DISCUSSION
GROUP
Topic: Uprisings
For a thought piece about Egypt and this uprising see A completely unpredictable revolution
For a short version of what has happen, let's start with a look at Tunisia's uprising.
TUNISIA
The following is from an email from Thomas Stephens.
From
Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah in an address to Egyptians protestors, 7 February 2011
“You are fighting the battle of Arab dignity … with your voices, blood and steadfastness; the dignity of the Arab human being that was humiliated by some rulers of the Arab world for decades.”
Volumes will be written about the affront which led the young Tunisian street vendor, Muhammad Bouazizi, to set himself on fire. And volumes will be written about the brutal beating, torture and death of the young Egyptian programmer, Khalid Sa’id, at the hands of police. Volumes will be written, because they inspired revolution.
Demands for an end to the humiliation and cruelty from which they suffered and paid for with their lives is the driving force behind the current Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings.
When Bouazizi’s small fruit and vegetable cart—which supported his family and provided for a sister’s university education—was confiscated by regime elements on the pretext of operating without a permit, it represented all the socioeconomic and political ills embodied in the decades-long rule of Zainul Abidine Ben Ali.
Bouazizi had no important family connections to invoke or bribe to offer. A female municipal officer proceeded to publicly humiliate him by insulting his family, slapping and spitting in his face and overturning his cart. He was beaten on the street by her and two associates. Seeking redress with authorities at the local government headquarters, they refused to hear his case.
Less than an hour later that December day, he doused himself in gasoline and lit a match. The rest is history in the making.
When Sai’id acquired a video of police officers in Alexandria dividing a seized cache of narcotics between them and posted it on the internet, detectives savagely assaulted him in public. A cover-up which alleged he died from asphyxiation after swallowing a marijuana packet attempted to sully the reputation and justify the death of an otherwise upstanding 28-year-old.
Bouazizi and Sa’id were deprived of the most basic dignities, as citizens and human beings. Their deaths symbolized the indignation of youth; at corruption, nepotism, unemployment, poverty, lack of educational opportunities, unchecked authority and judicial inequity in the Tunisian and Egyptian kleptocracies.
EGYPT
Still, the following is from an email from Thomas Stephens.
Esam Al-Amin [who has been writing like Tom Paine to a world wide audience for the past 3 weeks...]:
“L’Etat, C’est moi.” (I am the state.)
King Louis XIV of France
Leave means Get out
Don’t you comprehend?
O Suleiman O Suleiman
You too must leave
Sitting in sitting in
Till the regime is gone
Revolution revolution until victory
Revolution in all Egypt’s streetsChants by two million Egyptians, Liberation Square, Feb. 10, 2011
End of Tom Stephens material
The composition of those who joined the uprising is summarized at the end of this time line.
Self-immolation – A wave of self-immolation swept Algeria from January 12 through January 19. January 16 saw one self-immolation in Egypt, followed by two more on January 18. In Mauritania a protester set himself on fire on January 17. A man burned himself to death on January 21 in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. These self-immolations seem to be done in sympathy with the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, whose self-burning on December 17, 2010 helped spark the Tunisian rebellion.
Social Media – Like the protests in Iran in the summer of 2009 much of the coordination among protesters seems to be done through social media tools like Twitter and Facebook (though the importance of Twitter in the Iranian protests has been disputed). Egypt removed itself from the Internet on January 27, 2011. On January 28 rumors circulate (but haven’t been confirmed at the time I write this post) that other nations, in particular Syria, are also shutting down Internet access to their citizens.
Youth – Much, but not all, of the protest seems to be coming from those under 30 years of age.
Muslim Brotherhood – For a substantial portion of the 20th century the Muslim Brotherhood (formed in 1928) was considered a modernist, reform element of Islam politics. In recent years, however, it has moved farther to the political right, abandoning some of the moderate positions it once held. The MB is a transnational movement. While it operates in all Islamic countries, it is banned in Egypt. The MB advocates government organized around the principles of the Quran. The MB strongly opposes Western influence in the politics and government of North Africa and the Middle East.
