tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19221419590623306132024-02-07T05:00:24.864+02:00Free Syria! Free Lebanon! (Arab Democracy)Thoughts about pro-democracy developments in the Arab region, with a focus on Syria and LebanonFouad Hamdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16250340871594600594noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1922141959062330613.post-40141564463775272092019-11-05T20:57:00.000+02:002019-11-06T14:01:00.831+02:00GOODBY "RELATIVE CALM" IN LEBANON. FINALLY.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_qFXHwjxcAhZqG7KqV8Y67lmOfXpZDcx5JgZj64CB9w8OK3H0ubbrShc4R-_R-Y6haEvigYMpTn-VxQ1F5iFn9p5MdWD1PtppXYeXldlfI9L71e4LCzsuw35oJmIKym5HWRIvWtA8Oxc/s1600/Huriyya.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="724" data-original-width="1024" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_qFXHwjxcAhZqG7KqV8Y67lmOfXpZDcx5JgZj64CB9w8OK3H0ubbrShc4R-_R-Y6haEvigYMpTn-VxQ1F5iFn9p5MdWD1PtppXYeXldlfI9L71e4LCzsuw35oJmIKym5HWRIvWtA8Oxc/s320/Huriyya.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> ("Freedom")</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Dutch-Palestinian filmmaker <a class="profileLink" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=100001512686366" href="https://www.facebook.com/radi.suudi"><span style="color: blue;">Radi Suudi</span></a>
made a 50-minute documentary in 2013. Six years later "<a href="https://vimeo.com/163815274" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Relative Calm</span></a>" it is still up-to-date. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Lebanon is still
struggling with a toxic mix of corrupt politico-militia leaders plundering the country, destroying its economy and environment, and selling its sovereighnity to Iran and other states. The civil war is still raging in
neighbouring Syria, and Lebanon is still home for more then a million Syrian refugees. And the Iran-controlled Shia Hezbollah is still killing Sunni in Syria to keep the Assad regime alive <span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">- fueling sectarianism in the region</span>. Syria's bloody present is interwined
with Lebanon's bloody past and present. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Since October 2019 the power balance in Lebanon is finally shifting towards courageous citizens from all confessions and civil society groups, at the expense of the corrupt assassins in power. A revolution has finally started in the streets of Lebanon. There is finally hope.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">See </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the <a href="https://vimeo.com/163815274" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">film</span></a> with English subtitles: </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://vimeo.com/163815274">https://vimeo.com/163815274</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;"></span><span style="color: blue;"></span><br /></span></span>
<span class="_5afy" style="direction: rtl;"><span class="_58cm"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">#LebanonRevolution</span></span></span><br />
<span class="_5afy" style="direction: rtl;"><span class="_58cm"><span style="background-color: white; color: #365899; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #365899; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">لبنان_ينتفض#</span></span><b></b><i></i><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></span></span><br />
<span class="_5afy" style="direction: rtl;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz" style="color: #365899;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz" style="color: #365899; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="_58cm" style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">لبنان_ينتصر</span>#</span></span></span><br />
<span class="_5afy" style="direction: rtl;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz" style="color: #365899;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #365899; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">إعادة_الأموال_المنهوبة</span>#</span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="_5afy" style="direction: rtl;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz" style="color: #365899;"><span class="_5afy" style="color: black; direction: rtl; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz" style="color: #365899;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">رفع_السرية_المصرفية_في_لبنان_والخارج</span>#</span></span></span><b></b><i></i><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #365899; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">رفع_الحصانة</span>#</span></span><br />
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Fouad Hamdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16250340871594600594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1922141959062330613.post-42230592042172551992013-09-13T16:30:00.005+03:002013-09-13T16:32:27.046+03:00Ahmad al-Wahidy plays oud at Tunis airport - أحمد الوحيدي يعزف العود في مطار تونس<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time Libyan skin doctor and Oud player Ahmad al-Wahidy at Tunis airport. We chatted, drank coffee. And he played this wonderful piece.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> كنت سعيدا جدا بالاجتماع لأول مرة مع طبيب الجلد و عازف العود الليبي أحمد الوحيدي في مطار تونس. تحدثنا، شربنا القهوة. ولعب هذه القطعة الرائعة</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2013/01/09</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 17px;"><span style="color: #333333;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aUrikp8XZU&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">شاهد الفيلم</span></a></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 17px;"><span style="color: #333333;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aUrikp8XZU&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Watch the film</span></a></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aUrikp8XZU&feature=youtu.be"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aUrikp8XZU&feature=youtu.be</span></a><br />
