Only now do I understand why a former colleague in Morocco, upon arriving there from Cairo, felt Moroccan cities to be provincial.  Cairo, on the other hand, is anything but.

I just returned on Sunday from one all-too-short week in Cairo.  I was there for Yahoo!’s Change Your World Summit, an event that brought together women

An ad agency uses revolutionary symbolism to promote Egyptian tourism

from Egypt and around the region, to speak about online safety, but stayed for a few (too few, really) days extra, in order to meet with activists, organizations, and of course, friends.

My interest in Egypt stems from the bloggers and activists I’ve met over the years who come from there.  Prior to and during the revolution, they were my lens into Cairo, and on January 25, 2011, when nearly all of them took to the streets, I did my best to support them from my perch in Cambridge, repeating their words from Twitter and phone calls and redirecting media in their direction whenever possible.  But beyond the story of the Egyptian Internet (about which I have some authority), I am no expert, a fact made all the more apparent by my first visit to the country last week.

First Impressions

If at any point I sound orientalist or naive, allow me to explain: Most of my time in the region has been spent in its less-developed cities and countries.  My point of comparison is not Beirut but Meknés; I therefore live each new experience shadowed by my years in Morocco, my point of comparison for the region as if it were my homeland.

I was utterly impressed everywhere I stepped by the utter vibrancy of Cairo.  The graffiti that graced the walls and buildings of Zamalek and downtown that–as my friends pointed out–didn’t exist before the revolution, has become a multi-layered narrative at points: in one spot, a tank–once just a tank–is now crushing protesters; added to that a crowd of Egyptians waving their flags.  The cafés and bars of the city’s centers vary from old and smoky to fresh, modern (and smoky) but are visited by both men and women, often in fairly equal numbers.

Before traveling, friends–many of whom had been to both Morocco and Egypt–warned me in numbers of Cairo’s street harassment, its untiring vendors, its poverty.  The latter I only witnessed briefly, in drives through the city, and therefore cannot comment.  But as for the rest, I fear Cairo’s reputation is at least somewhat unearned.

I asked an American friend who has lived in Cairo for a few years if the lack of harassment I experienced was a side effect of the revolution. She said that she’d never felt unsafe, had never been sexually harassed on the city’s streets.  Another friend, a native Egyptian who’d spent much of her life abroad said she had, but that it’s not as bad as foreigners are lead to believe.  “And anyway, they’re scared of us now,” she explained, referring to the women’s marches that had taken place throughout the year.

The vendors and faux guides were another story: On Friday, I went to the pyramids alone in the afternoon, knowing that the day of prayer would minimize traffic in Giza.  I hadn’t even arrived when the harassment started.  Men would approach the taxi, lean in, and tell me “The pyramids are closed today, ma’am, but I’ll take you to a shop” or “I work at the pyramids, you can pay me as your guide.”  Some had fake ID cards.  I pity the silly foreigners who don’t read ahead.  After purchasing my ticket and heading inside, I expected things to get better, but in fact, they quickly got worse.  Young men with postcards and trinkets bombarded me with attention, while more “guides” attempted to sell me their services for a “mere 200 pounds.”  Harassed, and exhausted, I quickly made my way behind the first pyramid to stage a photo and snare my prey…

Having lived in Morocco for several years, I’m no newbie, and so whipped out a timeless old strategy.  I cannot, of course, divulge, but let’s just say it involves finding the oldest male guide you can, faking a certain identity, and paying him the most you’re willing to shell out, in exchange for him giving you a decent tour and…most importantly, warding off the rest of the harassment.  It worked – $20 and a small bottle of perfume from his “friend’s” shop later, I was on my way back home complete with a memory card full of photos.

Graffiti in Zamalek depicting Alaa Abd El Fattah (and the "#nomiltrials" symbol)

My guide wasn’t too forthcoming with his political opinions but after a decent amount of conversation, I was able to discern that he was simultaneously happy about the ouster of Mubarak and wary of the continued protests.  I asked him about the old regime; “if you had three horses and three children and had to choose which to feed, what would you do?” he responded, elaborating on the corruption of the Mubaraks.  “But,” he added, “the shabab need to give it time.”

