The False Poles of Digital and Traditional Activism

Thank you very much for this post, Jillan!

re the question about US funding, frankly the answer is and should always be no there is no room for US funding. anyone looking at how power works should be able to realize it. there is hardly a group of people outside the US (and many inside) who’s interests are aligned with US ruling class interests enough for US funding to be benign.

now there are some who don’t believe this to be true, it is after all a very political point of view. but unless they want to work on their own the still need to avoid US funding like the plague (ie some egyptian liberals believe the US is about democracy and what not, but they need to join in broad movements in Egypt and work with people like me).

re weak ties, the analysis itself is too simplistic mixing different things.
* groups that deliberately seek to organize in non centralized ways (including all non authoritarians like anarchists, feminists, counter globalization movement, free software movement, etc.)
* groups that emerged through chance, finding structures later on (now most true revolutions had alot of that, the more heirarchical groups just emerged as leaders/victors near the end, this applies to october revolution, anti apartheid movement in south africa, iranian revolution, etc.)
* groups that use weak ties to involve larger masses (and among these fundraising, symbolic actions and direct action should be treated differently)
* groups that are completely conceived with weak ties as only means of action

he is also conflating action, with decision making with deliberation, with advocacy, each a distinct activity a movement can rely in strong hierarchy for one, representative democracy for another and weak ties for the rest (nationwide cross sector labour unions are like that for example).

now what many seem to focus on when talking about digital activism is weak ties in action. for good reason ICTs allow mobilizing weak ties more easily than before (or seem to, I’ve lived all my adult life under ICTs it is difficult to tell). for thinking about weak tie action I always like to use what Ory Okohloh calls micro activism.

micro activism are tasks you ask people not strongly associated with your movement but strongly motivated by your cause. they are like letter writing campaigns, except it is a mistake to assume they all need to be cheap and easy. we’ve had success asking people to engage in very dangerous activities like monitoring their local polling station (last parliamentary election over a dozen where killed near their polling stations).

what makes an action micro activism is that:
* it has a clear steps from beginning to end
* it stands on it’s own, doesn’t require followup action by the participant itself
* any follow up work to be done by the movement is clearly understood and will not take much time
* it has a clear positive outcome (protesting/expressing usually doesn’t qualify)
* it doesn’t require enrollment in a movement. it doesn’t associate the participant with anyone or any agenda beyond the core issue and the action itself and its outcome

this alone doesn’t a movement build, but it is also one of the best ways to extend the reach of a movement, a member of audience that engages in micro activism is closer to being a member, one who participates in many is even closer. action does the recruitment and tells you more about which part of your target demographic to listen to. etc.

now ICTs are great for this, social networks actually suck at it but that’s a different story.

Interesting discussion. Can be compared to that about development funds, that are often given out in hypocritical ways (support companies in giver country), or in naive ways (as rich countries often don’t know how best to help poor ones).

You see the same problems with activism. As soon as money is involved, it gets tainted by naivite or hypocrisy. And those receiving the ‘aid’ will loose some of their homegrown authenticity. Even if it is not in the form of money.

But can you wish these problems away? I don’t think so. Is it even possible to decide who are the real homegrown and authentic activists? Reality is usually complicated.

But one can talk about these things, have a discussion like these blog posts. And that might just help a bit to spread some knowledge back and forth, reduce the naivety.. maybe even the hypocrisy. Dialogue is nearly always a good thing.

Jillian,

Great response! It covers most of what I realized was missing from the Gladwell piece.

What I realized after reading Gladwell’s article was how sloppy he was in conflating different flavors of activism. I can think of 3 popular themes: there is regime change of a dictator (always a popular example of activism failures), policy change in a democracy (civil rights, etc), and citizen vigilantism (the example Gladwell gave about the stolen Sidekick).

To my knowledge, this last category has succeeded even in totalitarian regimes. A person or people are harmed; the censorship infrastructure is not immediately able to block it, people spread the word, and the central regime realizes that they need to find a fall guy. So I suspect that’s the sort of activism that we (digital activism drivers) might wish to publicize more.

Jon

“Digital activism” is a bit of a misleading term, isn’t it? Maybe better to think of digital tactics within activism.

In some cases digital tech is central and allows for communication and mobilization where this could not occur otherwise (international grassroots campaign, counter-narratives and mobilization in some repressive regimes). At other times digital tactics gives only a marginal edge to an already sophisticated and well-resourced campaign (large NGOs). This view makes clear that there is rarely an absolute distinction between digital and analog activism.

Also, nice comments from everyone. Much enjoyed them, especially Alaa’s.

Jillian, twitter and BDS, here’s just a small, but classic example from yesterday.

I posted a link to a vid of a NY BDS flash mob – http://sara–h.tumblr.com/post/1203016791/this-may-just-be-the then someone not far away from me in Queensland, Australia picked up on my tweet and decided that the local Palestinian Solidarity group could do something like that too – she straight away went to the FB group from the link I tweeted her. The immediacy of twitter enables a flow of creativity and motivation far more easily than if folks received the info via facebook, or email or the MSM.

Collaboration produces powerful synergy which shouldn’t be underestimated! I think reactionary forces fear this – witness the enthusiastic way the Murdoch rag the Australian is pursuing anon Australian bloggers and tweeters at the moment. There’s already been one notable tweeter who’s sworn off twitter as a result of @GrogsGamut ‘s outing.

On Gladwell’s claim of ‘weak’ ties from non-hierachical structure, just because he’s not aware of the informal hierachy within online activism, where content (and cred) is king, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Thinking about MLK’s model for direct action, the digital sphere may not always play a major part in the actual end ‘direct action’ apart from instantly communicating where flash events are to occur, but it certainly contributes majorly to the preceding activities – documentation, negotiation and self-purification :)

Thanks, Jillian, for this conversation.