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Fouad Hamdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16250340871594600594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1922141959062330613.post-3054000627249534862012-05-11T11:09:00.001+03:002012-05-11T11:09:18.648+03:00Arabischer Fruehling – Virale Dynamik durch digitale Medien?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZWiccc56i9OYW9cYk6HbvWMVVyzj24oKmlO8IHq_eHT9yf-wO7Il9uB0XxIkgBSDK3mYABwfDIVBuEr76aBtIk_KNtqlv-TpT6dGNlKmTionGuxWwkMxelZuVajK3FRE520DUqJneRls/s1600/176208_10150424755620157_751895156_17458051_7250640_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZWiccc56i9OYW9cYk6HbvWMVVyzj24oKmlO8IHq_eHT9yf-wO7Il9uB0XxIkgBSDK3mYABwfDIVBuEr76aBtIk_KNtqlv-TpT6dGNlKmTionGuxWwkMxelZuVajK3FRE520DUqJneRls/s320/176208_10150424755620157_751895156_17458051_7250640_o.jpg" width="296" /></a></div>
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Vortrag - Frankfurter Journalistentage 2012 (Chancen und Herausforderungen der viralen Dynamik digitaler Medien) </b></div>
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<b>Frankfurt, 4. Mai 2012 </b></div>
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Von Fouad Hamdan* </div>
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Wer haette das gedacht, meine verehrten Damen und Herren! Es passt doch zusammen: Araber und Demokratie. Ende 2010 musste ich mir noch anhoeren: „Was? Du willst, dass wir Geld spenden fuer Menschenrechte in der arabischen Welt? Vergiss es! Araber und Demokratie geht einfach nicht!” Ich leitete damals in Beirut eine Stiftung, die Aktivisten in der arabischen Region unterstuetzt. </div>
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<br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dann begann der arabische Fruehling im Dezember 2010 in Tunesien; das Volk vertrieb Diktator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali am 14. Januar 2011 nach Saudi Arabien. Die Aegypter waren gekraenkt, weil sie nicht die Ersten waren und stuerzten ganz schnell ihren Diktator, Hosni Mubarak. Es folgten Intifadas die Libyens Moammar Gaddafi in die Hoelle und Yemens Ali Abdallah Saleh in die Rente befoerderten. In Syrien erhebten sich die Menschen gegen Baschar el Assad, der sich mit aller Gewalt an die Macht klammert, aber die Intifada wird auch ihn und sein Baath-Regime stuertzen. Das ist unausweichlich. </span><br /> <br /><div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Diese erste Intifada-Welle fegte sekulaere Diktatoren weg. Parallelwellen erodieren langsam aber sicher die Fundamente der Repression in arabische Koenigreiche: In Marokko wurden nach Demos eine neue Verfassung verabschiedet, die das Kernproblem der absoluten Macht des Koenigs und die Korruption in seiner Entourage nicht geloest hat. In Jordanien und Kuwait sind Regierungen gefallen, und die Monarchen versprechen Reformen, die sie nicht verwirklichen wollen. <br /> <br />In Bahrain hat der Koenig saudische Truppen ins Land geholt, um Forderungen nach Gerechtigkeit zu unterdruecken; die Proteste gehen dennoch weiter. Und in Saudi Arabien kaempft die Familie al Saud um Macht und Privilegien, indem sie das sunnitisch-religioese Establishment der Wahabiten gegen die schiitische Minderheit und Dissidenten aller Couleur hetzt. <br /> <br />Arabische Diktatoren schlafen seit Dezember 2010 sehr schlecht. Es brodelt in Saudi Arabien, Bahrain, Algerien, Irak, Jordanien, die Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate und Marokko. In Palaestina wird wieder gegen die israelische Besatzungspolitik demonstriert. Dort ist es nur eine Frage der Zeit, bis die dritte Intifada versucht den unertraeglichen Status Quo zu beenden. Der arabische Fruehling haelt an und wird noch lange bluehen, weil die Araber aufgewacht sind, keine Angst mehr haben und die Era der blinden Ideologien von Panarabismus ueber Sozialismus bis Islamismus vorbei ist. Endlich. <br /><br /> Geschichte wird nun gemacht von politisch unabhaengigen Jungendlichen sowie von hartgesottenen Linken und Islamisten aller Schattierungen. Dank an den tunesischen Obstverkaeufer Mohamed Bouazizi, der sich am 17. Dezember 2011 aus Verzweifelung wegen der wirtschaftlichen Lage und Behoerdenwillkuer selbst verbrannt hatte. Seitdem hat eine neue Era in den 22 Mitglieststaaten der arabischen Diktatoren-Liga begonnen – eine lange Umbruchphase in der Demokratien muehsam und teilweise sehr schmerzhaft entstehen werden. Araber von Marokko bis Irak und von Yemen bis Syrien wollen Menschenrechte, persoenliche Freiheiten und rechtstaatliche Strukturen. Und die werden sie bekommen. <br /> <br />Welche Rolle spielen dabei das Internet, soziale Medien und Buerger-Journalisten? Waere Gaddafi in Libyen immer noch in seinem Zelt, wenn es kein Facebook gaebe? Haette Assad in Syrien eine politische Ueberlebenschance ohne YouTube? Waere der arabische Fruehling ueberhaupt gestartet, wenn kein Buerger-Journalist das Bild vom brennenden Bouazizi photographiert und online verbreitet haette? </span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">"Manche der Halluzinationspillen die die Jugend in der libyschen Revolution geschluckt haben". Dies ist eine Anspielung auf Libyens Diktator Gaddafi, der vor seinem Tod gesagt hat, die Jugend schluckt solche Pillen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Dazu folgende 10 Gedanken:<br /></b>1. Arabische Revolutionaere haben etwas gemeinsam: Smartphones sowie Facebook-, Twitter-, Youtube- und Skype-Accounts. Und diejenigen an den Fronten sind mit Kleinkameras bewaffnet – in den ausgebombten Gassen von Homs und Hama in Syrien oder immer wieder bei Demonstrationen gegen das Militaer in Kairo. Hinzu kommen Blogs die Unbekannte zu Helden gemacht haben. Proteste wurden dezentral organisiert, an den zensierten offiziellen Medien vorbei die der Regierung oder einer herrschenden Familie gehoeren. Ein digitaler Marktplatz entstand; jeder hatte eine laute Stimme. Es ist ein Befreiungsschlag nach Jahrzehnten der Unterdruekung.