Leftist groups, unions, labor organizations – These uprisings are mostly not by Islamic fundamentalists (though note the important role played by the Muslim Brotherhood mentioned above). They seem largely to be pro-democracy groups rising in opposition to totalitarian governments. Labor organizations have been critical in organizing and motivating the protests. Note that the political agenda, when articulated, is more in line with European-style democracy with its socialistic elements, rather than US-style democracy with its elements of capitalism. US-style democracy is embraced at the same time US support (both financial and military) for the totalitarian regimes is condemned.
Again from the Email by Tom Stephens
Thursday, February 10, was slated to be a day of preparation for the following day’s activities in Egypt. Friday was dubbed “Defiance Day,” in reference to the test of wills between the people and the beleaguered president. Despite seventeen days of massive demonstrations across the country, Hosni Mubarak remained defiant, still stubbornly refusing to submit to the will of the people, who were coming out by the millions to demand his ouster.
A day earlier, the leaders of the revolution called for a major escalation with another round of massive protests scheduled for Friday. Not only did they ask the people to come to Tahrir Square by the millions, but they also planned to march on state symbols around the country.
By midnight, the buildings of the Council of Ministers, the People’s Assembly (lower chamber of parliament), the Consultative Assembly (upper chamber), and the Interior Ministry were totally surrounded by thousands of people. Prime Minister Ahmad Shafiq could not reach his office that day and had to relocate to the Ministry of Civilian Aviation.
The youth of the revolution also issued a passionate appeal to the labor movement and unions as well as to all professional syndicates to join the revolution in full force and ignore the regime-appointed union leaders, who were calling for calm as part of the propaganda machine to undermine the people’s demands.
Tens of thousands of workers across Egypt responded to this appeal and flocked to the streets. As a strike by thousands of workers in the state defense industries was declared in Cairo, these workers managed to block the streets leading to the factories where no one crossed the picket lines.
Other state-owned factories and government agencies throughout Cairo have declared strikes and took to the streets as well. For example, government employees at the Ministry of Environment, the medical Heart Institute, and sanitation workers were on strike. Similarly, public transport workers went on strike while holding a protest calling for Mubarak’s ouster. Postal workers organized their protests in shifts.
In the cities of Asyut and Sohag in Upper Egypt, thousands of workers in the pharmaceutical factories, state electrical power and gas service companies, as well as university employees declared a strike and marched across their respective towns.
Furthermore, in the Nile delta cities of Kafr el-Sheikh, el-Mahalla al-Kobra, Dumyat, and Damanhour, major industries such as textile, food processing, and furniture, have completely halted all production. The strikes then spread along the canal and coastal towns of Suez, Ismailiyyah and Port Said. Approximately 6,000 workers at five government companies managed by the Suez Canal Authority continue to be on strike, threatening to spread widely, impacting the passage of international shipping through the canal.
End of Email from Tom Stephens
Let me share my thoughts here. These thoughts are seeds only, I can't seem to develop them well.
Areas that I am particularly interested in follow.
War vs non-violent resistance
America began from a resistance to what the citizens felt was an overbearing ruller. Ours was a bloody war - a bloody resistance - and we overcame. In Egypt those who are pressing their grievences are doing so in a non-violent way. There has been some war-like behavior on the part of the government, but not from the demonstrators. So Egypt's uprising and America's uprising are similar in motivation and very far apart in methodology.
Here in America in the 1950s and 1960s there was a civil rights movement. It too was peaceful in the sense that the methods used were non-violent. Ghandi led a peaceful resistance to British rule in India. There are, then, other instances of non-violence being a powerful tool, such as Carl Haessler and the definitive sit-down strike in an automotive plant in Flint, Michigan in the late 1930s.