Aside from the guide, a few cab drivers, and my hotel staff, however, my interactions were limited to the Twitterati.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, of course: I was fascinated to hear, over beers, the intricacies in differing opinions between this and that group.  And aside from that, of course, it was wonderful to finally meet so many of the people I’ve interacted with – some since January 25, and some long before.

I only wish I’d had more time: time enough to observe the protests, time enough to see if my friends’ predictions were to come true…but alas, work calls, and I’m grateful for the bit of time I did get to spend in um al-dunya.

The Revolution Continues

There were plenty of other elements to my trip, and not all are fit for print.  Those that are–namely, those pertaining to the days leading up to today, the anniversary of the revolution–I have been unable to fit into the above narrative and will therefore lay out in bullet points; forgive me.

• Kazeboun, or “liars,” is a campaign whereby activists, armed with a projector and a screen, take up public spaces to show videos made for and about the revolution.  Many of my friends and acquaintances (several of whom do not, contrary to my own pre-formed beliefs, know each other) spoke highly of these efforts, and had taken part in them.  The Daily News Egypt has a short descriptive piece about Kazeboun here, noting how the project “implicitly highlights the importance of public space and its usage to voice political dissent.”
• Journalism: As an observer for the past year, I’ve been very curious as to how Egyptians have perceived the foreign media’s coverage of the revolution.  And while this subject, frankly, deserves its own blog post, I was surprised to learn that aside from the old establishment (Friedman and his outlet in particular), the American media seems to have done a fair job in representing public opinion–contrast that with Syria, for example.  Of course, there are plenty of instances deserving of criticism, but I was a bit surprised that the American media wasn’t the butt of more jokes.
• The Mosireen collective, which I had the pleasure of visiting, has a great space that’s open most days from noon until 10pm.  Though I dropped by when it was empty, the collective offers training, technical support, film screenings, and even lends out equipment to would-be filmmakers.  Their YouTube channel, I was reminded repeatedly during my visit, is among the top 5 of Egyptian NGOs and has received more than 2 million hits since its inception.
• The release of blogger Maikel Nabil, which happened today, was an interesting point of discussion.  I was with a number of people on Saturday night
  

  A mural memorializing January 25

  when it was first announced, and their views were largely skeptical–as in, “the military is only doing this to look good.”  This sentiment is what I’ve seen echoed all day on Twitter.  Throughout the past ten months of Nabil’s detention, I’ve had a number of private conversations about how the blogger has received little support compared to others because of his pro-Israel views; though that is apparently true, there are a number of people who’ve been fighting hard for his release, as well as the release of others subject to military trials this past year.

• The question of protest.  I arrived on a Tuesday and spent Wednesday asking people what they thought was going to happen on Friday.  Most said nothing, or that they were not personally going to Tahrir until the 23rd, but nevertheless, Friday actually had considerable turnout.  I spent the 23rd on a plane, and so was unable to follow along with tweets as I usually do, but am keeping my friends–the vast majority of whom planned to hit the streets tomorrow–close in my mind today.

Before I take on the task of rebutting some of the arguments in Mueller’s posts–which, by the way, I agree with in large part–I should note my own biases, for the sake of discussion. First, I have been amongst the throngs shouting opposition to the surveillance-industrial-complex. I have been doing it for about three years, while all the while not taking a particularly strong position toward any of the proposed solutions. Second, I largely oppose regulation of this industry by the United States government. This is for several reasons, but in a nutshell: I don’t trust them. If you require more detail, read this piece I wrote about it. Third, I think a lot of the current discussion/advocacy about this topic is unfocused and chaotic, which is a failure on our part. Though I have–along with other folks at some of the top human and digital rights organizations–coordinated a series of calls on the matter, it is admittedly a messy and complicated subject, and we don’t all agree on the solutions, which lends chaos to an already-chaotic situation.