<br /><br />2. Die Zahl der Internetnutzer hat sich in der arabischen Region seit dem Jahr 2000 mehr als verzwanzigfacht. Sie liegt bei 35,6 Prozent der Gesamtbevölkerung, so <a href="http://www.internetworldstats.com/">internetworldstats.com</a>. Dies ist ein fruchtbarer Naehrboden vor allem fuer eine junge Generation die bereit ist zu kaempfen, um eine Zukunft zu haben. <br /><br />3. Buerger-Journalisten haben die Berichterstattung aus den Krisengebieten revolutioniert. Sie fuettern die Facebook-Seiten sowie die Twitter- und YouTube-Accounts mit News, Photos und Filme. Sie ``teasen`` TV-Sender wie Aljazeera und BBC. Sie ergaenzen die Arbeit von professionellen Journalisten und ersetzen sie sogar in Regionen wo offizielle Medienverterter nicht frei arbeiten duerfen.<br /><br />4. Unter einer totalen staatlichen Medienkontrolle sind soziale Netzwerke die einzige Moeglichkeit, unabhaengig von Zensur schnell Informationen zu verbreiten, Luegen zu entlarven und die Legitimitaet von Diktatoren systematisch zu untergraben.<br /><br />5. Internet und soziale Medien haben einen Beschleunigungseffekt, der Diktatoren und ihre Sicherheitsapparate immer wieder kalt erwischt. Alles geht zu schnell nachdem die Mauer der Angst faellt; sie koennen die rasant wachsende Zahl von Aktivisten und die Flut an Informationen nicht mehr im Griff kriegen.<br /><br />6. Nicht alle Demonstranten haben Laptop und Handy, aber immer mehr. Nach wie vor erreichen traditionelle Medien wie TV, Radio und Zeitungen die Massen. Als Mubarak das Internet abschaltete wurden ueberall im oeffentlichen Raum Leinwaende aufgebaut und Aljazeera gezeigt, der wiederum Filme von Buergerjournalisten ausstrahlte die ueber Satellit online verbreitet wurden.<br /><br />7. Menschen machen Intifadas und nicht Technologien. Mubarak, Gaddafi und Ben Ali haben das Internet abgeschaltet, aber das hat sie nicht gerettet. Im Gegenteil. Viele die zuvor nur vor dem Bildschirm opponierten gingen dann auf die Strasse oder an der Front. In Syrien informieren sich die Menschen in den Rebellen-Hochburgen, wo Mobilfunknetz und Internet abgeschaltet sind, via Kurriere und Mundpropaganda. In Moscheen und Geheimwohnungen wird diskutiert und geplant. Waehrendessen verbreiten Buerger-Journalisten an Bashar el Assad vorbei Nachrichten und Bilder weltweit via Satellit.<br /><br />8. Der Naehrboden der Intifadas war der Bildungsgrad von breiten Bevoelkerungsschichten. Ja sogar die Armen und Analphabeten aus den Kairoer Slums – Handy mit Kamera in der Hand – haben nach Wuerde, Ende der Korruption und einer unabhaengigen Justiz gerufen. Alle hatten jahrelang im TV ueber Satellitensender gesehen wie Demokratien in Europa, den USA und anderswo funktionnieren. So etwas muesse auch endlich in der arabischen Region moeglich sein. Denn Araber und Demokratien sind kein Wiederspruch. Genauso wie Taiwanesen und Demokratie, oder Suedafrikaner und Demokratie.<br /><br />9. Einige professionelle Journalisten sehen Buerger-Journalisten als gefaehrliche Konkurrenz und schmaehen sie als unprofessionell und unserioes. Die Profis sollten lieber diese Quellen an den Fronten beraten und helfen, professioneller zu werden. Ausserdem muessen sich Redaktionen verstaerkt damit beschaeftigen, die Verlässlichkeit der etwa ueber Twitter und YouTube verbreiteten Nachrichten zu verifizieren. Fakt ist: An Buergerjournalisten als Quellen kommen keine Nachrichtenredaktion mehr vorbei.<br /><br />10. Wunderschoen ist die Tatsache, dass der arabische Fruehling Jungendliche weltweit inspiriert hat, sich gegen Misstaende zu mobilisieren wie z.B. die Occupy-Bewegung und die „Empoerten“ in Spanien. <br /> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">"Erhebe dein Haupt. Du bist frei." Graffiti in Tripoli, Libyen, Dezember 2011</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Heute ist die arabische Region grob in vier Zonen aufgeteilt: Post-Revolutionaere Staaten wo der Demokratisierungsprozess begonnen hat (Tunesien, Aegypten, Libyen und Yemen), Staaten im revolutionaeren Umbruch (Syrien und Bahrain), Staaten wo es gefaehrlich brodelt (Jordanien, Morokko, Saudi Arabien, Kuwait, Palaestina/Israel, Irak, Sudan) und Staaten in Angststarre (Libanon, Algerien, Vereinigte Arabische Emirate). Katar ist noch immun gegen die Demokratie-Welle; der Emir foerdet Intifadas und Demokratisierungs-Prozesse mit Hilfe von Aljazeera und eine mit Dollars gestuetzten Aussenpolitik. <br /><br /> Nicht nur Revolutionaere sind technikaffin: Baschar El Assad und andere arabische Diktatoren benutzen klassische und soziale Medien um ihre Anhaenger zu mobilisieren, Gegner zu terrorisieren und die Weltoeffentlichkeit in die Irre zu fuehren. Die Qualitaet dieser Propaganda ist eher ein Spiegelbild vom abgewirtschafteten arabischen Regime. <br /> <br />Ein Beispiel sind Pro-Assad Websites wie <a href="http://www.presidentassad.net/">praesidentassad.net</a> und <a href="https://www.facebook.com/MontrealSupportingSyriaAlAssad">Facebook-Seiten</a>, die ein Produkt seiner Geheimdienste sind. Parallel dazu verbreitet der syrische Staatssender <a href="http://www.addounia.tv/index.php?page=live">Addounia TV</a> Real-Satire und Luegen via Satellit und Online. Da werden Rebellen als „Terroristen“ und als von Katar und Saudi Arabien finanzierte islamische „Salafisten“ beschimpft. <br /><br /> <b>Globale arabische Oeffentlichkeit</b> <br /> <br />Eine historische Entwicklung hat der arabische Fruehling herbeigefuehrt: Die Schaffung einer globalen arabischen Oeffentlichkeit. 