Sandmonkey's Last Post

The Egyptian Blogger Sandmonkey was arrested by Egyptian state forces earlier hour this morning. The officers who answered his phone when his father called also threatened to arrest his father as well. Shortly after this his blog was taken off-line, but fortunately some people had mirrored his last post and I'm posting it here as well, we pray he's alright.:

SandMoney - Egypt, right now!

Thursday, 3 Feb 2011

Egypt, right now!

I don't know how to start writing this. I have been battling fatigue for not sleeping properly for the past 10 days, moving from one's friend house to another friend's house, almost never spending a night in my home, facing a very well funded and well organized ruthless regime that views me as nothing but an annoying bug that its time to squash will come. The situation here is bleak to say the least.

It didn't start out that way. On Tuesday Jan 25 it all started peacefully, and against all odds, we succeeded to gather hundreds of thousands and get them into Tahrir Square, despite being attacked by Anti-Riot Police who are using sticks, tear gas and rubber bullets against us. We managed to break all of their barricades and situated ourselves in Tahrir. The government responded by shutting down all cell communication in Tahrir square, a move which purpose was understood later when after midnight they went in with all of their might and attacked the protesters and evacuated the Square. The next day we were back at it again, and the day after. Then came Friday and we braved their communication blackout, their thugs, their tear gas and their bullets and we retook the square. We have been fighting to keep it ever since.

That night the government announced a military curfew, which kept getting shorter by the day, until it became from 8 am to 3 pm. People couldn't go to work, gas was running out quickly and so were essential goods and money, since the banks were not allowed to operate and people were not able to collect their salary. The internet continued to be blocked, which affected all businesses in Egypt and will cause an economic meltdown the moment they allow the banks to operate again. We were being collectively punished for daring to say that we deserve democracy and rights, and to keep it up, they withdrew the police, and then sent them out dressed as civilians to terrorize our neighborhoods. I was shot at twice that day, one of which with a semi-automatic by a dude in a car that we the people took joy in pummeling. The government announced that all prisons were breached, and that the prisoners somehow managed to get weapons and do nothing but randomly attack people. One day we had organized thugs in uniforms firing at us and the next day they disappeared and were replaced by organized thugs without uniforms firing at us. Somehow the people never made the connection.

Despite it all, we braved it. We believed we are doing what's right and were encouraged by all those around us who couldn't believe what was happening to their country. What he did galvanized the people, and on Tuesday, despite shutting down all major roads leading into Cairo, we managed to get over 2 million protesters in Cairo alone and 3 million all over Egypt to come out and demand Mubarak's departure. Those are people who stood up to the regime's ruthlessness and anger and declared that they were free, and were refusing to live in the Mubarak dictatorship for one more day. That night, he showed up on TV, and gave a very emotional speech about how he intends to step down at the end of his term and how he wants to die in Egypt, the country he loved and served. To me, and to everyone else at the protests this wasn't nearly enough, for we wanted him gone now. Others started asking that we give him a chance, and that change takes time and other such poppycock. Hell, some people and family members cried when they saw his speech. People felt sorry for him for failing to be our dictator for the rest of his life and inheriting us to his Son. It was an amalgam of Stockholm syndrome coupled with slave mentality in a malevolent combination that we never saw before. And the Regime capitalized on it today.

Today, they brought back the internet, and started having people calling on TV and writing on facebook on how they support Mubarak and his call for stability and peacefull change in 8 months. They hung on to the words of the newly appointed government would never harm the protesters, whom they believe to be good patriotic youth who have a few bad apples amongst them. We started getting calls asking people to stop protesting because "we got what we wanted" and "we need the country to start working again". People were complaining that they miss their lives. That they miss going out at night, and ordering Home Delivery. That they need us to stop so they can resume whatever existence they had before all of this. All was forgiven, the past week never happened and it's time for Unity under Mubarak's rule right now.

To all of those people I say: NEVER! I am sorry that your lives and businesses are disrupted, but this wasn't caused by the Protesters. The Protesters aren't the ones who shut down the internet that has paralyzed your businesses and banks: The government did. The Protesters weren't the ones who initiated the military curfew that limited your movement and allowed goods to disappear off market shelves and gas to disappear: The government did. The Protesters weren't the ones who ordered the police to withdraw and claimed the prisons were breached and unleashed thugs that terrorized your neighborhoods: The government did. The same government that you wish to give a second chance to, as if 30 years of dictatorship and utter failure in every sector of government wasn't enough for you. The Slaves were ready to forgive their master, and blame his cruelty on those who dared to defy him in order to ensure a better Egypt for all of its citizens and their children. After all, he gave us his word, and it's not like he ever broke his promises for reform before or anything.

Then Mubarak made his move and showed them what useful idiots they all were.

You watched on TV as "Pro-Mubarak Protesters" – thugs who were paid money by NDP members by admission of High NDP officials- started attacking the peaceful unarmed protesters in Tahrir square. They attacked them with sticks, threw stones at them, brought in men riding horses and camels- in what must be the most surreal scene ever shown on TV- and carrying whips to beat up the protesters. And then the Bullets started getting fired and Molotov cocktails started getting thrown at the Anti-Mubarak Protesters as the Army standing idly by, allowing it all to happen and not doing anything about it. Dozens were killed, hundreds injured, and there was no help sent by ambulances. The Police never showed up to stop those attacking because the ones who were captured by the Anti-mubarak people had police ID's on them. They were the police and they were there to shoot and kill people and even tried to set the Egyptian Museum on Fire. The Aim was clear: Use the clashes as pretext to ban such demonstrations under pretexts of concern for public safety and order, and to prevent disunity amongst the people of Egypt. But their plans ultimately failed, by those resilient brave souls who wouldn't give up the ground they freed of Egypt, no matter how many live bullets or firebombs were hurled at them. They know, like we all do, that this regime no longer cares to put on a moderate mask. That they have shown their true nature. That Mubarak will never step down, and that he would rather burn Egypt to the ground than even contemplate that possibility.