Now, Mueller’s posts. The first, published on December 20 and entitled “Technology as symbol: Is resistance to surveillance technology being misdirected?“, starts strong with the premise that the movement against the sale of surveillance tech to repressive regimes–which Mueller applauds for both its publicizing of the issue and its awareness-raising of similar issues in democratic countries–has oversimplified the fight against the regimes using such technology, replacing the target (authoritarian regimes) with another, easier target (makers of the aforementioned technology).

As Mueller rightly points out, “It seems obvious, but gets lost in the shuffle: the problem lies in the users and uses of the technology, not in the equipment or software itself.” He continues, remarking that “this is not, at root, a problem of governments having or not having a specific device or piece of software. It is an institutional problem – one of balancing and routinizing social processes in ways that effectively limit, regulate and distribute political power and hold those who exercise it accountable.”

There is nothing disagreeable in either point, and it can certainly be said that some of the actors advocating for regulation in this space have focused heavily on certain regimes (Syria, Egypt, Libya) whilst turning a half-blind eye to the uses of surveillance technology in the United States, the UK, and other nations with the rule of law. Nonetheless, I would argue that the organizations leading the charge on this issue have been fairly even-handed, attacking restrictions on free expression in democratic and authoritarian countries alike.

Mueller then derides the call for regulation of surveillance technology, stating: “The problem with this approach is that information technology, unlike bombs or tanks, is fundamentally multi-purpose in nature.” On this point, I once again must agree. EFF has consistently chosen not to advocate for regulation of sales (by governments) for the same reason, opting instead to push for regulation at the corporate level and issuing a set of recommendations for companies wishing to do so.

Mueller also points out, as I have before:

Thus, there is little appreciation of the extent to which export controls and other restrictions might retard the overall diffusion and development of information and communication technology, cut off access to good people and good uses as well as bad ones, or restrict our own freedom to use the technology as and how we see fit.

Since I agree with Mueller on this, it’s worthwhile to put forth some of the counter-arguments. Essentially, those who argue for regulations tend to favor a licensing-style of such, in which companies must apply for licenses before being allowed to export their wares to a foreign government (or, in some variations, a foreign government on a particular list of “Internet-restricting countries”). This echoes the current sanctions placed on Cuba, Syria, Sudan, North Korea, and Iran to various degrees. Being well-versed in the regulations on Syria, what this means is that a company–such as Google–must apply for a license before it can release a product (either for sale or for download) in the country. Companies that fail to apply for a license but still make their product available can face severe penalties; violating the Commerce Department’s export controls on Syria, for example, can result in 20 years imprisonment and/or a $1 million fine. This, of course, has a chilling effect for Syrians, as many companies with limited resources find it not worthwhile to apply for the license and restrict their products from the country. Incidentally, EFF has also called for revision of export controls.

In the latter variation, as I mentioned, regulation would be restricted to “Internet-restricting countries,” a punishment for countries that block websites from their citizens’ view. This type of regulation has been presented before, multiple times, as the Global Online Freedom Act (for a timeless criticism of an earlier version of the bill, see Rebecca MacKinnon). The problems with such an approach should be, but somehow aren’t, obvious. First, a question: who creates the list of “good” and “bad” countries? Bahrain, a close ally of the United States, pervasively censors the Internet…would it make it on the “bad” list and would sanctions be levied thus? And even if the list were fair and just, what happens when such technology gets regulated? Do citizens of the “bad” countries suffer like Syrians have for years due to labyrinthine bureaucracy and poorly-worded export regs?

The primary concern about regulations should be, however, that they will do extremely little to curb the sale of surveillance tech. What happens when Cisco refuses to sell to Iran? Huawei steps in. And don’t forget all of those companies that have surreptitiously been selling to embargoed countries all along, such as American company BlueCoat to Syria and Israeli company Allot to Iran.

This is the point at which Mueller’s first post starts to annoy me. After his righteous concerns about export regulation are expressed, he goes on to throw up a giant straw man, advising advocates to “Stop focusing narrowly on information technology, and examine the tools of repression and aggression more generically,” and raising examples such as US arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Okay, so perhaps this is not exactly a straw man, but if–as Mueller seems to imply in his second post–his arguments are directed at activists and human rights organizations, rather than say, politicians and journalists, then this is simply unfair. The individual activists taking on this issue–many of whom, I’ve observed, live in the countries where such spyware is being sold–are surely not putting the technology before the arms. And as for the organizations, they’re either semi-single-issue (why would EFF talk about gun sales?) or have been holistically focused, tackling the gamut of human rights abuses, from surveillance to military repression. (I would also add here that current export restrictions on the aforementioned five countries include arms and airplane parts).