1990-1991 haben sich Araber noch auf <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/">CNN</a> verlassen, um sich ueber den Krieg um Kuwait zu informieren. Dann kamen Lebanese Broadcasting Company International (<a href="http://www.lbcgroup.tv/">LBCI</a>) und <a href="http://www.future.com.lb/">Future TV</a> aus Libanon, <a href="http://aljazeera.net/channel/livestreaming?GoogleStatID=32">Aljazeera TV</a> aus Katar und die saudiarabische <a href="http://www.alarabiya.net/default.html">Al-Arabiya TV</a> aus Dubai. Die westliche Reaktion liess nicht auf sich warten: Es folgten <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/arabic/tvandradio/2011/01/000000_livetv.shtml">BBC TV</a> arabischer Dienst, <a href="http://www.france24.com/ar/">France 24 TV</a> auf Arabisch und der US-Sender <a href="http://www.alhurra.com/">Alhurra TV</a> aus Washington, die von der arabischen liberalen Elite mehr oder weniger gesehen werden. Aus Moskau kam <a href="http://arabic.rt.com/">Russia Today TV </a> auf Arabisch, die an den meisten Arabern vorbei informiert und kaum jemandem ausser el Assads Unterstuetzern Glauben schenkt. <br /><br /> Der Kampf um die globale arabische Oeffentlichkeit geht weiter: Der saudische Prinz Walid bin Talal baut den TV-Sender Al-Arab in Bahrain auf, Abu Dhabi Media Investment die von einem Mitglied der Koenigsfamilie kontrolliert wird, bereitet den Start vom <a href="http://www.skynewsarabia.com/web/home">Sky News Arabia</a> vor. Von Diktatoren gelenkte Medien haben aber keine Zukunft. Heute verlassen sich die Menschen in der arabischen Region auf einen Mix aus lokalen Zeitungen, Radio, Aljazeera, sozialen Medien und Buerger-Journalisten. Araber sprechen mit Arabern, auch in der Diaspora. Das ist eine Novum. <br /> <br /><b>Der arabische Fruehling geht weiter</b> <br /><br /> In den postrevolutionaeren Staaten Tunesien, Aegypten, Libyen und Yemen sind mediale Fesseln gefallen und neue freie Medien enstanden. Zusammen mit Buerger-Journalisten wird der schwierige Uebergangsprozess begleitet, was diese neue Oeffentlichkeit staerkt. In Libyen sind Zeitung wie <a href="http://www.qurynanew.com/">Quryna al-Jadida</a> und <a href="http://www.febpress.ly/">Februar</a> ein Lichtblick nach 42 jahre Gaddafi-Herrschaft. Die Reporter nehmen kein Blatt mehr vor den Mund und werden immer professioneller. In Kairo hat die neue Zeitung <a href="http://www.almasryalyoum.com/">Al-Masry Al-Youm</a> die ehrwuerdige <a href="http://www.ahram.org.eg/">al-Ahram</a> in den Schatten gestellt. Hunderte von Websites wie <a href="http://politik.webmanagercenter.com/">politik.tn</a> in Tunesien informieren aktuell und frei. <br /><br />Der arabische Fruehling geht weiter – auf der Strasse mit Buerger-Journalisten, in neuen Zeitungen und TV-Sender und sogar in manchen staatlichen Medien. In Tunesien ist ein Kampf um die Unabhaengigkeit des staatlichen TV-Senders <a href="http://www.tunisiatv.tn/">al Watania</a> entbrannt. Neue unabhaengige Medienhaeuser und Aktivisten kaempfen gemeinsam gegen die Verurteilung von Journalisten, die ein Halbnacktfoto auf einem Titelblatt druckten. In Kairo haben sich Ende April Tausende via Twitter organisiert, um vor der saudiarabischen Botschaft gegen die Festnahme des aegyptischen Menschenrechtsaktivisten Ahmed Mohammed al-Gizawi in Saudi Arabien zu protestieren. Der saudiarabische Botschafter hat Aegypten fuer eine Weile verlassen und die Botschaft geschlossen. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Im Libanon, auch im April, haben Militaers zwei Aktivisten festgenommen, die Graffiti gegen das syrische Regime an Waende spruehten. Stunden spaeter wurden sie frei gelassen, weil immer mehr Menschen vor dem Gefaengnis demonstrierten – alle mobilisiert via Facebook und Twitter. Klassische Medien haben sofort darueber berichtet und indirekt bei der Mobilisation mitgeholfen. <br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Heute lassen sich die Menschen nichts mehr gefallen lassen. Die Verhaftung heute von nur einer Person kann zur Demonstrationen und sogar zu Krisen zwischen Staaten fuehren. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Der Freiheits-Djinn ist fuer immer aus der Flasche. Der arabische Fruehling blueht, bis Freiheit und Demokratie in allen arabischen Laendern fest verankert sind. <br /> <br /><i>* Der Deutsch-Libanese Fouad Hamdan war Korrespondent der Deutschen Presse-Agentur in Kairo und am Golf. Er gründete Greenpeace Libanon und war Kommunikationschef von Greenpeace Deutschland. Er leitete die Arabische Menschenrechtsstiftung in Beirut. Seit Januar 2011 arbeitet er an Projekten für den Aufbau der Demokratien in Tunesien, Libyen, Syrien und Ägypten. </i></span><br /> </div>
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</div>Fouad Hamdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16250340871594600594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1922141959062330613.post-27920742455973622072012-01-24T20:13:00.000+02:002012-03-16T15:18:06.796+02:00“REFORMER BASHAR ASSAD” MYTH DEAD<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>One year of massacres in Syria: Removing Assad is the only option.</b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />Updated 15 March 2012</span><br /><br />This paper has nine sections:<br /><br />_ Myth and reality<br />_ Asma Assad<br />_ The failed Baath economy</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ Abusing Syria and Syrians</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ Crimes in Lebanon<br />_ Crimes against the Palestinian Cause<br />_ The Syrian Intifada<br />_ Intifada humor<br />_ The end<br /><br />A short version of this paper was published on 20 January 2012 in the website of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR). Download <a href="http://iwpr.net/report-news/reformer-assad-myth-finally-dead?utm_source=critsend&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=55923_arab%20spring%20bulletin">HERE</a>.<br /><br />Another short version was published in German in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (F.A.Z.) on 12 February 2012: "<i>Syriens Praesident Assad vor dem Ende - Präsident Baschar al Assad zeigt durch seine Gewaltpolitik, dass nur sein Sturz zur Stabilität im Land und in der Region führen kann. Das Ende des Baath-Regimes ist unvermeidlich</i>". Download <a href="http://www.fouadhamdan.org/cms/upload/pdf/AssadVorDemEnde_FAZ_FouadHamdan_Feb2012.pdf">HERE</a>.