I often appreciate Gladwell’s perspective and even agree that social media doesn’t replace person-to-person activism. They are complementary.

Actually, one of the sad things re: Gladwell and twitter is that there is a Marcolm Gladwell, no profile, no tweets, but: 5,182 Followers 119 Listed That says a lot about a certain herd mentality.

Jillian,

Excuse me for interrupting the Palestinian People’s Solidarity rally here, but if you are in fact on the open Internet inviting open discussion, I feel compelled to respond.

You say so many things in agreement with Malcolm Gladwell that it’s hard really to believe that in fact you’re taking exception to him as I do, chapter and verse:

http://3dblogger.typepad.com/wired_state/2010/09/there-are-no-more-lunch-counters-malcom-were-all-online.html

A really grave problem I see in his article — and yours — is that you are too reliant on very particular single anecdotal perspectives on situations like Iran or Moldova and other situations from a few very strong-willed influencers with a lot of well-funded mindshare.

I argued strenuously against Ethan Zuckerman’s take on Moldova (which has now become gospel for Gladwell) because I refuted — as people inside the country did as well — that diaspora tweeting was somehow inauthentic or that retweeting of people’s Live Journals “didn’t count”. As for claims that Twitter was indispensable and your snarky “um, email,” well, um, what about the fact that many people start using Twitter *as* email?! Are you paying attention to #freekg and the southern Kyrgyzstan events this summer? Can you accept that exiles, expats, internationals, domestic activists don’t stay in boxes and actually fly around and actually talk to each other and that they do that on Twitter as much as email? That *is* the Twitter revolution. I *really* have no need to exaggerate Twitter’s influence or capacity and have debunked the utopians on many occasion. But I’m certainly not doing to defy the record of facts and claim that Twitter isn’t playing an accelerating role in many civic causes.

Sorry, I’m not going to pile on to bash the evil “Western media” along with you social media gurus because all they did was enthuse and cover early-adapter geeky enthusiasts who are your friends; you enthuse, too, when it’s a Twitter revolution or an API you *like*. Morozov dutifully and positively retweeted like others of you and your followers that an API has now been developed, for example, by pro-Palestinian activists to track Jewish settlements. Aren’t you all in fact taking part in a Twitter revo or a valid stream of activism when you do that?! And hey, will there be an API to track Hamas missile strikes and terrorist acts, too? or does Ushadi not do those windows?

As I’ve explained, the real analysis here has to be of the content of the social movements, not just of their form. This or that Facebook or bus-shelter or bracelet campaign around Save Darfur could be “a sucess,” but the operation was so successful the patient died. Every time I see some clueless git in a Save Darfur t-shirt, I want to take them up to the UN to show them the real problem — Chinese oil and Russian arms and Egyptian maneuvering, not American placating. Did you have an API for that?

I’m also going to reject in advance your “point for another time” that suggests some activists strategize to do things that will victimize them and then achieve a Leninist “the worst, the better.” Maybe they do, but the fault still lies squarely at the regime’s doorstep.

As for your getting on the anti-American bus with the Arab bloggers (or maybe you never got off), I wonder what it would take for you guys, Jil to get rid of your squeamishness and ambivalence about your country’s governmentl.

Here you have a progressive president taking on enormous challenges and succeeding in some instances in turning things around. How much better do you REAAALY think it can get, given the backlash already engendered by Obama’s admittedly compromised actions? Why this aversion to government that in fact you were all happy to bring about (unless you are even more sectarian that I realize)? Why this sudden coquettish sense of alienation from a government you elected and wished well, as if it is now some alien imperialist bastion just because some Middle Eastern exile is torqued about it? Why do you accept this silly caricature of insular Arab bloggers? A government by and for the people doesn’t “gatecrash” netroots activism in oppressive societies, Jillian, it *shows solidarity* to them and *helps* becuse *we were asked to help*. Why can’t you accept that?! Government is imperfect. Life is about choices. You can sensibly chose this or that agency or government (and there are many to pick from in the West and the global South) to move the agenda forward. Have you asked the Brazilians or Russians to do something about Iranians in prison? Oh, no, because they never speak out at international meetings about Iran. So who will do this if the U.S. is too tainted for your taste because…it supports Israel? That’s ultimately what it’s about, isn’t it.

I totally agree about “big government” getting in the way of fragile ecosystems, which is why I simply won’t work on government-funded projects in these regions. But to throw out everything that American stands for in horrible settings like the UN Human Rights Council is short-sighted and myopic, or to imagine, like Sami, that their funding of projects like data bases about human rights violations kept by people in exile are wrong (which in fact was inexplicably cut off by the Obama administration), is to leave the field ENTIRELY to the authoritarian regimes, and frankly do the regimes’ work for them, which is my constant refrain with Yevgeny Morozov.

As for the absence of troublemakers, yes, we’ve seen that in other regions in the last 20 years, where the programs tilt toward the “vegetarian” and the “meat-eaters” aren’t at the international conferences but are left home or chose to stay home or are in jail. Such is the way of the world. It’s all part of the necessary continuum and levels in any social movement, and there must be tolerance for these different levels.

But to be very blunt about it, I wish we could hear about this need to declare the USG anaethema not from exiles and political conference-hoppers, but from people toiling away inside the country. And…we’re not hearing that.