The second major argument in the first post is presented next. Mueller criticizes some of the advocacy around the sale of certain products, asking: “If you can blame a video surveillance camera for its misuse by repugnant governments, and argue for blocking the movement of those goods, what about integrated circuits, copper wires and lenses that go into them? What about the plastic housings? What about the shipping services that transported the material there?”

Now, if Mueller’s target here is those calling for regulation, I’m with him all the way. But if we’re talking about targeting companies, if we’re working on naming-and-shaming, then I do believe in a strategy of going after companies for their sale of complete products to governments, when the company has credible concern that the product will be used to commit human rights abuses. The vast majority of highly-publicized cases this year have involved the sale of complete systems to decidedly human-rights-abusing regimes like Libya, China, and Syria. I do see a moral obligation in calling out Cisco for its complicity in the Communist Party’s harassment of bloggers. I do see a moral obligation in calling out BlueCoat for its “oh noes, the embargoes!” response to the news that its products were sold to the Syrian regime (in the end, it turned out that BlueCoat was tracking the devices and was aware of their location, even if the sale was not intentional).

But alas, Mueller was talking about the would-be regulators, and therefore I agree:

If you really want to punish, isolate and sanitize your relationship to a repressive government, you cannot limit the sanctions to specific forms of ICT. There must be a comprehensive system of sanctions that prevents anyone in that country from doing any kind of business with the country involved. Even then, the regime may not change; think of North Korea. Even then, there will be leaks or route-arounds.

But then he concludes:

But activists concerned with real social change must think through this problem more deeply, and come up with strategies that strike more directly at the pillars of authoritarianism, censorship and arbitrary power, rather than lashing out at easy domestic targets.

This is why I accused him (a point he’ll refute in post 2) of taking cheap shots at activists. The assumption here is that those involved aren’t thinking about this problem more deeply, aren’t fighting these regimes from multiple angles. And as I wrote in my accusation, if Mueller’s target here is the journalists and the politicians whose shallow thinking culminates in the conclusion that Cisco is the the real enemy, then I digress. But if it’s the activists (again, many of whom are Egyptian, and Syrian, and Chinese), then I say “meh.”

Since Mueller’s second post starts with a refutation of something I said, I feel obliged to point something out. When Evgeny Morozov’s excellent Net Delusion was released this year, it was dismissed by some who felt that the use of the term “delusion” didn’t apply: after all, hadn’t Egyptians just toppled a dictator with the help of social media? I loved Morozov’s book, and so a point that irritated me throughout readings of both critiques of the book and reads through the man’s own columns was the idea that the main target of his arguments against “cyberutopians” were a very narrow subset of the population: namely, those working in the State Department, or even more specifically, Jared Cohen sycophants.

Mueller’s posts thus strike me the same way: Just as he claims his first post “hit a nerve” with advocates (presumably meaning me, since my comment is in the next line), he then goes on once again to target not the advocates but the journalists. And that’s the thing: Mueller’s arguments are largely ones that I agree with (read: no nerves were hit), but the presumed target is off: his real beef seems to be with the journalists who have kept this story going all year. And in a sense, I get it: after all, we digital rights advocates feed off the news reports, and no doubt we wouldn’t have been so loud on the topic were it not for their reporting. If anything, that’s a call for a more tempered approach (which is part of, I assume, Mueller’s point).

In any case, I have no real problems with the second post. Like Mueller, EFF recognized that the reporting on Israeli company Allot’s sale of their NetEnforcer product to an Iranian ISP was a bit overblown. In fact, the story should have served an even better lesson: Sanctions don’t work. But alas, it did not, for most.