<br /><br /><b>Myth and Reality</b><br /><br />Months before the first anniversary of the Syrian intifada, a Swiss journalist called me to discuss developments in Syria. He asked: “The Syrian regime has been a source of stability in the Middle East. Its downfall could lead to Moslem fundamentalists taking over. Are you worried about what will happen if the Baath regime collapses?”</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My answer was polite but frosty: “The Syrian Baath regime has been anything but a source of stability. It was, it still is and, as long it is not toppled, it will remain a major source of instability in the region and beyond. The consequences of 40 years of the Baath party in power are wars and misery for Syrians, Palestinians, Lebanese and many other Arabs”.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">2011 The people wants to live - 2012 Syria is free</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />“Dictators Hafez Assad, until his death in June 2000, and his son Bashar since then have been propagating nothing but hollow slogans of pan-Arabism, of socialism and of a liberated Palestine. Nothing more than hypocrisy. In reality the Assad clan has one goal only: securing the regime at any costs. At any costs."<br /><br />"It used Palestinian groups like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), as-Saiqa and Islamic Jihad, and it used Lebanese parties and militias like Amal, Hezbollah and Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement to divide, to rule and to secure the Baath regime. The cynicism and the brutality of the Assad dictators are only topped by the Iraqi Baath regime of Saddam Hussein, and we know the end of that dictator, his family and cronies.”<br /><br />I was getting more and more upset…<br /><br />The journalist interrupted me: “Hey, I just wanted to provoke a reaction!” I calmed down, my tone became friendlier and the interview went on.<br /><br />Having to explain why the Syrian Baath regime is an incarnation of evil just brings back too many memories of misery and horror for peoples in the Middle East. The history of Hafez Assad’s rule and that of his son, Bashar, is a line dotted with assassinations, wars, brutal repression, corruption. So much blood and tears over so many decades. The rationale of the Assad clan and the essence of the regime are cynical opportunism, violence and deceit.<br /><br />Some Arab journalists, academics, Nasserists (yes, Gamal Abdel Nasser was a bloody dictator, too), Baathists (yes, there are still a few outside Syria) and hard-core leftists who still believe communism-inspired ideologies are democratic have been propagating since June 2000 that Assad the son is a “young reformer”. They often claim he who could not impose all his “reformist policies” on the so-called old-guard and some of his family members. And they highlight the "economic achievements" and "first steps to fight corruption".<br /><br />More than eleven years of Bashar Assad in power – and this is what counts when assessing a politician’s work – show a rather depressing picture. A rational evaluation of his achievements and a comparison of his promises with his acts lead to a clear assessment: The son of dictator Hafez Assad has been unconditionally holding the reigns of power since day one in the presidential palace, and he is fully responsible for all failures that led to the people rising up against his dictatorial regime.<br /><br />Let us recall what Bashar Assad has publicly said in several speeches and interviews since the Intifada against his regime started in March 2011: He blames "gangs" and "foreigner hands" for the trouble. "Plotters" are everywhere. He promised reforms. He promised a dialogue with opponents. And he promised to end the state of emergency law. Nothing changed. The only form of dialogue he pursued was one with guns and tanks.<br /><br />As we say in Arabic, فهو جعل الفيلة تطير، وليس أكثر (he is only making elephants fly).<br /><br />Meanwhile, the killing has been escalating in scale and horror. The list is so long; here some highlights:<br /><br />_ The regime has been arming many among the Alawi minority (the Assads are Alawis), and was trying hard to provoke a strife between the Sunni majority and the minorities (Alawis, Christians, Druze). But it failed.<br /><br />_ In mid-August 2011, Syrian navy ships participated for the first time in shelling civilian areas, in this case in Latakia.<br /><br />_ Security forces have been bombarding residential areas in Hama, Homs, Idlib and elsewhere.<br /><br />_ Shortly before Christmas 2011 two bombs exploded in Damascus just before Arab league observers came to Syria. The regime the same day put the blame on the Sunni fundamentalist al-Qaeda organization. On January 6, 2012 another bombing killed many in Damascus. The regime was again very quick in pointing the finger at al-Qaeda. I never knew that the Baath regime was so professional in being able to pinpoint killers in a few hours. The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) blamed the regime. I believe the SNC because the Baath regime is machiavellic enough and a master in car bombings it had excelled in carrying out in Lebanon in the 1970s and 1980s. More on this <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/07/world/middleeast/bomb-attack-in-syrian-capital-kills-25.html?_r=1&ref=world">here</a>.<br /><br />_ In February 2012, troops systematically bombarded areas in Homs, killing hundreds of people. The area of Baba Amr was almost completely destroyed. Check this <a href="http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/03/02/syria-new-satellite-images-show-homs-shelling">satellite image</a> of baba Amr which was published by Human Rights Watch end Feb 2012:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/03/02/syria-new-satellite-images-show-homs-shelling"><img height="352" src="http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/media/images/photographs/2012_Syria_BabaAmr1.jpg" width="640" /></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Red Dots are destroyed or damaged buildings, yellow dots are craters in fields or roads (pic taken on 25 Feb 2012, Baba Amr was retaken by Assad`s troops on March 1)</span></span></div>