Most gravely troubling is something that you are never called out about publicly, and should be. The Berkman Center’s (or is it just you and Ethan as individual) unwillingness to condemn violent movements and terrorists among the bloggers you support is truely unseemly. It’s completely unjustifiable, and ultimately sets up your much-publicized work to fail, as ordinary people in any country are not going to join extremists who lead to violence. It’s perfectly feasible to condemn the persecution these oppressive governments mete out to bloggers without having to adopt their radical agenda.

You’re not a state, and you don’t need to make compromises or enter into negotiations even with movements that bear arms. You are in the civilian, third sector, and you shouldn’t be celebrating armed revolution, unless, of course you plan to take power yourself this way. It’s ok to “outright condemn Hamas” and peace will not come by pretending it’s not what it is; you don’t do any favours for the Palestinian mother who cursed Hamas when an Israeli missile hit her home and killed her daughter by not making these moral distinctions.

Challenging the existing narrative has to start with challenging *you* too. It’s not only well-funded Harvard think-tanks who get to shape the discourse but lots and lots of other people, and you have shown no indication that you are an honest broken of this dialogue by the narrow positions you take on these issues and the disqualifying you are doing from your vaunted bully pulpit of anyone who doesn’t adapt the “progressive” agenda you espouse.

I’m grateful to Malcolm Gladwell for my favourite new quote, which is in the text of his replies to people’s questions on the New Yorker about his piece on social media:

“Incomprehension is simply what a narcissist calls disagreement.”

I’m not “confused,” Jillian, I disagree — but nice try trying to discredit your opponent in a debate by making it seem as if they are not capable of basic reading comprehension or distinguishing the microscopic differences between people sitting in the same institute.

Gosh, if you, Ethan, and Evgeny don’t share a “line,” send me back to Alcove 1 or Alcove 2 until I can parse the sectarian difference, OK. Um, horribly? Er, no, just on the basics — on your critique of Gladwell; on your singing from the same sheet on Moldova; on your use of the same examples; and so on. Rather than *telling* me that you are all precious snowflakes, why not *say* what your critique of Morozov is or distinguish *your* take on Moldova from Ethan’s dismissiveness. Go ahead, I’m waiting…

I’m curious why you, and Ethan, too, can raise the question of *whether* we should all be campaigning to get the U.S. government out of the Internet freedom business, and instead, are finding reasons to at least flirt with the harder positions of the Arab bloggers so you can make sure to remain in with the cool kids, but then not…making a policy.

Are you, or are you not, for taking U.S. government funding, either for yourselves, or as a blogger in another country? Can’t you develop a position on this for your organization and for yourselves as individuals, or do you think if you leave it as an interrogative you can have it both ways?

Ignore your point about State *twice*? Hell, no. I just don’t *agree* with you and the other leftists who constantly fuss about this as a hypothetical in literalist and misleading ways.

Export controls on Iran, Cuba, Syria, and Sudan are *good* things. These are all murderous regimes where our colleagues our killed and jailed. There aren’t many tools in this decidedly multipolar world (where the terrorists own one of the poles) to affect the behaviour of these regimes. Witholding U.S. trade is one of them. Human rights activists and those who care about Internet freedom should support these sanctions; in fact, NGOs spend a lot of time trying to get sanctions into place against these regimes by the UN; getting them into place by the US is also a legitimate goal, unless, of course you have a leftist doctrine that anything the U.S. does is wrong because it’s illegitimate and…supports Israel.

I simply don’t concede at all your overheated and ideologically-driven claims that these expert controls “all effectively hamper communications for normal folks”. I guess I’m not normal, because I’ve never found it a *real* obstacle actually to connect to activists in these countries, sometimes through the intermediary NGOs that support them, and hear what they have to say, and sign a petition in their support. In fact, the very vibrant presence of people from these countries in the blogosphere attests to this. I don’t hear *THEM* yammering about this “expert controls” issue, I only hear you in the U.S. I also hear it from people who in general oppose copyright and use this as yet another race track for their hobby horses about copyleftism, evil Microsoft, the need to change to Linux, etc. etc.

Now if you mean by your overbroad statements that “normal folks” don’t include human rights activists and bloggers in this field, oh, ok, then I guess neither I nor you are “normal”. But…normal folks do a good job of getting around these things, too — maybe because they are more quiet about it.

It’s clear to me that these export controls exist as a matter of principle not to help these oppressive regimes, and that’s a good thing. That is their intention; but the intention isn’t to erect an impenetrable barrier literally and directly thwart support to those individuals and groups that oppose these regimes.

*When* there is evidence that some technology can help those individuals and groups circumvent the oppression, State fast-tracks it. That sounds like a perfectly fine system to me if you aren’t an ideological purist agitating about this to gain street credit with nervous Arab bloggers — who don’t like outright boycotts of even the states they oppose so that they don’t look like they are supporting “the enemy”.

In fact, fast-tracking is what the Haystack program got, supposedly, although we’ve heard so much of this story only from Morozov and you, that it’s hard to know what State knew, and when did they know it, although my understanding is that they ceased support of Haystack even before Morozov began to slam it.

So, oh, that’s what you *hated* — when everyone rushed to fastrack a software not invented in your Tor, etc. circles and not approved by you. Yes, it turned out to be flawed and over-hyped and evidently was rightfully withdrawn, but there was a process here that you also don’t seem to concede — that some people can overcome the default of the sanctions if they make the case that the software is useful. In fact, it seems to bother you when there are fastracks, because then you claim that’s a marker for favouritism or special boosting by the powerful USG which unfairly skews the “marketplace” of ideas.

So which is it, Jillian? Do you or do you not concede that the fast-tracking system is one that enables the default of the sanctions to hold, while enabling those programs that could be beneficial to both to “normal folks” and dissidents are let through? I’m failing to see anything wrong with this, unless your *real* issue as an aversion to American state power, and there, I can’t help you because I don’t share that aversion in a world of pragmatic choices rather than utopian ideals.