In the meantime, State-owned and affiliated TV channels were showing coverage of Peaceful Mubarak Protests all over Egypt and showing recorded footage of Tahrir Square protest from the night before and claiming it's the situation there at the moment. Hundreds of calls by public figures and actors started calling the channels saying that they are with Mubarak, and that he is our Father and we should support him on the road to democracy. A veiled girl with a blurred face went on Mehwer TV claiming to have received funding by Americans to go to the US and took courses on how to bring down the Egyptian government through protests which were taught by Jews. She claimed that AlJazeera is lying, and that the only people in Tahrir square now were Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. State TV started issuing statements on how the people arrested Israelis all over Cairo engaged in creating mayhem and causing chaos. For those of you who are counting this is an American-Israeli-Qatari-Muslim Brotherhood-Iranian-Hamas conspiracy. Imagine that. And MANY PEOPLE BOUGHT IT. I recall telling a friend of mine that the only good thing about what happened today was that it made clear to us who were the idiots amongst our friends. Now we know.

Now, just in case this isn't clear: This protest is not one made or sustained by the Muslim Brotherhood, it's one that had people from all social classes and religious background in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood only showed up on Tuesday, and even then they were not the majority of people there by a long shot. We tolerated them there since we won't say no to fellow Egyptians who wanted to stand with us, but neither the Muslims Brotherhood not any of the Opposition leaders have the ability to turn out one tenth of the numbers of Protesters that were in Tahrir on Tuesday. This is a revolution without leaders. Three Million individuals choosing hope instead of fear and braving death on hourly basis to keep their dream of freedom alive. Imagine that.

The End is near. I have no illusions about this regime or its leader, and how he will pluck us and hunt us down one by one till we are over and done with and 8 months from now will pay people to stage fake protests urging him not to leave power, and he will stay "because he has to acquiesce to the voice of the people". This is a losing battle and they have all the weapons, but we will continue fighting until we can't. I am heading to Tahrir right now with supplies for the hundreds injured, knowing that today the attacks will intensify, because they can't allow us to stay there come Friday, which is supposed to be the game changer. We are bringing everybody out, and we will refuse to be anything else than peaceful. If you are in Egypt, I am calling on all of you to head down to Tahrir today and Friday. It is imperative to show them that the battle for the soul of Egypt isn't over and done with. I am calling you to bring your friends, to bring medical supplies, to go and see what Mubarak's gurantees look like in real life. Egypt needs you. Be Heroes.

UPDATE 1: He has been released. @Sandmonkey I am ok. I got out. I was ambushed & beaten by the police, my phone confiscated , my car ripped apart & [medical] supplies taken #jan25

I am humbled by you all. Thank you so much. I am trying to get a decent computer to write it all. [my story]


UPDATE2: @Sandmonkey is currently unable to access his Twitter account. It's been hacked.

Silence

And still the President will not speak. And still the African Union and the Arab League will not speak. How many prayers, how many battles, how many suffocating from the fumes of tear gas and many more injured people will it take before someone says something? How can our Kenyan brother in the White House call Mubarak a friend while women are raped, men beaten, journalists arrested and a country is shut down from communication? Does Joe Biden know what it's like live in a state where one cannot protest or speak out against the government in fear of persecution. Does he know what it's like to live under a self-imposed curfew for fear you may be raped as a woman by government thugs during times of political unrest? 

I do. 

My country is a dictatorship, just like Egypt. 

Mubarak is Mugabe-lite.

But still no one will speak.

Presumably 10 Downing St taken a vow of silence as scenes of violence in Cairo, Alerxandria and Suez are streamed out across the whole world. It's taken three days, eight corpses and counting for Ban Ki Moon to finally find his voice, if only a faint whisper about human rights and the internet shutting down. People have been killed, tortured and maimed for three days now, but it was internet that stirred him to speak. Meanwhile the Dalai Lama is still in silent meditation caressing his Nobel peace prize as ordinary people battle against repression. 

What 

will

it 

take

to

speak

?

fotocredit:  @LobnaAkrab (Twitter)

Where Are Tunisia's Women?

foto credit: Beirut Spring

Since the Tunisian uprising became global news in the last few days, I've wondered to myself where are the images of protesting Tunisian women across Tunisia? This is not a man's uprising, it is a people's uprising so why are the voices and pictures of women absent from this significant political process? Despite the fact that Tunisia is a modern society where gender equality is legislated by law, women are still marginally represented within the political sphere, because of the patriarchal nature of Arab and Berber culture. However the marginalisation of women from the public and the political does not mean that their voices as citizens of the nation are non-existent, thus as this story of national transformation unfolds, everyone in the country is a part of that story. Everyone has some experience of it, whether as a demonstrator, a bystander, a member of the armed forces or a child. 
Why is it then that the pattern of reporting by dominant international media sources tends to focus on the voices of men ranging from about 21 and upwards, while very little is heard from women, children and the elderly? On Twitter I rely on male and female tweeters in Tunisia for updates and most of the tweets are genderless because most of them are describing what they see or they're calls for solidarity among Arabs. I can understand that. 
But what I can't understand is why the media has focussed on a masculinist narrative? In times of civil unrest it's often the case that because women are not on the front-lines of the battle, their voices are silenced and because they are vulnerable (but not necessarily weak) their bodies become the battleground for discipline and control by warring factions. Their experiences often go unreported or untried by courts of law - and Tunisia has been no exception.
The Guardian reports of police raping women in the poor areas in and around Kasserine, west-central Tunisia:

"Sihem Bensedrine, head of the National Council for Civil Liberties, said: "These were random, a sort of reprisal against the people. In poor areas, women who had nothing to do with anything, were raped in front of their families. Guns held back the men; the women were raped in front of them." A handful of cases were reported in Kasserine and Thala last Monday. Rape was often used as a torture technique under the regime; opposition women report they were raped in the basement of the interior ministry, as were men, too."
In these protests, rape has been used as a tool to cow women and men into fear, to enforce the power of the state and to destroy the community. Whether the perpetrators will be punished or not, remains to be seen. But if the rapists are part of the police that are crushing dissent sanctioned by the newly-forming government then the chances of them being brought to justice are not that high, in my opinion. And how can the stories of women being physically or mentally abused by a variety of rogue and state forces in Tunisia be told if men’s faces and voices dominate the discourse? To what extent is the international media being implicitly complicit with the silencing of women?

Little has also been said about women working as part of the state's security or as government officials, although Leila Ben Ali Trebalsi has become a world reknown femocrat (female autocrat). There have been other female figures important in shaping the events in Tunisia. It was a police woman who mocked and slapped Mohamed Bouazizi as he was refused a permit to sell his vegetables. To date not much is known, within international mainstream media, about the policewoman or Bouazizi's mother, to whom he wrote a suicide note. Only  his sister  has given an interview to a local paper but for non-Arabic speakers, making sense of this Google translated script is somewhat difficult.

 These voices, like the other female voices are absent from most of the news reports outside of Tunisia. From the Middle East to Europe to North America and it's all the same. Men tend to dominate the footage and narrative. What’s surprising is that journalists on location in Tunisia who've had training in equal representation, continue to build on this narrative by letting the stories and images of men become the voice of the people in their reports.

Frustrated by the lack of coverage, I did a search on Google for 'protest Tunisian women' and all I've found so far is the picture above of Tunisia's Revolution Babes (yes, babes, young, pretty ones too!) and this commentary by Tasnim that compares how Neda Soltani became the face of the Iranian movement and how women are absent from this 'jasmine revolution.' The author suggests that this is due to an over-reliance on social media for information:

"What explains this disparity? This was very much a media event, and perhaps this in itself was part of the reason. In the Arab world, and to a lesser extent in French media, there has been a month of in-depth coverage of a developing story, but in English-language media, the real coverage began only as Ben Ali began making concessions. Consequently, there was no narrative to frame events, so a disproportionate amount of the analysis has focused on the new media’s role in the uprising, from Wikileaks to Twitter." 

To me, this is unconvincing. Foreign reporters from all parts of the world have flow in and are booked up in hotel rooms across Tunisia reporting, photographing and tweeting each day’s events. There’s been an overnight role change since the demonstrations have caught mainstream global attention. The 'professionals' have become the primary and the citizen journalist reports published through social media has become a secondary source for news agencies and many international readers.
 The truth is, inadequate coverage of women is a negative symptom of a construction of masculinity embedded in the media that within a male-dominated situation like that of civil protest and political change, tends to silence women.

Rioters carry a woman crying during clashes with the police in downtown of the capital Tunis January 14, 2011. (REUTERS/Zohra Bensemr)

Apart from women, I also wondered about the Black Tunisians (less than 1% population), but I don't know how I'd even begin framing such a question if in Tunisia itself everyone's seen as Tunisian. Having said, that I know that the likelihood that many of the Black migrants and citizens are among the poorer people of Tunisia, so race becomes implicated in class. Perhaps the issue will emerge if there are reports of state violence against Black Tunisian men and women and prejudice is part of the cause for that violence. Other than that I don't know how thinking in terms of race would enrich my understanding of this situation. I've only heard of Mohammed Bouazzizi being referred to as Black on one Rasta website but, I don't know if he identified himself as such. Also, class-race dynamics in Tunisia don't necessarily work the same way as in other parts of Africa or the Arab world so I wouldn't jump to label someone a 'Black Moor/Muur' without knowing how they're perceived in their society and championing his protest immolation as a 'Black thing' yet it's a 'Tunisian struggle thing'. I think I'd prefer to assume that in times of collective stuggle against political oppression, everyone's united across racial, religious, tribal, generational and social lines.