This has lead me to recall Glenn Smiley (a leader in the pacifist organization Fellowship of Reconciliation) in the 50s and 60s. He spent a year with Ghandi walking with him in India during Ghandi's revolution. Later he spent spent a lot of time with Martin Luthur King during the civil rights revolution in America. He - Smiley - certainly had some influence in shaping Kings non-violent strategy. For a more personal reverence to the For and to Glenn Smiley see this chapter in my auto biograypy.
So why this non-violent approach in Egypt? What was the influence that maintained the peaceful resistance of the masses in Egypt? Lots of questions - no answers I am afraid. What is the future role of Ghonim an Egyptian Google employee who seems to have been in on intitial planning of this uprising? I heard in a TV interview with Ghonim that he has followed Ghandi in his percepts which makes sense with my earlier material on passive resistence.
Time and Technology
There are so many questions that can be raised - so many points to spend days or weeks or more thinking about or writing about, but the one that is of perhaps the most interest to me has to do with the use of computers in this revolution.
Social networks on computers like twitter and such were used to arouse citizens - arouse them by informing them of what was going on, and perhaps reducing their fears. Fear is a powerful deterent to thought and action. But somehow with the use of computers the Egyptian uprising took aim and conquered by topling a 30 year old regime.
What would have happened in India if Ghandi had had a computer and many friends with which to twitter?
Where would we be if we had have personal computers and an internet in the 1950s here? Would we have had to wait for Rosa Parks to go to the front of the bus?
Fri
13
Nov
2015
Are Languages Products of their Environment?
DISCOVER MAGAZINE published this very interesting article:
Languages Are Products of Their Environments
The characteristics that make each language unique may actually be adaptations to the acoustics of different
environments.
Tue
03
Jun
2014
The Case for Reparations
The Case for Reparations
Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
By Ta-Nehisi Coates
May 21, 2014
Chapters
- I. “So That’s Just One Of My Losses”
- II. “A Difference of Kind, Not Degree”
- III. “We Inherit Our Ample Patrimony”
- IV. “The Ills That Slavery Frees Us From”
- V. The Quiet Plunder
- VI. Making The Second Ghetto
- VII. “A Lot Of People Fell By The Way”
- VIII. “Negro Poverty is not White Poverty”
- IX. Toward A New Country
- X. “There Will Be No ‘Reparations’ From Germany”
Mon
02
Jun
2014
A Look At 19th Century Children In The USA
PHILADELPHIA — DINNER with your children in 19th-century America often required some self-control. Berry stains in your daughter’s hair? Good for her. Raccoon bites running up your boy’s arms? Bet he had an interesting day.
As this year’s summer vacation begins, many parents contemplate how to rein in their kids. But there was a time when Americans pushed in the opposite direction, preserved in Mark Twain’s cat-swinging scamps. Parents back then encouraged kids to get some wildness out of their system, to express the republic’s revolutionary values.
The New York Times
Sunday Review
By JON GRINSPAN MAY 31, 2014
American children of the 19th century had a reputation. Returning British visitors reported on American kids who showed no respect, who swore and fought, who appeared — at age 10 — “calling for liquor at the bar, or puffing a cigar in the streets,” as one wrote. There were really no children in 19th-century America, travelers often claimed, only “small stuck-up caricatures of men and women.”
This was not a “carefree” nation, too rough-hewed to teach proper manners; adults deliberately chose to express new values by raising “go-ahead” boys and girls. The result mixed democracy and mob rule, assertiveness and cruelty, sudden freedom and strict boundaries. Visitors noted how American fathers would brag that their disobedient children were actually “young republicans,” liberated from old hierarchies. Children were still expected to be deferential to elders, but many were trained to embody their nation’s revolutionary virtues. “The theory of the equality” was present at the ballot box, according to one sympathetic Englishman, but “rampant in the nursery.”