Ultimately, as Mueller reiterates near the end of post #2, the problem with the movement (again, lead in large part by journalists, not advocates), is the transfer of target from regime to corporation:

Western corporations and their shareholders do have a moral obligation to refrain from actively pursuing business opportunities with dictatorships when those opportunities involve supplying products and services specifically designed to aid their crimes and repression. But very few technologies are constructed so as to be only usable for crime and repression.

Post-Script: I wrote this a bit stream-of-consciousness, so if in any way I appear to contradict myself, feel free to point out in the comments. Second, I would note that while I see very different targets in journalists vs. advocates, Mueller does not appear to at numerous points, including journalists in “the movement.” In a sense (as I hinted at above), this is fair, for journalists inform advocates on these topics. In another sense, it feels odd to include the supposedly neutral (though I obviously don’t believe that rubbish) journalist in the makeup of a movement such as this one. But again, therein lies the problem, Mueller might posit: the journalists are establishing a certain policy narrative.

I welcome your comments, discussion, debate, etc, below. Just don’t be an asshole and subtweet me. You know who you are.

courtesy of WashingtonsBlog

…in case you’re not convinced as to why we shouldn’t trust the US government on this one.

Photo by @donatelladr

On Sunday, Alaa’s detention was extended by another 15 days. At this point, the United Nations, Amnesty International, and countless other advocacy groups (including the EFF) have called for the release of Alaa, as well as others unjustly imprisoned by Egypt’s ruling military council. There are also numerous groups in the US and Europe actively pressuring governments to use their weight to ensure their release.

I continue to be angered, as well as disheartened, by the US government’s lack of action. I have no doubt that the State Department is working behind the scenes on this, as they do on many things, but with Clinton making public statements about opposing “conditionality” of aid to Egypt, State’s background work is, frankly, useless. Furthermore, if backdoor attempts are focused entirely on Alaa, and not on the bigger picture, then they’re going entirely against everything he stands for.

Congress needs to be pressured at this point for any real action (read: withdrawal of funding for the Egyptian military), and while I know some folks are working on this, we need to speak out louder. We, as individuals, need to start calling our representatives.
Once again, some links:

• Translation of Alaa’s latest letter from prison.
• A piece from Mina Naguib on Egypt’s “forgotten blogger” and the broader free expression picture.
• Sokari of Blacklooks has written a great piece.
• …as has Alia Mossalam, whose piece contains this particularly beautiful set of paragraphs which I just have to share:

Look who you’ve grown into ya Alaa :)

While ‘just being good’ is what drives Alaa to be brave; what drives me , certainly is being surrounded by family and friends and the bubble of trueness of intent that they create. I’ve been lucky these last 6 years as my life has been a constant production and reproduction and affirmation and reaffirmation, that all that is ideal can be real, and all that is good is possible and all around us.

I cannot begin to describe what it means to be in a revolution with your husband, your brother, your father, your mother, your aunt, your cousins. Death shrinks in insignificance. And the risks you take you internalize, and they become you, and part of all your lives. Needless to say, bravery, legitimacy, protest, chanting, revolution it all, all becomes about love. All the love you’ve ever felt or wanted to feel floats out of you and binds us all as ‘us’.

I can’t begin to imagine that Khaled has been conceived of this :) And that he will be born into a world of ideals, the best time of our lives, where all our focus and all our energies are focused unto being good, and proving that this IS a world where we will be.

A recent photo of Alaa and Manal with Ahmed Omran and Yazan Badran (my own photo, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Alaa and his wife Manal, and their soon-to-be son, Khaled (named, of course, for Khaled Said) have been in my mind every day these past ten days.  It so happens that I’ll be in Cairo around the time of his due date, and thus have been preparing some gifts, each purchase reminding me of their friendship, and my excitement for the birth of their child…which Alaa may not get to witness.  Last night when I came home, Anas gave me the gift Alaa had brought me from Cairo when he was here last month–I’d been traveling and thus hadn’t seen it yet–and was again reminded of the kindness of my friend who has never hesitated to spare a moment for advice, or to educate me about the Egyptian revolution, or to be an open ear for whatever existential crisis was happening that day.