Yeezey Moment on #Sidibouzid

Jacked from Reuters

FotoCredit: Gulf News

Yo, Tunisia I'm really happy for you that you've kicked out Ben Ali n all and the world's started paying attention to you. I'm even a li'l jealous that we couldn't do the same thing with our Robert Mugabe, minus the 65 and rising deaths (condolences to those who perished in Tunisia)...But uhmmm I'd've preferred it if the expulsion of Ben Ali had happened without all this attention and only the forward thinking bloggers, Al Jazeera, SBZ News, Global Voices readers, connected tweeters, North Africans and Arabs in my timeline were tweeting about Ben Ali. Even though most of the non-journalists and non-bloggers who retweeted the violence, hardship and frustration experienced by Tunisians were basically ignored and the story didn't make it into mainstream Anglo Western media till the 11th hour, it was way better that way. Better when there were no self-congratulatory tweets and armchair disciples cloaked as liberal columnists writing the gospel of St Julian of Assange who released the cables that sparked a revolution. The revolution was not ignited in Sidi Bou Zid where a frustrated graduate set himself aflame in protest to the hardship and humiliation he'd suffered as a vegetable seller, no it all began because of a US embassy cable released by a suave, international man of mystery and his secret organisation. Apparently Tunisians were completely oblivious to their own government's corruption and weren't frustrated enough by the economic situation to do something about it that it took St Julian of Assange's leaks to rile up the masses. Why didn't Elizabeth Dickinson et al, jump to the broadsheets when the self-immolation of Mohammed Bou Azizi happened? What about on Day 10 when the government cut off most forms of digital communication in Sidi Bou Zid? Surely these were the moments to start tweeting and writing the New Testament of the Great Wikileaks Revolution, the Fall of the Emperor of Carthage. 


Day10 might have read: Verse 1 - The twitterwhale wept. Verse 2 - The wicked Emperor of Carthage hath declared there shall be no internet for the townspeople of Sidi Bou Zid. Yea the hand of the ruler hath been chief in this threat upon thy sons and daughters. Verse 3 - We fall upon our knees in despair and mourn with thee twitterwhale, Lord why hast thou forsaken us, our social media revolution shall surely fail! Verse 4 - Hath the Lord forsaken the scribes and journalists in bondage? The terrible Emperor hath declared not another word 'gainst him shall they write. St Julian of Assange's revelations hath made the people revolt, but the world shalt not know of this.
Verse 5 - HTTP Error 403 Access Forbidden.


 ...But that isn't what happened, St Julian of Assange's revelations weren't the main catalyst of what happened Sidi Bou Zid, so there was no interest. As Max Fisher of the Atlantic tweeted at the time, the spat between Glenn Greenwald and Wired.com over the contents Bradley Manning files was far, far, far more compelling than reporting on some unknown Arab journalists in a small North African town that had been under siege for ten days. When Anonymous Ops attacked the website of the Tunisian government, it raised a few eyebrows, but that was all, nothing to sustain long-term interest in those now falling over themselves to congratulate social media and Wikileaks on 'leading a revolution.' 

Obviously they can't explain why in this Twitter-led 'revolution', the tweeters on my followers list didn't care much for the few tweets I posted on Tunisia or RT'd, but now the #Tunisia tweets are coming thick and fast because the anglophone media corporates finally decided on Day27 that Tunisia's turmoil was worthy of serious attention as Ben Ali was on the brink of demise. If the revolution is going to be tweeted, it will only be tweeted because there is a big enough political machine behind it to make it happen. If the revolution is going to be tweeted and retweeted it is going to happen because the politically minded do it, as was the case with (forgotten) Iran, not to wait +20days until The Guardian, CNN or BBC give the go-ahead. 

During the post-Ben Ali power vacuum things seem so unpredictable. In less that 24 hours there have been 3 leader changes and the militia, looters and police are having their way harassing citizens and foreign reporters while witchunts for the most supportive members of Ben Ali's regime are being carried out in haste. It feels like an Animal Farm/Night of the Long Knives situation where Mr Jones of Manor Farm is replaced by Snowball. It happened before in 1987. President Habib Bourguiba ceded his presidency to Ben Ali after a coup supported by the military. Twenty-five odd years later, same thing different scenario. The expulsion of Ben Ali is led by the people but the army and Presidential guard now have control over Tunis, Tabarak is on the verge of food riots and according to one tweeter, @rafik from Tunis: 'trust me people of kasserine,thala ou sidibouzid (semi-arid areas) are unlikely to see jasmine [revolution], and they paid the price.' 
This is why I feel it's inaccurate to call this a 'revolution' as though things have changed and to speak of it in the past tense. Tunisia's story is still unfolding. The army wields power against defenceless citizens. Fouad Mebazza a member of the Old Guard has been interim President for less than a day, but some in the ivory towers of Foreign Policy, NY Times and elsewhere had already declared this a revolution past by Friday evening. It's also impossible for them to think that decades of poverty, unemployment, activism, state corruption and censorship could  have driven people into protes because it's too hard to give credit to the ordinary people who rose up in solidarity and to commemorate Bou Azizi's death...Wikileaks and St Julian of Assange in Tunisia make a better gospel. It does, doth it not?  


For the record, I'm team Julian Assange & Wikileaks, and I'm not mocking him, but those who are desperately trying to spin this as a Wikileaks story. And yes I do acknowledge the role all forms of social media played in this, but I think it's impact is over-emphasized and dismisses the events that took place on the ground and it also fails to understand the process of events on the ground. And there's also an over-emphasis on Twitter, it wasn't just Twitter that people used to send out messages. I've concentrated on the level of public response to critique the notion that this is a social media revolution because often when people speak of social media revolutions the scale of impact is always key determining factor and the fact that no amount of tweets, Facebook postings and You Tube videos got massive global attention yet in comparison to the Iran Green Movement of summer '09 recieved worldwide attention and Neda Soltani became the face of the cause.