Boys, in particular, spent their childhoods in a rowdy outdoor subculture. After age 5 or so they needed little attention from their mothers, but were not big enough to help their fathers work. So until age 10 or 12 they spent much of their time playing or fighting.
The writer William Dean Howells recalled his ordinary, violent Ohio childhood, immersed in his loose gang of pals, rarely catching a “glimpse of life much higher than the middle of a man.” Howells’s peers were “always stoning something,” whether friends, rivals or stray dogs. They left a trail of maimed animals behind them, often hurt in sloppy attempts to domesticate wild pets.
And though we envision innocents playing with a hoop and a stick, many preferred “mumbletypeg” — a game where two players competed to see who could throw a knife closer to his own foot. Stabbing yourself meant a win by default.
Left to their own devices, boys learned an assertive style that shaped their futures. The story of every 19th-century empire builder — Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt — seems to begin with a striving 10-year-old. “Boy culture” offered training for the challenges of American manhood and a reprieve before a life of labor.
But these unsupervised boys also formed gangs that harassed the mentally ill, the handicapped and racial and ethnic minorities. Boys played an outsize role in the anti-Irish pogroms in 1840s Philadelphia, the brutal New York City draft riots targeting African-Americans during the Civil War and attacks on Chinese laborers in Gilded Age California. These children did not invent the bigotry rampant in white America, but their unrestrained upbringing let them enact what their parents mostly muttered.
Their sisters followed a different path. Girls were usually assigned more of their mothers’ tasks. An 8-year-old girl would be expected to help with the wash or other physically demanding tasks, while her brother might simply be too small, too slow or too annoying to drive the plow with his father. But despite their drudgery, 19th-century American girls still found time for tree climbing, bonfire building and waterfall-jumping antics. There were few pretty pink princesses in 19th-century America: Girls were too rowdy and too republican for that.
So how did we get from “democratic sucklings” to helicopter parents? Though many point to a rise of parental worrying after the 1970s, this was an incremental change in a movement that began a hundred years earlier.
In the last quarter of the 19th century, middle-class parents launched a self-conscious project to protect children. Urban professionals began to focus on children’s vulnerabilities. Well-to-do worriers no longer needed to raise tough dairymaids or cunning newsboys; the changing economy demanded careful managers of businesses or households, and restrained company men, capable of navigating big institutions.
Demographics played a role as well: By 1900 American women had half as many children as they did in 1800, and those children were twice as likely to live through infancy as they were in 1850. Ironically, as their children faced fewer dangers, parents worried more about their protection.
Instead of seeing boys and girls as capable, clever, knockabout scamps, many reconceived children as vulnerable, weak and naïve. Reformers introduced child labor laws, divided kids by age in school and monitored their play. Jane Addams particularly worked to fit children into the new industrial order, condemning “this stupid experiment of organizing work and failing to organize play.”
There was good reason to tame the boys and girls of the 19th century, if only for stray cats’ sake. But somewhere between Jane Addams and Nancy Grace, Americans lost track of their larger goal. Earlier parents raised their kids to express values their society trumpeted.
“Precocious” 19th-century troublemakers asserted their parents’ democratic beliefs and fit into an economy that had little use for 8-year-olds but idealized striving, self-made men. Reformers designed their Boy Scouts to meet the demands of the 20th century, teaching organization and rebalancing the relationship between play and work. Both movements agreed, in their didactic ways, that playtime shaped future citizens.
Does the overprotected child articulate values we are proud of in 2014? Nothing is easier than judging other peoples’ parenting, but there is a side of contemporary American culture — fearful, litigious, controlling — that we do not brag about but that we reveal in our child rearing, and that runs contrary to our self-image as an open, optimistic nation. Maybe this is why sheltering parents come in for so much easy criticism: A visit to the playground exposes traits we would rather not recognize.
There is, however, a saving grace that parents will notice this summer. Kids are harder to guide and shape, as William Dean Howells put it, “than grown people are apt to think.” It is as true today as it was two centuries ago: “Everywhere and always the world of boys is outside of the laws that govern grown-up communities.” Somehow, they’ll manage to go their own way.