Oh, in fact what seems to bother you is merely the abstract proposition that 1) State has formal sanctions 2) State does “little” to halt the export of filtering technology. Well, that strikes me as what happens when you have to maintain the threat of sanctions but not make them so literal as to hobble actual assistance to dissidents. Oh, what you *really* mean is that you think State is hypocritical because it enables certain big IT businesses to get a pass, and then takes out a magnifying glass to some hackster’s brainy idea for circumvention. Is that it?

But that’s a problem with hatred of big companies and belief that the U.S. is nefarious in supporting them — as a default ideological position. I don’t share that default. I’d like to hear each and every actual case and use case. I’d like to see if this is just another Ubuntu stalking horse against Microsoft or another seething geek rage about AT&T and phones that can’t be “jailbroken” or whatever. Please be specific.

Here, I think if you step out of the ideological magic circle for a moment and look at some policies and cases, it can help break that sense of outrage and ambvilance you keep invokving about what we as “progressives” must have about these export controls.

Take a look at Microsoft’s policies:
http://www.microsoft.com/exporting/basics.htm

“Just because an item is subject to U.S. export controls does not necessarily mean it cannot be exported. In the case of Microsoft encryption products, a one time government technical review is required prior to export. Microsoft generally ensures that reviews are completed well in advance of a product’s release date. Once a review has been completed, software may become eligible for a particular licensing authority. This authority may then be used by all exporters, not just Microsoft.”

That seems reasonable, but of course, given the kneejerk default about MSFT, I realize it may not to you or your readers. So perhaps you can explicitly tell me where you differ.

As for “I’m working on these issues, are you?” — that’s one of those awful “patch or GTFO” sectarian hacker culture diktats that I NEVER accept as a guilt-trip. For one, I guess I have a little more trust in my *elected* Democratic government to figure this out with the right specialists than you do.

More to the point, my job is not to work on promoting software to circumvent regimes and to dance or not dance with the USG on such software — my job is writing about human rights and regional issues and translating — but it doesn’t have to be in order to think about and critique these issues. In fact, that’s one of the problems with this whole topic — it’s the property of a narrow sector of elites in the think-tanks and NGOs and conference circuits who invoke the need for safety of our colleagues abroad never to question your orthodoxy on these issues.

Funny, isn’t it, how the ANC and anti-apartheid movement never dithered about whether they’d be seen as enemies of the state if they called for foreigners to boycott their government. Yet Arab bloggers are able to invoke that notion and cause liberal Americans to stop in their tracks and backstep on their support for sanctions. What’s up? Answer: some causes become popular on the left; some don’t.

I don’t feel a burning need to change the sanction regime against these countries OR the imperfect and possibly “hypocritical” deviations or legitimate exceptions that State figures out — until I can hear some compelling egregious example. My overall sense is that sanctions are not such a great tool for human rights work and are more often the tool that movements trying to be mass, and trying to have something concrete to do in this country select because they can’t get at the regime targeted. And they lead you to paint yourself into corrners. I will never forget how the American Association of Publishers where I once sat on a freedom of expression committee would dither and dither about whether or not to suspend their program of sending free books to libraries and schools in South Africa because of the mandates of “The Movement” against apartheid. That you are not willing to let even a book with good ideas that might change minds fall into the hands of the authoritarians lets me know that you aren’t using common sense and a willingness to adjust tactics but prefer the comfort of ideological purity.

Which brings me to the next point, which is essentially about what Aryeh Neier calls “Surrogate Advocacy” which is where human rights or freedom or advocacy movements of any kind target not the actual perpetrator of a wrong overseas, but target the U.S. government in some way, trying to find the USG connection, however tenuous, to that regime overseas, through trade or political support, and banging away at the U.S. because they can, and because it’s their country.

I personally really don’t care for “Surrogate Advocacy”. I find it leads groups inevitably to become fixated myopically on their own government “just because they can” and begin to forget what should be the legitimate target. It means you become less creative about finding all the ways to get at the real targets, and get caught up in the animosity and negativity that anti-American groups always get caught up in, ignoring the outrages of regimes like Iran that stone women and hang gays and torture bloggers, and getting into a frenzy because…a Microsoft product slipped through export controls or the U.S. didn’t sufficiently denounce the Iranian government at some conference.

Surrogate advocacy is a surrogate. It’s not the real thing. Getting all chest-thumpy and saying “this is where I live, and this is what I can change” simply doesn’t cut it in this global and interconnected world. There are 100 ways it falls short. Did you go to Russia and protest to them today over their support of Syria? How about Turkey? Turkey has lots of activist groups, like the ones that got involved in the flotilla. They hate injustices; can you get them on board to protest Iran’s brutalities? Oh…

Oh, and ugh — more fancy footwork, but only of the tap-dancing kind that discredits you. I’ve never said you “can’t” criticize your own government. I criticize my own government all the time. For example on the Russia policy, which is something I know about, I am hugely outspoken in the way your fellow leftists aren’t, because they feel there is something “Cold War” or “unprogressive” in doing so at a time when they persist in seeing the U.S. as the greater evil. I don’t suffer from that problem of moral equivalency.

I wonder, in your clear statement “I do not support Hamas” is the first time you’ve ever made it, and whether you are even now cringing because your Arab blogger friends are burning up your email wires…

However, your position — “I do support including Hamas in any peace talks the way the ANC was instrumental in talks that brought about a new South Africa” — is untenable — and also de facto feeds that unsavory Cuban-inspired “Israel is an apartheid state” Durban meme that I would think is disgraceful for even lefty Harvard centers.