I suspect that anything I write here will be speaking to the choir. I suspect that if I told you that SCAF has hijacked the revolution and doesn’t give a damn about free expression, or that the US government’s $1.9 billion per year funding of the Egyptian military is despicable, you would agree. I suspect that if I told you how much it hurts to see someone as amazing an activist, husband, and soon-to-be father as Alaa behind bars, again, for speaking his mind, you would sympathize.

Therefore, there is little new to say. I am writing this not, then, to say something new, but to keep you from forgetting…about Alaa, about Maikel Nabil Sanad, about the other Egyptian activists, journalists, and bloggers who are wrongly imprisoned, wrongly convicted, and wrongly accused.

On the other hand, if you have stumbled upon this blog post with no idea who Alaa is, then rest assured: His family, his friends,

image of Manal Hassan by monasosh on flickr (CC BY 2.0)

his wife, have said all there is to be said. He has used his own words, from behind bars, to tell us what he’s going through. All of that, and a little bit more, is at your fingertips:

• Alaa’s first letter from prison (English translation)
• Alaa’s second letter from prison (English translation)
• A letter from Alaa’s sister, Mona (Arabic)
• English coverage of Alaa’s mother’s hunger strike

And if you want to take action, you have choices.  Access Now has a campaign aimed at the US government’s funding of the Egyptian military.  The ‘No to Military Trials’ campaign has online actions scheduled for tomorrow, November 9.

Edited to add:

The No Military Trials campaign is holding an international day of solidarity on November 12.  They have more information on other solidarity efforts here.

Last week, Alaa Abd El Fattah was staying at my house, playing with all of the toys and things (and the enormous all-terrain stroller he’s taken to referring to as Khaled’s SUV) he and his wife, Manal had sent to our house and today he’s in prison.

When he arrived at my house last Monday, the news had just broke in Egypt–while he was on the plane–that he was going to be interrogated.  Some asshole had uploaded a video of him from October 9, the day of the Maspero massacre, claiming that Alaa had incited violence. Despite that and the requisite nervous phone calls, he managed to explore the city, sharing his knowledge with Occupy Oakland demonstrators and hanging out with us in the Mission, on top of–of course–his participation in the Silicon Valley Human Rights Summit.

From the details I’ve managed to piece together so far, he went in this morning for the interrogation, refused to answer the military’s questions, refused to grant them legitimacy, and was thus detained for 15 days.  At this point, I’d like to provide a reminder that the Egyptian military, which has tried more than 12,000 civilians since January, has received approximately $1.9 billion of US taxpayer money since 1979.  This is, obviously, unacceptable.

I’ve wanted to be hopeful for Egypt.   Alaa has been hopeful for Egypt, despite his intimate knowledge of the system.  Right now, I feel helpless.

What I want–in solidarity with my Egyptian friends–is an end to emergency law and an end to military trials in Egypt.  This is not justice, this is not democracy.  This is not different from the Mubarak dictatorship.  This is not okay.

Latuff's depiction of the martyr Khaled Said

Brazilian activist cartoonist Carlos Latuff, whose work has been regularly featured on Global Voices, particularly throughout the ‘Arab Spring,’ starts the Brazilian panel thanking his country for “bringing Latin America here,” stating that Brazil tends to turn its back on the rest of Latin America.

“In the Arab Spring,” says Latuff, “I’ve used Twitter heavily to communicate with people in Egypt. It was great getting to know [fellow conference attendee Ahmed Bahgat]. Most people in Brazil don’t even know what SCAF [Egypt's Supreme Council of Armed Forces] is.” Latuff then thanks Bahgat for attending, in English.

One of Latuff's inspirational cartoons

“Twitter, just like Facebook, is an instrument or a tool, just like the Internet is just a tool, just like a Molotov cocktail or a mobile phone is a tool – and people use the Internet to accomplish their goals. In 1996, I was sending drawings by fax to Mexico, in 1999 I was in Palestine, which was my defining experience; from then until today, I’ve worked mostly on Palestine. And with the advent of Twitter, something incredible happened: When the protests in Tunisia exploded and when Ben Ali was taken out of office, the people there asked for drawings, but Ben Ali had already fallen.”

