out, I thought 'well that's why we need a University education, if we don't get one we end up in police uniforms'."

from anticuts.com

I don't make it a habit of routinely ragging on police--I know they're generally only as good as their institutions allow them to be, and each cop is different-- but considering their part in the ongoing fight for civil rights in the UK, this kid doesn't sound wrong. Least of all with 23 kids in London hospitals with their heads bashed in right now, from the very protest this kid was at. Sounds a lot like my Toronto.

The BBC gives us a breakdown of what the hubbub is about--in short, a 3x increase in tuition in the UK that would bring it to about 9,000 pounds a year. Which is insane.

The most important cable you'll see today.

Shocking, and incredible. I'm probably going to jail just for having this.
http://www.ding.net/wikileaks/234867.txt