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<br />_ By early March 2012, more than8,400 people were killed, according to the London-based <a href="http://www.syriahr.com/">Syrian Observatory for Human Rights</a> said. Among the victims were 5,542 civilians, 1,692 soldiers and security personel and about 400 army deserters.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq6LQsgqCOOc-WSBL4JDTaTbask3j6yh991K6zub1lPjm0aWv1szukyXQyvEPvOtdOaRdSO7bhr7ayic0ryNN8IeVEuty6neZAT0bdkYhbingLsn-OxY6a7zybDuYMRpOvDNkJ61xGjpg/s1600/719716_80296111217.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq6LQsgqCOOc-WSBL4JDTaTbask3j6yh991K6zub1lPjm0aWv1szukyXQyvEPvOtdOaRdSO7bhr7ayic0ryNN8IeVEuty6neZAT0bdkYhbingLsn-OxY6a7zybDuYMRpOvDNkJ61xGjpg/s320/719716_80296111217.jpg" /></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"The Assad system - to kill more" - Syria, 2011</span></span></div>
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<br />A Syrian human rights activist, whose name I like to keep confidential for the time being, told me in 2009: “Under Hafez Assad we knew exactly the red lines. We knew this was acceptable, this would cause a warning phone call, this would lead to serious threats, this would make them jail me and this would probably kill me. With Bashar there are no clear red lines and no logical margins for political work. Some would end up in jail for just voicing an opinion; others would be left in peace. Any activity could lead to every possible repression. We live in constant fear in a republic of fear called Syria.”<br /><br />The Mr-Nice-Guy-Reformer masque of Bashar Assad fell in March 2011 when Syrian troops were ordered to crush peaceful protests in the birthplace of the Intifada, the town of Deraa. His ruthless and cynical character became visible to all – after citizen journalists uploaded the bloody first images from the besieged town. No more illusions and no more propaganda could ever delete the thousands of films on YouTube and photos on Facebook showing the brutality of soldiers and “shabiha” (ghosts) militia Assad controls.<br /><br />Meanwhile, normal people armed with mobile phones, cameras and laptops are risking their lives and producing the stream of images and news from inside Syria. With these weapons of massive raw information they bare witness, unmask Assad and the Baath, mobilize and keep the spirits high. The official propaganda machine has no chance against them.<br /><br />The role of citizen journalists has been crucial because no independent Syrian or international journalist is allowed to report freely from the country. Some of the correspondents accredited in Damascus were expelled. Others were detained and even tortured. In <a href="http://www.ademocracynet.com/index.php?page=articles&action=Detail&id=1246">one case</a>, Algerian journalist Khaled Sid-Mohand who works for Le Monde and Radio France, spent weeks in jail and experienced hell.<br /><br /><b>Asma Assad: co-dictator or a prisoner of the regime?</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When observing the public activities of Asma Assad, the presidet's wife, one has in principle no more illusions about the charming face of the Syrian dictatorship. The US magazine Vogue published a public relations report about her in February 2011 - shortly before the Syrian intifada started (14th March 2011), while a revolution had just begun in Libya (17th February 2011), shortly after Tunisian Dictator Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali was toppled (14th January 2011).<br /><br />Mind this quote of Asma Assad: "The (Assad) household is run on wildly democratic principles... We all vote on what we want, and where". The article provoked many <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/02/vogue-defends-profile-of-syrian-first-lady/71764/">critical reactions</a> in the US; Vogue later removed the article from its website. The document is of historic importance; you can can download from my website <a href="http://www.fouadhamdan.org/cms/upload/pdf/Asma_Assad_2articles_voguemeeting_with_aid_workers_2011.pdf">here</a>.<br /><br />Later in September 2011, aid workers confronted her with the reality on the ground. One of them <a href="http://www.fouadhamdan.org/cms/upload/pdf/Asma_Assad_2articles_voguemeeting_with_aid_workers_2011.pdf">recalled</a>: "We told her about the security forces attacking demonstrators. About them taking wounded people from cars and preventing people from getting to hospital ... There was no reaction. She didn't react at all. It was just like I was telling a normal story, something that happens every day." In a <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9065611/Syrias-First-Lady-Asma-al-Assad-breaks-her-silence.html">statement</a> published in the Times newspaper in London in February 2012, she fully backed her husband.<br /><br />I had a strange feeling when this statement was published. That was the moment where I said, hold on, something is wrong here, we may need to re-assess her role during the revolution, she may be a prisoner of the Assad clan and we do not know it yet. Why a statement? Why not give an interview to a journalist, then we can assess if she is really behind her husband or not. Tone and body language cannot lie. But since the revolution she did not speak once publicly. You could only see her smiling with Bashar Assad, either in Omeyade Square or when voting with him on the new constitution in February 2012. She never spoke, she always smiled. A fake smile?