One cartoon depicts Mubarak being shot down by lightning

“People in Palestine contacted me before the protests in Egypt and requested I draw cartoons for them. I was afraid that the Egyptian authorities were going to kill them all. But on the 25th, protests began, and the cartoons I had drawn were often printed and shared during protests. It gave me the confidence that I was producing artwork that has relevance for people. This is what leaves me the happiest as an artist.”

“People say I’m an activist and not a cartoonist, as if those things couldn’t come together,” says Latuff. “I don’t care about being promoted as an artist – even if people removed my name, I’d still be happy. I’m not interested in money; anyone can reproduce my cartoons.”

“I have 50,000 Twitter followers, and many of them are from Egypt. No one knows me in Brazil; it’s amazing how many Egyptian press interviews I’ve done,” says the cartoonist. “To me, this is amazing.”

Note: Latuff’s talk simultaneously translated from Portuguese, and thus quotes are imperfect.

A solidarity march for Morocco's #feb20 or #fev20 movement in Boston

A photo of a protest sign (presumably) taken in Egypt

An Occupy Wall Street protester (from the Boston Globe)

A Libya t-shirt utilizes Feb 17, popularized by the hashtag

This tattoo apparently belongs to @ClinicEscort

Photo of #jan25 T-shirts by 0oshi on Flickr

Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff has popularized hashtag imagery in his art

Sami Ben Gharbia wears a SidiBouzid t-shirt on Al Jazeera

From a Paris protest in January, by kaïs miled on Flickr

Anti-SCAF street art in Cairo, photographed by Hossam Hamalawy

If you have any other excellent examples (particularly from Syria), do send them my way.

Though some of my speaking is publicly streamed or otherwise covered, much of it isn’t, and so I figure that, from now on, I’ll attempt to do a better job of accounting for my away time. Whenever possible, I’ll continue to liveblog, though most of my recent travels have unfortunately included pathetic Internet connections, making that frustrating at best, impossible at worst.

M100 Sanssouci Colloquium, Potsdam

The M100 Sanssouci Colloquium is in its seventh year. Designed for cross-cultural dialogue and held in the beautiful UNESCO heritage site of Potsdam’s Sanssouci Gardens, the colloquium attracts top German and international journalists, as well as observers from the area.

This year’s subject was, unsurprisingly, lessons from the ‘Arab Spring,’ and included a variety of speakers from Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere in the region in addition to international speakers such as myself. I’m afraid that, two weeks out, my notes aren’t particularly good, but stuck in my memory are the words of Fathy Abou Hatab of Al Masry Al Youm (“Egypt Today”). In a speech on his paper’s move to digital, Hatab said, “I didn’t realize until recently that the plural of media was medium; what really matters in respect to media is the medium.” He then went on to share his experience in Tahrir Square, calling it “one big social network,” and noting the importance of connectivity amongst people for changing the media landscape.

Also notable was the awards ceremony in which Chinese journalist Michael Anti was honored (press release here). Anti gave a brief speech in which he talked about his own reasons for fighting for free expression, noting that companies entering China (or other authoritarian countries) should “always stick to [their] values.”

Open Video Conference

At my first-ever Open Video Conference, I was fortunate to be invited as the keynote speaker on the first day, to discuss the role of video in the ‘Arab Spring.’ I’m secretly hoping there’s no video of my talk, because I said “um” more than usual (I was horrifically jet-lagged, having spent only 36 hours in Germany and arrived in NYC the night before), but I’ve uploaded my slides (which include ample video, that seems to only work if you download the presentation) for sharing.

I started by showing a series of iconic videos, videos that I remember either from youth or from seeing them on retrospectives. From the Kennedy assassination to the Challenger explosion to the YouTube post seen ’round the world, the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, video is seared into our memory, becoming iconic.

This weekend marks the 29th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon, an horrific event perpetrated against Palestinians by Lebanese Phalangists and overseen by the Israeli Defense Forces, in which a minimum of 328 people were murdered (various sources put the number as low as 328 and as high as 5,000).