And in fact you’ve chosen a very bad example. Had “progressives” like you been a lot more willing to condemn the violence and terrorism of the ANC, and their rigid Soviet-inspired ideological program, we might have a better outcome in South Africa today with less violence, less illegitimacy, and less hypocritcal positions regarding outrageously abusive neighbours like Zimbabwe. Being the victim of an immoral and unsupportable regime like apartheid doesn’t entitle you to elevate violence and terrorism to positions of morality; temporary exigencies have a way of setting in stone and defining permanent characteristics of a government, as we have seen.

As for, ” Ignoring an elected government, even if that government uses terrorist tactics is an absurdity that I cannot get behind” — um, I don’t think there’s any fear that anyone is ignoring Hamas, precisely because they go on using violent tactics — and that’s acceptable?!

And again, I’ll make the point I made in a previous post: you’re not in the peace talks, Jillian. You’re not a government! You’re in the very prestigious and influential Harvard Berkman Center, but you don’t have to adopt the pragmatic and slippery immoral positions of those in power — and hey, Berkman is about Internet and technological policy, not political science and the Middle East!.

Your blessing of Hamas as a participation is not required for peace; it’s not required for anything. Various countries in Europe or Asia might adopt positions of dialogue with Hamas for the sake of a pragmatic search for peace. Jimmy Carter will undoubtedly be available for this task. But that doesn’t mean EVERYBODY has to adopt a position of “talking to Hamas” and on the way to “not ignoring an elected government” — and then to proceed to refrain from regularly and often condemning the terrorism this government uses as a tactic. THAT is the problem with your facile PC positon. You’ve arrogated to yourself the position that some high state official would have to take to live in the world as if you are in the same business; you’ve then crippled yourself from speaking out against Hamas because you’ve taken a RealPolitik position. Pro-tip: RealPolitik positions can succeed when the interlocutors can point to demonstrators outside the gates more radical than they.

And of course, it goes without saying that to characterize these elections as “free or fair” and therefore the thugs in power as legitimate, is stretching the truth in outrageous ways that pure and decent activists aren’t suppose to engage in. This “elected government” sham is about as legitimate as saying that Algeria’s fundamentalists, once they were “elected” were legitimate – and it fetishizes elections even more than the U.S. government does, which is saying quite a lot.

The diva’s lament — “Don’t you know who I ammmm?” — is as unacceptable a debating tactic as claiming your opponent is “confused”.

And right back at you, because if you’re going to oppose my positions, at least reflect them accurately. I didn’t say you “shilled for Obama”. I said you, as a good progressive, no doubt worked in your way for his victory, and were happy to see it. For example, I did my little part, I went to the women’s receptions and got the stickers and signed the petitions and got on the mailing lists and voted for Obama. You’re saying you didn’t do that much? Oh, ok. I’ve been more critical all along than you, even though when you say your first duty is to criticize your government, I didn’t hear you on a lot of issues…

As for the Peace Now Settlement Tracker — can we take your bash on me for assuming anything as actually now a *position* from you that you believe this API is one-sided because it ignores East Jerusalem — or more to the point, ignores the violent side of this conflict, which isn’t settlements, but terrorist acts and missile launches? Good!

Oh, no, I haven’t checked you out for the first time, but why engage in detective work, Jillian? Just explain your views. You, Ethan, and Evgeny have taken very morally-comfortable and convenient views — you listen to the nearly-hysterical calls of Arab bloggers not to accept US government aid, or cooperate with State, and to boycott those groups that decide to accept such aid or relationships, you exclaim that their arguments have merits, and then…you put it as a philosophical interogatory, as if that’s all the bases you need to touch, to ensure your Arab street cred and ensure they keep inviting you to meetings at State.

Well, which is it? Can’t you develop a position? You could use email and Twitter to accelerate the process.

No, I reject that concept utterly, as a facile and leftist kneejerking of the “You’re a McArthyite” sort.

I’ll tell you what’s a chill, Jon — what’s a chill is when groups and individuals who espouse violence are accepted into polite company — liberal company that in fact doesn’t support violence — and yet everyone feels it is politically incorrect to call it out.

If you’ve got a refined sense of revulsion to turn on at every occasion and call me “unseemly,” where’s your revulsion for the support of violence!

That’s how we got the truly awful spectacle of Amnesty International refusing to make distinctions about the need to defend Guantanamo victims of torture, yet not disassociate from some of their radical and violent views. This is what prompted the gender advisor of Amnesty International to blow the whistle on the moral slide and ultimately leave AI:

http://3dblogger.typepad.com/ngo_accountability/2010/04/by-human-rights-alone.html

That’s how we get absolutely no one asking the question about why the flotilla supporters could plan and expect and even incite violence, but no one ever questioning their policies:

http://3dblogger.typepad.com/ngo_accountability/2010/06/gaza-flotilla-is-this-a-new-theory-of-direct-action.html

And again, it’s about adopting a principled position: we do not use or advocate violence and we don’t support those who use or advocate violence.

If you want to take the moral cop-out, as Amnesty did, and say “We have a range of views among us including some people who support armed struggle or defensive jihad” — a concept that cloaks violence in some Marxist notion of “a people’s revolutionary struggle,” then fine, that’s ok, do so.

I don’t mind that people take different positions on whether they think violence is legitimate in civil struggles; what I do mind is when they won’t tell the truth about it or duck under whines about McArthyism and “chills” and “singling out groups” as a distraction.