<br /><br />Note that Asma Assad is a Sunni from Homs, and she may be a prisoner in a golden cage to keep the illusion of unity at the top of the Baath regime. In the meantime she has been described as a Syrian "Marie Antoinette", in an allusion to the wife of French King Louis XIV (both were beheaded by the French revolutionaries in 1793). A <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5r7s81FXfI&feature=player_embedded">mock Asma video</a> was published with pictures from Homs mixed with an interview she gave to CNN in 2009 about the Israeli killing fields in the Palestinian Gaza Strip. Exposes the hypocrisy of the Baath.<br /><br />On March 4, 2012, the British newspaper express.co.uk <a href="http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/305864/-Horrified-by-son-in-law-Bashar-al-Assad">reported </a>that Asma's father said he is “horrified” by his son-in-law’s brutal repression policies. Mr. Fawaz Akhras, who lives in London, said he is fearful for the safety of his daughter. The newspaper added: "There are rumours that she is being kept under virtual house arrest in Damascus by the president’s henchmen who fear she might attempt to leave the country – a move that would severely damage the regime". Mr. Akhras allegedly told friends in the British Syrian Society he is now in an “impossible position”.<br /><br />When Asma married Bashar in 2000 she was 24. As a British-born who was educated in elite schools she knew what kind of regime Bashar inherited, and she may have believed his promises for change. However, by February 2012 she must have known how repressive the Baath regime is and how much misery and pain her husband had been causing to his own people, to the Lebanese and the Palestinians. That did not seem to have bothered her, as we can read in the <a href="http://www.fouadhamdan.org/cms/upload/pdf/Asma_Assad_2articles_voguemeeting_with_aid_workers_2011.pdf">interview she gave for Vogue magazine</a> sometime end of 2011. Meanwhile, a year after the start of the intifada, Asma is definitely in trouble and must fear for her life and the lives of her children. She must realize that the game is over.<br /><br />In earlier version of this paper I asked whether Asma Assad was fully behind her husband, or a prisoner? It now looks as if she is fully behind him. The Guardian newspaper published on March 15 <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/14/gilded-lifestyle-assad-coterie-conflict" target="_blank">emails exchanged</a> between the dictator and his wife, in one of them she writes in December 2011, "If we are strong together, we will overcome this together … I love you…". In addition, the emails show in what kind of cocoon the couple is living. Asma shops online for luxury goods and Bashar downloads iTune songs while their troops bombard Homs and other areas of Syria.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The following chapters deal with the main issues and stages of a tragedy for Syria and its neighbors.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><b>The Baath economy: Pseudo socialism + corruption + nepotism = ruined economy</b><br /><br />Historic Baath Leaders like Michel Aflaq and Salah el-Dine al-Bitar may have had some ideals in the 1940s. The Baath ideology mixed Arab nationalism and socialism; its motto was "Unity, Liberty and Socialism". But the foundations of a dictatorship were laid when the Baath took over power in a military coup in Syria in 1963.<br /><br />Beside crushing freedoms and failing to achieve Arab unity the Baath socialist system <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/17963303?story_id=17963303&CFID=163083635&CFTOKEN=24884807">ruined the economy</a> of Syria, impoverished its people and sent the <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/16276817?story_id=E1_TGNSGRTS&CFID=163083635&CFTOKEN=24884807">brightest into exile</a>. The <a href="http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/nationalreports/arabstates/syria/Syrian_Arab_Repulic_2005_ar.pdf">education system</a> is in tatters. Economic overtures – China style, state-sponsored capitalism under the repression hood – led to a corrupt system enriching Bashar Assad, family members like his cousin Rami Makhlouf and cronies.<br /><br />When the Intifada started in Deraa in March 2011 buildings were torched there, including the headquarters of both the ruling Baath party and the Syriatel mobile network owned by Rami Makhlouf, whose illegal wealth stirs much resentment. People in the battered streets of Deraa chanted, “We’ll say it clearly, Rami Makhlouf is robbing us".<br /><br />Years before the Syrian Intifada, a man hinted about nepotism and corruption at the higher echelons and got into serious trouble. Riad Seif, a leading dissident in the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4575987.stm">Forum for National Dialogue</a>, and a co-author of the <a href="http://www.demdigest.net/damascusdeclaration.html">Damascus Declaration</a>, had criticized what he called irregularities in the phone licenses. He was arrested and jailed.<br /><br />Rami Nakhle (nickname online is "<a href="https://www.facebook.com/malath.aumran">Malath Aumran</a>"), an activist who fled Syria for Lebanon early 2011, began an Internet campaign to boycott Syriatel in 2008. He urged people to switch off their phones for four hours on the first day of the month. An online petition that he and other young activists circulated received 5,000 signatures.<br /><br />Nadim Houry from Human Rights Watch in Beirut summarized the situation to the New York Times in April 2011: “Ideologically the (Syrian) regime doesn’t stand for much anymore beyond the interests of certain individuals... He’s (Rami Makhlouf) a symbol of what is perceived as private interests controlling large chunks of Syria’s economy".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Le Monde, 23 April 2011</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Transparency International in its 2010 <a href="http://www.transparency.org/publications/publications/cpi2010">Corruption Perceptions Index</a>, ranked Syria as “highly corrupt”. It recommended, “Transparency and accountability are critical to restoring trust and turning back the tide of corruption”.