Falling Out of Love with Tweeting Politicos

iLove twitter. iReally Do. it's been a great way for me to connect with people from all over the planet and access the news before it makes the papers or have the news-stories and opinion delivered to you in 140 characters or less. but lately it's beginning to feel like one big orgy fest or en masse ego tripping in real time. for some well known people (and i use the term well known quite loosely here to mean anyone with over 1000 non-spambot followers and has appeared in the media counts as well known, in their respective circles), it's a rat race: some are on a mission to get the highest number of followers, while others are consistently tweeting about the highest number of retweets because they've dropped the most profound bit of knowledge of the moment. once is fine, but twice, thrice, boasting much? ...otoh, lesser known mortals tweet to trending topics to have their voice heard and up their followers. i do this too and it's fun when there's a programme everyone's watching on tv or a game is trending like #politicalfilms or #celebperfumes. i'm not sure if everyone reads the links i post or pays attention to what i say, but i'm thankful to those that do and those that engage me in conversation. for those that don't see my tweet, 10 minutes or 10 hours later someone else will post the same link and perhaps express a similar observation. so that's not so bad. depending on who you follow, there's a constant flow of information and/or opinion, empty feel-good & 'i just fed my cat' tweets, notwithstanding. however, as i use twitter more frequently, having grown tired of mark zuckerberg's orwellian tracking of one's every move on facebook, i've come to realise there is also a bad side to twitter. it's very cliquey. most people i follow are journalists, bloggers, activists, writers or politically informed people, others are friends, some celebrities, and some witty people and spoofs who are just the funniest! you'd think it would be the celebs that bug me, but it's the established politicos who have this 'i tweet you, you tweet me', among themselves. some of them are nice and respond to you, some even follow back, but there are those who don't often respond to anyone outside their circle. ironically these people tout themselves as lefties, neutrals, radicals, revolutionaries or progressives, but they maintain their exclusivity. it might be none of my business who people choose and choose not to follow, but when the ratio of followers: followed is disproportionate i.e 10 000 followers, 100 following - such glaring contradictions should be criticised. as if that wasn't enough some even make the public appeal for more followers (e.g. i have 5600 followers i need 400 more, help me twitter) WTF??? do these people ever stop to check who follows them, do they know what their followers have to say, do they even care? i'm friggin tired of some of these self-confessed lefties, radicals and progressives:
1. begging for followers. 
2. hosting in-crowd convos among themselves. as valid as their insights maybe in these back n forths, it's the ignoring of other people that irks me - ask, how i know? the new version of twitter shows who's responded on a particular tweet and how the conversation plays out. 
3. recommending each other as is the tradition of #followfriday. that's normally the biggest orgy fest of the week unless something big has happened then they'll endlessly tweet amongst themselves. 
if these people are progressives and radicals, genuinely trying to dissolve power hierarchies then surely they know that dissolution of power begins with conversation and engagement with everyone at every level. if the same names keep being hashed up in retweets or recommended follows then that sustains hierarchy rather than dismantling it. in this way twitter becomes a simultaneously segregated and joined up space of digital interaction. i may know what politico X is thinking but politico X does not necessarily know my thoughts, but we are featured together in the same hashtags and trendlists. so that's the dilemma how do people become more interactive so tweeting isn't just a futile exercise of typing letters into the ether? answer: #followback. i know of at least three well-known politically minded people who explicitly state that they operate on the principle of engaging everyone and they do it. why don't others? what's the point of having followers if you don't talk to them and you continue to regurgitate the same opinions but with new hashtags and links? funny thing is some of the celebs i follow do more talking to their followers than these progressives n radicals. the good celebs (like @noelclarke & @questlove, @lupefiasco even hosts a mini bookclub!) and even spoofs (like @katieweasel) try to have some daily discussion with their followers and although i don't often participate, it's nice to see the interaction going on. 90% of the time these people are not promoting their stuff but do it just to talk to people, so why don't others do it? even the dalai lama follows no one but he tweets about the essence of dialogue. 
on 26 december @dalailama tweeted: 'in order to create a happy century, a peaceful century we must promote the concept of dialogue.'
yea, His Holiness's great dialogue skills amount to 1 192 144 followers: following 0. numerically he's on par with @kanyewest and @chipmunk who follow no one, but the big difference is they actually TALK to people!
...if i've been sounding like some bitter, unrequited lover, i accept that might be 100% true BUT that doesn't change my point that there is presently something wrong with the concept of twitter as a forum for open, multiple conversations when only selected names continue to dominate timelines because certain people only want to talk amongst themselves and retweet each other. granted, people don't necessarily realise that this is what ends up happening and perhaps if they did, things would change. imo, it'd be nice if twitter's #followfriday was actually #followbackfriday and some of these people followed back and recommended different followers who have something interesting to say rather than just keeping it in the family. maybe an #openthreadfriday could be a possibility. #openthreadfriday would allow for anyone to tweet in the timelines of people they follow although i'm not sure how this would work for those with over 5 000 followers, it might be chaotic, but i'm sure a technological remedy out there. something has to be done for twitter or tweeters to develop a more interactive system than the one currently in place - less local orgy fest, more open conversation. #2011rules.


*i used political categorisations to encompass the different groups of people on my feed. analysing people's behaviour  by global location wouldn't really work as these people share more or less the same views and behave in similar ways.

The Chidamoyo Story

Fotocredit: Robin Hammond

The New York Times has this story on rural Zimbabweans from the Makonde valley having to barter peanuts and other agricultural produce for medical treatment from Chidamoyo Hospital. Parts of it are quite good and informative but other parts of the report are laden with all the typical cliches of abject poverty and desperation with saviour America on a mission and it's irked me. Take this gem for example: 

'The hospital’s cavernous chapel is now filled with what looks like a giant sand dune of unshelled nuts.'

or this:

'“It’s very difficult to get this famous dollar that people are talking about,” said Esther Chirasasa, 30, who hiked eight miles through the bush to the hospital for treatment of debilitating arthritis. Her son, Cain, 13, walked at her side carrying a sack of peanuts to pay for her care.'