I don’t view that as the “chill” as noted — the real chill is the absolute pall over the entire question of the legitimacy of Palestinian “NGOs” by refusing to grasp this nettle regarding their endorsement of violence.

jillian not sure how to reply to a reply so will just do it here

I’d never strip anyone of agency. I’ll say I agree with the statement about arabs taking funds know what they are doing in the sense that they make their own choices based on their own analysis. they are not being fooled. (though there are situations where they don’t have the full information and some rare cases mostly involving very young people where they are just naive).

so saad el din ibrahim is no fool, he knows very well what he is doing. which includes working with neocons and zionists, making claims like bush’s democratization policy is greatly missed etc.

but he also doesn’t see his interests as being in direct conflict with american ruling class interests. and he hardly has the need to work with people who do.

meh I’m tired of discussing this line anyway. as far as I can see there is no crisis of finance among opposition forces and activists that makes this an important topic. there is no urgency and necisity to it.

Catherine, in reading your comments here and the blog you linked to, you sound like a bitch. Not that you’re wrong in all cases (I agree partly with your take on TED), but you seem to have a serious issue arguing points without making personal attacks.

As someone who is nearly uninvolved in any kind of activism, I enjoy reading the perspectives of those that are, especially thoughtful conversations that focus on the issues instead of the people involved. You apparently think the opposite.

Shut up. You’ve ruined what was a fantastic discussion with some weird viewpoint that regardless of legitimacy, is insulting. YOU are why people think bloggers are crazy. Why Jillian hasn’t blocked you is a mystery to me.

Perhaps you should consider Second Life or one of your seven blogs as a better opportunity to spread your brand of crazy.

Er, Jon, simmer down, read my post again, stop being a bully, and stop being a Google witch-hunter and fisking and frisking in emotional agitation and try to debate the issue on its merits rather than playing fake gotcha games.

Here’s what I’ve written, again:

“Most gravely troubling is something that you are never called out about publicly, and should be. The Berkman Center’s (or is it just you and Ethan as individual) unwillingness to condemn violent movements and terrorists among the bloggers you support is truely unseemly”

And that stands. And it definitely means a public policy, and a principled position, not a claim that there *are* terrorists, but an unwillingness to condemn them *should* they appear. And that’s clear — and that’s because of the “policy of inclusiveness” that Ethan has articulated.

It’s not about “lists,” it’s about a tacit unwillingness not to condemn them when/if/should they appear out of an uneasiness with taking them on, due to what is described by Ethan as a policy of “inclusiveness”.

I think it would be helpful if you look at what originated my concerns about this, which were some rather casual and disturbing remarks from Ethan (and here Jillian will plead that she is completely unrelated to Ethan, uninfluenced, and distinct from Ethan, but I’m not accepting that claim).

Here, on his blog in April, Ethan lets us know that Global Voices has a “more inclusive” policy than another group which he opposes called cyberdissidents.org, which has a position to support what Ethan calls a “subset” of dissidents who are for democracy and for emphatically opposing violence — implying there’s a “super set” that is for violence and against democracy that he in fact is for tolerating. Here’s what he says, regarding his opposition to Keyes:

“…he’s interested in amplifying a subset of middle eastern dissidents who espouse a specific philosophy of democracy, open governance and a rejection of violence, while projects like Global Voices focus on amplifying all voices, taking care that our platform not become a space for incitement to violence.”

[the context for this is parsing the Bush Conference, that caused Zuckerman no small amount of pressure from his Arab friends, and a belief that any group that featured dissidents in the Arab world without their consent would be doing something wrong — a belief that I have to marvel about *on the Internet* promoted by *social media gurus*. Mind you, we’re not talking *copyright* here, something I’m all for respecting more than some of the Berkmanites seem willing to articulate, but that’s not the debate. The debate here is that unless you are politically-correct and an ideologically-like-minded comrade of this or that Arab blogger, you can’t experss support for them, reference their suffering, ask your government to raise their case, etc. I find that completely untenable and in any event, impossible to enforce.]

So here’s what I say in response to Ethan, which I’ll reprint:

As this topic comes up repeatedly, I think it would be good to ponder what your position on violence really is *specifically*.

Your ambivalence here about cyberdissidents helps set up the smear that later Sami Ben Gharabi indulges in, so I think it’s good to revisit this issue in a broader context.

You say:

>specifically, he’s interested in amplifying a subset of middle eastern dissidents who espouse a specific philosophy of democracy, open governance and a rejection of violence, while projects like Global Voices focus on amplifying all voices, taking care that our platform not become a space for incitement to violence. B

Hmmm.

I guess I’m having a problem seeing what’s wrong with David Keyes’ approach. If anything, his approach seems broader to me than the narrow subset of “progressives” and anti-Americans that you select to amplify, while remaining colour blind on the violence issue. But I’m not interested in picking at this or that blogger; I’m interested in hearing your fundamental, principled positions.

So are you saying that Global Voices doesn’t reject violence and doesn’t refrain from promoting undemocratic writers, exactly? Unlike David Keyes, who does feature writers that do promote democracy and reject violence — and for that reason isn’t too your liking and makes you uncomfortable, which you describe as “not being inclusive”.

Are you saying that you are open to “amplifying all voices”, including those that espouse philosophies like armed struggle, or “defensive jihad” as an abstract notion, but that you sort of, on a case by case basis, take a look and see if in fact there isn’t really a call to incitement, as in the Supreme Court test of “incitement to imminent violent action”?

Or…just exactly what *are* you saying?

Are you saying you want to posture and appear more “inclusive” than David Keyes, regarding the set of dissidents you publish (which is “all”), but then you also want the moral luxury of ducking from actually having to confront what it means to be open even to Hamas or Al Qaeda and their supporters?