________________________________
A National Endowment for the Humanities fellow at the Massachusetts Historical Society who is writing a book on the role of young people in 19th-century American democracy.
Mon
21
Apr
2014
Investigating Family's Wealth, China's Leader Signals a Change
From The New York Times
By CHRISTOPHER DREW and JAD MOUAWAD
APRIL 19, 2014
HONG KONG — His son landed contracts to sell equipment to state oil fields and thousands of filling stations across China. His son’s mother-in-law held stakes in pipelines and natural gas pumps from Sichuan Province in the west to the southern isle of Hainan. And his sister-in-law, working from one of Beijing’s most prestigious office buildings, invested in mines, property and energy projects.
In thousands of pages of corporate documents describing these ventures, the name that never appears is his own: Zhou Yongkang, the formidable Chinese Communist Party leader who served as China’s top security official and the de facto boss of its oil industry.
But President Xi Jinping has targeted Mr. Zhou in an extraordinary corruption inquiry, a first for a Chinese party leader of Mr. Zhou’s rank, and put his family’s extensive business interests in the cross hairs.
Even by the cutthroat standards of Chinese politics, it is a bold maneuver. The finances of the families of senior leaders are among the deepest and most politically delicate secrets in China. The party has for years followed a tacit rule that relatives of the elite could prosper from the country’s economic opening, which rewarded loyalty and helped avert rifts in the leadership.
Zhou Family Ties
Fri
13
Nov
2015
Are Languages Products of their Environment?
DISCOVER MAGAZINE published this very interesting article:
Languages Are Products of Their Environments
The characteristics that make each language unique may actually be adaptations to the acoustics of different
environments.
Tue
03
Jun
2014
The Case for Reparations
The Case for Reparations
Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
By Ta-Nehisi Coates
May 21, 2014
Chapters
- I. “So That’s Just One Of My Losses”
- II. “A Difference of Kind, Not Degree”
- III. “We Inherit Our Ample Patrimony”
- IV. “The Ills That Slavery Frees Us From”
- V. The Quiet Plunder
- VI. Making The Second Ghetto
- VII. “A Lot Of People Fell By The Way”
- VIII. “Negro Poverty is not White Poverty”
- IX. Toward A New Country
- X. “There Will Be No ‘Reparations’ From Germany”
Mon
02
Jun
2014
A Look At 19th Century Children In The USA
PHILADELPHIA — DINNER with your children in 19th-century America often required some self-control. Berry stains in your daughter’s hair? Good for her. Raccoon bites running up your boy’s arms? Bet he had an interesting day.
As this year’s summer vacation begins, many parents contemplate how to rein in their kids. But there was a time when Americans pushed in the opposite direction, preserved in Mark Twain’s cat-swinging scamps. Parents back then encouraged kids to get some wildness out of their system, to express the republic’s revolutionary values.
The New York Times
Sunday Review
By JON GRINSPAN MAY 31, 2014
Mon
21
Apr
2014
Investigating Family's Wealth, China's Leader Signals a Change
From The New York Times
By CHRISTOPHER DREW and JAD MOUAWAD
APRIL 19, 2014
HONG KONG — His son landed contracts to sell equipment to state oil fields and thousands of filling stations across China. His son’s mother-in-law held stakes in pipelines and natural gas pumps from Sichuan Province in the west to the southern isle of Hainan. And his sister-in-law, working from one of Beijing’s most prestigious office buildings, invested in mines, property and energy projects.
In thousands of pages of corporate documents describing these ventures, the name that never appears is his own: Zhou Yongkang, the formidable Chinese Communist Party leader who served as China’s top security official and the de facto boss of its oil industry.
Write a comment
u=481713 (Monday, 22 April 2013 19:48)
This article was in fact exactly what I had been looking for!