The descriptions of the 'cavernous chapel' and arthritic Esther hiking through the bush leave quite an impression on one's mind: of the primitive and dreadful circumstances these people live in. Without taking anything away from the severity of Esther's suffering or the image of the chapel turned hospital as a place of refuge in a remote area, I think it's quite possible to write about that without casting Esther in the poor villager/victim role and the American hospital as the 'star-spangled saviour' stuck in the middle of nowhere in Zimbabwe. I find it annoying that the Heart of Darkness narrative continues to seep into stories in so many ways despite that it's 2010 and reportage and postcolonial* travel writing  has long moved on from this way of writing about places.

Admittedly my response to the problematic sections of this article is not impartial but I offer no apology for that. I'm tired of the aid discourse of victims and saviours. I always have a glass half-full perspective when it comes to all things Zimbabwe so I don't think the way this story is written gives much emphasis on the fact that the villages are actually able to produce crops and trade them for health care. Considering the myths about Zimbabwe's failed land project and collapsed agricultural sector, how is it that this story of agri-resourcefulness can be written in the same 'Zimbabwe is on the brink of disaster' tone? 


Barter trade has long been a part of Zimbabwean history (after all, that is how we met the Portuguese, the Arabs and the British) and has continued through the colonial and post-independence periods of modernity. Rather than go the long route of having to sell one's goods at the market (that must be travelled to!) for days or weeks to raise enough money for hospital care or school fees in some cases, this is an alternative and a short cut. In the mid-1990s when primary education for rural schools was no longer free, it was no surprise to hear stories of villagers bartering livestock for a term or a year's fees - depending on the beast. In more recent times, barter has become commonplace in the cities too, at my niece's school when fuel was in short supply in '08-'09 this well-equipped private school accepted fuel or fuel vouchers as payment of fees to keep it's fleet of cars on the road. Parents in the fuel business or with access to large amounts of fuel happily complied. Even businesses do it - trade offs of fuel or sugar happen all the time, why run around looking for US $, Botswana Pulas or South African Rands when commodities of value can be used? 

On the cultural and economic/technological front, the Chidamoyo story lacks context - I'm not in denial of the dire situation of these villagers, but context helps put into perspective the extent to which the situation is dire and how such stories of direness may be written. Peanuts are commonly used in Zimbabwean dishes so they're not 'melted into vegetables' as though that was a desperate move to shift the peanut butter to feed starving patients as the article suggests, but peanut butter is often used in Zimbabwean (mainly Shona, Chewa and Tonga) cuisine so it's the norm - a luxury in some cases to have peanut butter stew with vegetables or meat. On the economic/technological front, there have been a number of trial and error inventions of devices that can use peanut butter as a bio-fuel. If you look online, most stories suggest it can't be done, but offline there are stories that suggest it can. I remember some years ago somebody coming to my father's office to pitch his invention to him but my dad wasn't interested in buying it because we don't produce peanuts on a mass scale for the device to have been useful. As part of his pitch, the man had said that the Ministry of Education had expressed interest in the invention and they were looking it over and I don't know what's happened to it now, but if that man's idea hasn't taken off it might be worthwhile for this hospital to investigate the possibility of using peanut butter as bio-fuel for an eco-generator or using the sun as solar power. The hospital will need diesel to power the generator they're appealing for and if patients pay in peanuts and livestock, how will they raise funds to buy diesel?

So this story is not one of tragedy, but reality - were it not for the plea for funds for the hospital, there are parts of this story deserving of a so-what-that's-what-people-do-to-get-by response. I'm not dismissing this case, I'm dismissing the way the parts of the story is written. I just would like for stories to be placed in context and to move beyond the 'basket case' narrative. I'm kinda tired of always having that label stuck on me, my fellow people or my country. On the upside though, I do think the pictures of the villagers and what the hospital is doing are pretty cool. : )

(* i.e assuming the post-colonial moment began after the moment of encounter and not after political independence)

Riot Another Day

Although I'm an international student close to the end of my education in the UK, today [last Thursday] I went to the march in solidarity with the home students and also to protest against the fees rise for international students, that is a less-spoken about but very real consequence of the government's yes vote tonight as this new fees structures follow. If international students are paying between £9000 - £15 000 tuition fees in cash per year, what will those of the future pay? And with university funding cuts looming, there will be serious cutbacks in grants to international researchers and fellows who contribute immensely to global academic development and research.

Anyway, I got to Trafalgar Square at about 3 p.m and there wasn't much happening there so I walked down through St James's Park to try and get to Parliament Square, but the police had formed a human barrier so there was no way I or any of the other students milling about, could get in there. One officer suggested going round the other end to see if it was open. A disparate group of about thirty of us went and happened to meet up with a larger group of protesters (maybe 300), so we marched with them to Westminster Abbey. Upon arrival the police were already shouting 'get back get back' while those on mounted horses looked on. As we got closer there were scuffles between officers and protesters, admittedly some protesters did incite the police by shoving them and shouting abuses, but the police response was disproportionate, heavy handed and aimed at everyone. There were several times I could have been struck, despite the fact that I wasn't standing on the frontlines or mouthing off. It was a tense scene but we continued chanting and dancing to music for about half an hour then decided to find another way into Parliament Square as the police weren't letting us through. 