It seems to me that you are, not only in the name of open spaces and free speech, but in the name of leftist progressive beliefs and opinions, making a tacit support of armed revolutionary struggle or even “terrorism as defensive jihad”.

Could you give us an example of any “incitement to violence” on Global Voices you stopped?

Because that’s the question. The task isn’t for us to go hunting for “terrorists” on GV, the question is to see if you have a moral and articulated policy.

I don’t think you do. I think violence is to be condemned, that there is nothing radical chic or cool about being coy with regard to the jihadists, and posturing around that to enable yourself to keep Arab street cred isn’t defensible.

***

So let’s have it Jon. Do you support the idea of including terrorists and jihadists and those advocating violent struggle among the “amplified voices” on “Global Voices” — or not? The question isnt’ to shake the bushes find them, or claim that I’ve found them, or claim falsely that I’ve said that is what I wish to do — which I haven’t. The question is to debate *the principle* of that matter — that is, if you are capable of reasoning conceptually and abstractly rather than dissolving into Internet gotchas.

As for “feel free to list them there, and then we netfolk can exercise our freedom to decide whether your charges have merit, and whether we indeed associate with them” — I’m going to get out my barf bag for that smarmy phrase “netfolk” that sound like wee faires in the glen. But…I’m not in the blacklisting business, unlike some suprising colleagues who advocate making whitelists and therefore blacklists as a byproduct, but if I do find someone who advocates violence, I strenuously call it out and oppose it as I have in discussions like this one:

http://3dblogger.typepad.com/ngo_accountability/2010/04/by-human-rights-alone.html

But sure, keep trying to goad me into somehow doing something illiberal like making a hit list, instead of debating the principle of the matter, and see if it ultimately doesn’t discredit you.

As for my Wikipedia page, it was created in the first place as part of an assault on my by the 4chan spinoff in Second Life called Woodbury University, and is an act of vandalism. When Wikipedia editors outside the loop even questioned why there even be an entry, the vandals then scurried around trying to drag every publication and translation and organizational affiliation they could find, some of it outdated or inaccurate, to make it appear “authentic,” in order to be able to engage in their real purpose, which was to spout about Woodbury, griefing, and my anticommunist opposition to the open-software movement.

But keep Googling, maybe — because you can’t accept that I have less than an enthusiastic take on the pro-Palestinian movement — you can dredge up the 4chan Encyclopedia Dramatic bit about how I adopted children from Soviet Russia in order to eat them, or how I am being maintained by the CIA in a special half-way housing for the mentally ill near Bellevue. The Internet is a strange and wondrous thing. P.S. I don’t like cats.

I’m not a tortured soul for insisting on the values with which we in the international human rights movement succeeded in our causes 30 years ago, which was not to accept as our colleagues of conscience those who advocated or used violence, in order to make a citizens’ movement that could confront abusive states morally. Indeed, what is tortured is the logic that makes a young person like you hound me for this moral position.

For the love of anything holy, please peddle your crazy somewhere else. You’re making the internet worse.

And the word you’re looking for is hypocrisy, not irony.

How many cats do you own?

let’s try replying here.

I have no answer to your question, it is about very localized US politics which I know nothing about (and frankly don’t interest me at all). thats on a personal level but I think no activists from outside the US should be concerning themselves with these questions either. it’s up to you and other american citizen (including arab and other diasporas).

in fact I think the tainting that happens when you try to reform US foreign policy and aid spending is much more dangerous than the taint from accepting the money or participating in shared projects. you need to sit down and talk to people using twisted US language and logic. you need to argue about terrorism (a word I hardly ever need to use in arabic for instance), find proof for how Pakistanis don’t like drones killing them, discuss how muslim life is not cheap, argue about the role of twitter instead of how people where actually mobilized, act as if clay shirkey matters, treat 3d bloggers as if they exist within the realm of human reason, etc.

this is all an utter waste of time, and once you start you don’t notice how much you get sucked in. live within these debates long enough and you start believing they are the most relevant things ever (and then you end up being hoder, mona al tahawy or saad el din ibrahim). with each step your frame of reference is twisted, the way you view your own world is changed and any local relevance you might have hoped to have is destroyed.

you also loose track of the fact that the US is the enemy. no one would ever suggest taking israeli money to finance activities aiming at democratic reform in Egypt and then pretend that that’s just being smart and subversive using the zionist money to change zionism from inside (well abu mazen and co might say so but who wants to be counted among them).

That’s ‘communism’ … :)

I realize that I’m late coming to this discussion, but as a long-time activist in what used to be called the peace movement, I must point out a couple of things. First, in response to Tyler H. — 40 years ago people *were* aware of conflicts in the Middle East. And any changes in public awareness and knowledge have far less to do with social media than with the growth of human rights organizations (esp Human Rights Watch), plus small but influential institutions like MERIP (publisher of Middle East Report), and new generations of academics (like Juan Cole).

Plus, Tyler should consider exactly how social media — or most any blogger — educates people: by summarizing and linking to old-fashioned articles in mass media publications that pay people to do reporting. (Btw, Malcolm Gladwell, however, is not a reporter. He’s really a blogger w/ a prestigious platform: The New Yorker. He’s does very little if any, investigative research in the style of trained reporters. Instead, he just comments on studies and articles that are already published. As bloggers do.)

Finally, and most importantly, I think we should all remind ourselves that the Obama campaign used activity points to encourage real-world, off-line activism, and to discourage activism that was limited to online activities.

For example, posting a blog earned a person 3 points, but knocking on a door earned a person 10 points. (And, the results of door-to-door canvassing were logged using an online tool, providing another example of the ways the campaign used online technology to further the offline activism that mattered most.)