Like the Hama massacre of that same year, it is an event of which I am grateful video does not exist, but it is also an event which seems to have largely slipped out of international public memory (an interesting piece on that). On the other hand, and particularly with the advent of YouTube and citizen video more generally, we are able to relive again and again the events that haunted our youth, as well as those that we never saw; we’re also now able to witness events that we never would have seen otherwise: the excitement of Tahrir Square, the desperation of protests in Bahrain, the brutal murders of Syrian opposition.

I argue that the sheer act of witnessing is wherein the power of video lies, an argument that organizations like WITNESS are well aware of (their report, Cameras Everywhere, which I’ll be blogging about this week, is a must-read).

Witnessing may not always have immediately apparent effects — in other words, lives may not be spared in the short term — but I predict that our loss of innocence, our ability to step outside of our sheltered American lives, will have lasting effects in the next generation.

Sifting Facts From Fiction: The Role of Social Media in Conflict

Last but not least, I spoke at the US Institute of Peace, in their beautiful new dove-adorned DC building, on the role of social media in conflict. The third meeting to accompany the Blogs & Bullets initiative and corresponding paper, this event contained several panels in which the paper’s authors, as well as folks like Andy Carvin and Sultan Al Qassemi, discussed the role of social media in the ‘Arab Spring.’ It was particularly interesting to see how our views have changed (or not) since the first meeting in August 2010, several months prior to the onset of the region’s uprisings.

I was on the last panel, and seated between GWU Professor Marc Lynch (aka Abu Aardvark) and Alec Ross, with Clay Shirky coming through the audio waves. Our segment mainly focused on those “newly empowered at the edge of the network” (as Ross so aptly put it), with thoughts on how those voices should be leveraged, listened to, and conversed with.

As you all probably know, I have complicated feelings about the role of government (any, but with an emphasis on my own) in all of this. And so, when first question (“how should we harness this?”) was posed to me, I couldn’t help but point out that I was the outsider on the panel, and that I continue to be surprised when I’m invited to events like these (Lynch and our moderator, USIP director Sheldon Himelfarb, responded by saying that’s exactly what I was invited). I then went on to say that there’s a real risk of marginalizing voices; that while the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia have shifted the balance of power, that balance is still incredibly lacking online. We hear the voices of Egyptian elites, but there are entire swaths of voices that we ignore, and that in doing so, we risk further exacerbating conflict, rather than reaching a point of real discussion. In other words, I talked about Palestine without talking about Palestine.

We also discussed the value of testimony, in parallel to my talk at OVC, with Lynch noting that “testimonies have value on their own,” and that hearing them isn’t always about changing the course of things, or intervening in foreign conflict. Shirky added that “local documentation matters,” a point that explains in a nutshell why organizations like Global Voices even exist, as well as why the work that Andy Carvin is doing is so important. Ross tackled the question of whether the State Department’s ask to Twitter (to temporarily hold off servicing their equipment) in 2009 was a good thing (“It was,” he said, “and it wasn’t a ‘decision’ so much as Jared Cohen just making a call without following processes”), and we all hit on points about whether propaganda still works (“traditional propaganda is toothless,” said Ross, while we all agreed that nonetheless, propaganda on social networks can have silencing effects).

Lastly, Shirky made some excellent points about the so-called global zeitgeist; “People are self-consciously referencing Tunisia and Egypt,” he said, calling this current moment a time of “psychological synchronization” and positing that “events will add up to a greater whole.” This brought forth the question of whether young people — my generation, really — sees itself as different, with Shirky asking, “To what degree do the people using these tools see themselves as part of a global generation?”

Interestingly, that’s an issue I’ve been hoping to tackle for a long time in my writing, but which I’d held off for lack of a strong framework. In light of Shirky’s comments, perhaps I’ll delve into it soon!

-marginalization (my own experience +)
-the role of research
-the proof in the framework (http://whimsley.typepad.com/whimsley/2011/03/blogs-and-bullets-breaking-down-social-media.html)

What’s so key about Rebecca’s talk (and perspective) is her emphasis on building “consent of the networked” (also the title of her forthcoming book), and urging citizen awareness of the issues. Watch.