This part of the march was kinda fun, it was like a cat n mouse game - every time the police appeared to be on the approach those at the back would blow a whistle and we ran through the streets shouting 'Whose Streets, Our Streets', Twitter was also quite good because people would post messages of where not to go or where to go. In the end we got kettled though but this came out of the blue because at that time people were chanting and some dancing to music. Like cowards, they snuck up from the back all suited up in riot gear and some on horses - all this to control an at the time, non-violent crowd. As if on cue, people fought back and threw punches that landed on the police's shields and protective headgear. Police on foot would repeatedly charge into the unarmed crowd with baton sticks in hand and force people to move backward. The more they did this is, the more irate protesters got and retaliated with some picking up the kettling fences and throwing them at the police which wasn't a wise move, because it only made the cops respond with even more violence. (Looking back at some of the pictures, I wonder if some people had been hired to stir-up trouble. It's just my feeling, but I think some people were there for the trouble not the protest. I have no proof at all, but I'm writing this here in case it can be proven, somebody post a comment below.)

I didn't want to caught up in anything so I moved to the outskirts of the crowd that was marshalled by mounted officers, but I got scared by one of the horses when I was backed up by a wall and in that moment there's absolutely nothing one can do, but pray that horse doesn't go beserk. The last thing on my mind was moving but a mounted police woman saw me by the wall and instead of telling her colleague to move, she kept shouting at me 'keep moving keep moving!' I didn't respond and I didn't move. She came towards me, still shouting at the top of her voice until I finally said, 'I can't move' and pointed to the horse in front of me. But she was insistent saying 'you can, you can, move!', this went on for about 3 minutes till the male officer on the blocking horse moved on. It was scary being caught up in that. If I were a guy and wasn't such a pain-phobe, I might have swung a punch at one of the footed officers as revenge because I was scared but also very pissed off after that. 

 Inside the kettle people were lighting flares, chanting and the mood was good some of the youngest protesters I met in the kettle were about fifteen and this was the second time that some of them had been kettled, I felt sorry for these kids especially when overhearing one officer ask another of his colleagues if there were any young kids and if they would be let out, his colleague simply shrugged his shoulders and went about his business. Perhaps students and parents should petition the government to bring in a no under 16 rule for kettling - if kids as young as 15 were held on Westminster Bridge until midnight, what does that say about a supposedly progressive nation's opinion of children and respect for human rights .The younger kids are normally not the violent ones - check the videos on The Guardian and BBC websites of all the protests if you don't believe me, I challenge you to post a link of a video where you see mobs of 12-15 year olds smashing up anything. There's no reason why they should be kettled. I asked one officer why we were being kettled and he said 'I don't know we just got orders' and he suggested I write to the IPCC to make a complaint. I will be writing to them and so should anyone who feels the same way. There was one officer who was pretty decent, he explained why we were being kettled and the law to we'd violated, he said 'I don't wanna be here here just as much as you and I don't wanna do this but I have to. I'd rather be at home with my kids.' He then asked about the vote and I didn't know what the result was and he said he'd hoped we'd won. I guess he knows his own kids' future is at stake too. I managed to get out of the kettle after seven, the police were letting out only two people at a time and me and a journalist from Amnesty International (judging by his press pass) got out because the officer said we looked like 'reasonable people'. I consider myself very fortunate to have been let out, but as I walked down to Victoria station, I felt guilty having left others there, especially after hearing that people were kettled up until after midnight.

As for Camilla and Charles, they got caught up in the moment, and this is the first time in a very, very long time that Brits have attacked the royal family - and for these students it wasn't because they were anti-royalist but because Charles and Camilla represented the establishment and birthright of privilege and they appeared at a moment when news of the lost vote (voted for by millionaires and inheritors of trust funds) and police brutality had upset enough people. While Charles and Camilla have the right not to be attacked and it wasn't wise move to poke Camilla in the ribs, I don't understand why that and Charlie Gilmour's picture swinging from a flag on the Cenotaph has dominated the news so much. There were dozens of injured protesters and officers, but their stories didn't make it to the headlines.

On Twitter Gilmour and Cenotaph have trended for two days, yet not once did Alfie Meadows make it on the trendlist - both tell very different but related stories of the protests. For me, Charlie Gilmour's image is a great picture, not because he's Pink Floyd's son, but it's a money shot, it's better than the Charles and Cam one aesthetically speaking so, kudos to the photographer. Beyond the aesthetic, swinging on the Union Jack against a national monument is the ultimate symbol of defiance and disregard for enforced collective remembrance of soldiers who died at war. Of course I'm sorry that people had to lose their lives on the battle fields, but the constant hero worship of Britain's wars is lost on me sometimes. The Cenotaph swinger and the paintballed Winston Churchill images symbolize a disaffected and frustrated youth who are the alter-face to the millions of young people who've been drafted to fight in wars not of their own making. Did the youth who lived through all of Britain's wars not stand up to their government in protest to the war and 'vandalise public property'?  History looks back on these young people as heroes of their time and today when a young person does something albeit mischieveous, but anti-establishment, the Prime Minister and all his co-signers and war romanticists are frothing at the mouth calling for Gilmour's head and the other 'feral anarchists.' For what e.x.a.c.t.l.y? Having the guts to say f- the system? Pissing on a statue and swinging from a flag? How can symbols, slabs of concrete, be more staunchly defended than the future of higher education and research? Should the police have come down so hard on Gilmour, the pisser and the paintballers that they'd end up like Alfie Meadows in need of brain surgery after being bludgeoned, is that what people want to see? Or perhaps it's so they wouldn't have to hear of student 'hooliganism' and they can congratulate The Met on a fine job while the story of Alfie Meadows gets pushed away further and further from the headlines. Camilla got a poke, Alfie got truncheoned, but the Camilla and Charles story dominates the news because they are famous people and Alfie is not. That is all.