Rahaf Harfoush explains this in his 2009 book on the campaign’s use of social media, ‘Yes We Did’: “Within MyBO, the mandate was very clear: use the online tools to organize offline action. From the profile that asked you to describe why you supported Obama to the action center that directed users to areas of priority, offline action was constantly reinforced. “

I loved this post until the last two paragraphs. I question whether the U.S. has any room to tell other countries about freedom and oppression given our own internal struggles, and the growing view of America as an imperialist power with its ongoing wars. Tunisia as an example had very little U.S. support in its current revolution, yet used the tools that Gladwell decried. Chinese dissidents survive on the interwebs, without U.S. assistance. Not sure we’re the right country to be injecting policy into the web.

You know, you people are really TOTALLY disingenuous with this “U.S. was silent about Tunisia” meme that Morozov and others are disseminating. If the U.S. *did* speak out in support of Tunisian democracy activists, why, you all would pile on and accuse them of “the kiss of death” and actually harming democracy. So you’re never happy — the U.S. stays out of it, and you call it passive and weak; it speaks out, and you accuse it of harm and hypocrisy. So shame on you, you’re the hypocrites.

Chinese dissidents in fact do get help from the U.S., both government and private, and are glad to have it. They don’t have anything near the squeamishness you lefties do about U.S. aid. After all, it’s not as if this is “Moscow gold” — it’s the money from taxpayers of a liberal democratic state. If you don’t think the U.S. is a liberal democratic state, then you apparently don’t travel abroad much to other parts of the world.

Imperialist power? Please. These ongoing wars are more a sign of waning influence and weakness than they are of “growing imperialism” — precisely because they are ongoing. And as usual, you who rush with your microscopes to America’s sins and remain grossly negligent about the sins of Iran and others who support terrorism — and the Taliban and the terrorists themselves! — you really have no plan that anyone can back rationally. You have no plan for the terrorists, who will come for you next even if you succeed in making a lovely lefty transnational world government — or whatever it is you’re trying to make in approximation.

The U.S. is silent about a lot of things — Egypt, China, Russia, and only occasionally has Hillary Clinton speak out in contrast to Obama’s silence. This is a conscious policy, and has been since Obama’s Cairo speech. The USG does a lot of quiet diplomacy, and they pursue various strategies they think they will work, i.e. promoting Tunisia’s relative democracy by contrast with other Middle Eastern regimes, which of course, sets them up to look stupid, just as backing Gorbachev looked stupid when Yeltsin came along. Perestroika is seldom a solution.

I’ll tell you what. I’m waiting with utter fascination to see how these male bloggers coming to power now are going to come out on the question of women’s rights and other civil rights. And I’m waiting to see if they are merely a weak provisional government for a time before Islamic fundamentalists take over that they had trouble keeping out. As you all do. Maybe this time will be different — we’ll see.

Excuse me right back at you, Jillian. I’m not applauding U.S. policy on Tunisia — something I’ve never done — I’m merely *explaining it* as in *their eyes* something that somehow rewarded one regime they thought was more democratic by praising it overly to contrast it with regimes that were worse. We’ve all seen Hillary land in Tunisia and do this, and frankly, we’ve seen some of your WSIS friends land in Tunisia and do the same thing. And as I clearly stated above, this sort of uncritical support is like support for Gorbachev and perestroika — it’s supporting something that in fact isn’t liberal and in fact won’t last because it’s an imitation. So that was clear, and you’re nasty comment here is unwarranted, as per usual.

I used to work for Committee to Protect Journalists, and then as now, there was always a very strong protest against the suppression of Tunisian bloggers. And that’s the right thing to do, but nothing says that just because a blogger is under fire that we don’t get to comment on the possible negative sides of his politics. In fact, we will never see any better politics unless we *are* free to comment openly on some of the questionable aspects of the Arab dissident world.
For example, I’m able to condemn outrageous Chechen terrorists at the Moscow metro or airport; I’m able to criticize morality police in Chechnya, yet I’m also able to criticize the Kremlin’s policies in the Caucasus and Kadirov’s brutal rule. I *can* walk and chew gum at the same time! Can you?!

My “prejudices” are nothing of the sort. They’re based on ample evidence of how revolutions turn out, and they are absolutely legitimate questions to be asking.

We all know about Tunisia, now, Jillian, thanks to social media. We *all* have more information Tunisia than we know what to do with, and yes, we all get to discuss it, and yes, we all get to ask questions and debate it. Er, that’s what Internet freedom is all about, you know?

So you’re not special. Does that challenge you profoundly? I hope so. That’s what social media is supposed to be: disruptive to institutions and experts (like the Harvard Berkman Center, for example). Good!

I’ve seen too many revolutions in too many parts of the world run by male dissidents who turn out on the next day to suppress women’s rights not to speak out. And I’m right to do that, and you’re shameful in your silly attempts to discredit me merely for saying what needs to be said. And what you’d be saying, too, if you were about human rights, and not revolution.

BTW, I made the same point in a discussion at NYU last night with Gabriella Coleman, who was touting the wonders of 4chan Anonymous hacksters DDOSing Tunisian government sites and singing the praises of the Tunisian revolution. I said I will be tuning in after the dust settles to see how these male dissidents do with females and with civil rights in general for those who don’t think as they do — that’s always the test. And she looked shocked at my challenge, because she was imagining that everything was going to be wonderful in Tunisia, too. The journalist John Hockenberry made a comment that it was important for journalists to follow up and keep watching how it turns out precisely because of these kinds of concerns. But I guess it’s ok for credentialed male journalists to say this, and not uncredentialed female bloggers.

As I’ve said before if it weren’t for these social media platforms I’m not sure this Arab spring would even be occurring.