Alfie Meadows

Winston Churchill may be Britain's hero, but he is not my hero. As an African, I see Churchill as belonging to the imperialist establishment and he was a supremacist who made sure Africans from Sudan to South Africa would submit to British colonial rule in one way or other, so seeing protesters throwing paint balls or pissing on statues doesn't enrage me, in the slightest. It's a little amusing actually. But one person's amusement is another's vandalism worthy of an arrest - even the death penalty for some of the looney right. But I think the bigger vandals are those known as the Lib Dems who pretended to defend education, but changed their minds as soon as they'd made it into Westminster. The physical mess might be cleaned up within a few days, but who will clean the mess being made of higher education by the coalition government? 

Despite being contained and the news the coalition government had won the vote, the education fight isn't over, as someone said to me in the kettle that night, this is just one battle in a war. While Home Secretary, Theresa May, child of Thatcher might think water canons are a justified response to the violence, I say bring it on. One water canon truck costs £750 000 or the full tuition fees 83 students funded through uni at £9000 a pop!  (Mehdi Hassan) Or the Educational Maintenance Allowance of 580 of Britain's poorest 16-18 year olds per year, or the annual salary of 32 police constables. In this time of 'austerity' and ideological cuts, if the Brits want to pay almost a million pounds for one water canon truck to spray revolting students, I say game on, let's do this! Buy ten if you like!

UPDATE 1: Theresa May's backtracked and has ruled out the use of water cannons because it wouldn't be a popular choice. I'm a little disappointed the government came to it's senses so quickly, a few more giggles at the implausibility of this plan would have been nice. But still it's a good move, it really isn't the 1960s again.

UPDATE 2:

Ki Price said: Just wanted to say thank you to the person talking about Charlie Gilmour swinging from the Cenotaph, I'm the photographer who took it Ki Price and I thought that was a nice compliment.

Thank you

#demo2010

#solidarity

#saveEMA

Pictures jacked from The Guardian (1,6), Indy Manchester (2) The Telegraph (3, 5) Sky News (4)

FotoCred: see above

Please note this post was written over several days.

30 000 Students Marching On the Streets of London & the Protests Have Been Reduced to These Images?

Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state

- Noam Chomsky

Scenes From Another Day

Whitehall Mounted Charging

Guardian Video

Well done to all the students who turned out for this! If school children in South Africa were willing to fight for their futures there is no reason why people are outraged that on Wednesday, school children and university students all over the UK, left their classrooms to march for their own futures. The protests in the UK in 2010 are nothing compared to what Black students in South Africa faced in 1976, there were no live rounds being fired, no country exile orders to be issued, but as the videos show, there were pigs on horseback blindly charging through the crowds one knocking over a pregnant woman, another grabbing  a protester's purse and many more pigs on horseback leaving hoof prints on the bodies of students. Personally have no problem with 13 years olds being involved in protest, what I do have a problem with is the disproportionate use of force by the police in response to the protests and that is what people should be talking about, not that children were 'coerced' into marching for their education. 
Up top is the footage that police commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson wants to deny stating there was 'no record' of police charging and defended the police's actions saying:"I think our officiers did an extraordinarily good job yesterday... Our job is to facilitate peaceful protests But we have to get the message out that when it does beyond the peaceful that it is criminal. It is quite clear that criminal acts took place." 
Note that 'facilitate peaceful protests' actually means kettle (containment of groups of people using iron barriers) young people for nine and a half hours in the freezing cold without food or water. Also note that the police policy of kettling is meant to be under review after the G20 protests of April 2009 in which Ian Tomlinson was killed by the police.
It couldn't have been more ironic, yet fitting that this march took place the day after Deputy PM, Nick Clegg gave the Hugo Young Lecture in which he said:
"Hugo was a passionate believer that open politics, a politics based on faith in people, rather than institutions, was the generator of real social progress. I agree, and I think that among the many extraordinary changes of 2010, one of the most important will prove to be a watershed in the development of progressive politics."
Progressive politics to Mr Clegg means being deceitful, like in April this year when he signed a pledge not to raise student fees yet in his heart he knew, he and the Lib Dems had long abandoned that promise and it had become a campaign strategy to garner the student vote. Nothing more.
 Thus it comes as no surprise that those who voted for Clegg, turned out in their thousands on Wednesday to express their discontent, burning effigies of the man and chanting against Clegg, Osbourne and Cameron's ideas of cuts for a Fairer Britain. 
The truth is, the UK has a government bent on creating an unFairer Britain. In my view, ConDem have a skewed approach to fairness and a twisted sense of priorities: they are making cuts to education, but they can find £2 million to fund a happiness index, they can find £4.2 million per year to send young people to the killing fields of Afghanistan, they will find £20 billion+ to keep Trident, but they can cut university funding, free school meals and educational allowances, they can do away with the Foods Standards Agency, but they invite Pepsi and McDonalds to sit on the health policy panel - the same companies that sell profit from an unhealthy nation are now the architects of healthy eating. ??? None of these things make sense and the students and trade unions can at least be commended for having the moral and political courage to show people will not sit back any longer. 

Welcome to the Winter of Discontent people of Britain, it's about to get heated up. 
#demo2010