<br /><br />Bashar Assad, since the year 2000, regularly promised to eradicate corruption, but nothing really changed in Syria beside some highly publicized arrests of a few corrupt officials. Pure public relations. Meanwhile, the regime kept salaries of state employees so low that Syrians have no choice but to ask for kickbacks in order to survive. And it excelled in humiliating the people and keeping them busy struggling to survive – in the hope they will not engage in politics and consider demanding a say in running their country.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsQCSvvBM3fYWZwmjZNHZXAtIi60PGMZgIP8HOgucuUwmG6Q33iD-RVYNGJ4hYB1flOu02TJPNIR5QZ9XY6vV5flEr1X2TSvkvuV3c9v7Leg7mD8VRu0lzRr7_nQAYnZNFnnxW3zCGPMM/s1600/assad+and+thugs.jpeg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsQCSvvBM3fYWZwmjZNHZXAtIi60PGMZgIP8HOgucuUwmG6Q33iD-RVYNGJ4hYB1flOu02TJPNIR5QZ9XY6vV5flEr1X2TSvkvuV3c9v7Leg7mD8VRu0lzRr7_nQAYnZNFnnxW3zCGPMM/s320/assad+and+thugs.jpeg" /></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Bashar Assad (right) and his brother Maher.</span></span></div>
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<br /><b>Abusing Syria and Syrians: Human rights violations and crimes against humanity</b><br /><br />The current human rights situation in Syria can only be described as horrific with thousands detained without charges and tortured (more than 10,000 detained and missing between mid-March and early 2012). Almost 6,000 killed, according to UN and Syrian opposition groups. <a href="http://www.hrw.org/middle-eastn-africa/syria">Human Rights Watch</a> (HRW) and <a href="http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/syria">Amnesty International</a> regularly issue shocking reports about the crimes committed by Assad’s numerous security services.<br /><br />HRW on December 15, 2011 published a report naming Syrian 74 officers and officials who gave orders to their soldiers to end protests "by all means necessary". Note that the Commander-in-chief of the Syrian armed forces is Bashar Assad. The HRW report is the first list for future trials in Syria. Nr. 75 being Assad the son, Nr. 76 Maher Assad.<br /><br />The Assad clan always treated the Syrian people with brutality and disdain. Remember how Hafez Assad - the man with a frightening smile - ordered the bombardment of the city of <a href="http://www.shrc.org/data/aspx/d5/2535.aspx">Hama in 1982</a>. Thousands were then killed to crush a rebellion by the Moslem Brotherhood. Remember how he stripped the Syrian nationality from hundreds of thousands of <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/publisher,MARP,,,469f3ad71e,0.html">Syrian Kurds</a>, denying them basic rights and pushing them into deeper poverty.<br /><br />The Baath regime committed crimes against humanity under Assad the father and Assad the son who sent tanks first into the city of Deraa then to Hama, Homs and other towns and villages to quell protests. Bashar Assad, himself an Alawi, also started playing the sectarian card, with his cronies claiming that the Alawi minority is under threat by Sunni Salafists – ignoring protesters chanting that this is all about freedom, dignity and democracy for all.<br /><br />His thugs, called “shabiha” (ghosts), shoot from rooftops on protesters, kidnap, brutally torture and kill, including 13-year-old <a href="https://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_156108517789609">Hamza Ali al-Khateeb</a> in May 2011. Citizen journalists reported about this tragedy. In Damascus and elsewhere “shabiha” disguised as protestors chanted, “Alawis in the coffin and Christians to Beirut!” – to terrorize and send a clear message: It is the Assad clan in power or chaos and a civil war.<br /><br />The Assads installed a republic of fear with informants everywhere, even among schoolchildren. But the wall of fear collapsed in March 2011. Even the massive clampdowns by the army`s 4th Division, led by Bashar Assad’s brother Maher, is not deterring people from stepping up their peaceful protests. Their messages to Assad the son is very clear: No U-turn; the people want to topple the regime; we will not fall into the trap of a Sunni-Alawi conflict; you will end up in jail".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"The killer will be judged - no dialogue" - Syria 2011</span></span></div>
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<br /><b>The crimes of the Assads in Lebanon</b><br /><br />In Lebanon, the Assads brought nothing but mayhem as they systematically destabilized the country with the help of Lebanese allies like former presidents Suleiman Franjieh, parties like the Marada, the Baath (yes, there is a Lebanese Baath), the Free Patriotic Movement of General Michel Aoun, the Iran-funded Hezbollah headed my Hassan Nasrallah and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) headed by Assad Hardan.<br /><br />In 1969, Syria's regime and Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser coerced Lebanon into signing the fatal <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_agreement">Cairo Agreement</a> that allowed Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) guerrillas to establish military bases in southern Lebanon and attack Israel from there. This provoked regular Israeli retaliatory raids that punished the mainly Shia civilian population in the South. This led also to Israeli invading Lebanon twice, in 1978 and 1982. The number of casualties among Palestinians and Lebanese were by the thousands.<br /><br />Note that Syria and Egypt never allowed Palestinian guerrillas to use their soil as a base for attacks against Israel. Note also that the Assads, Abdel Nasser, Iranian Mullahs, Saudi rulers, late Moammar Gaddafi of Libya, the defunct Soviet Union, France or the US were able to interfere in Lebanon because most Lebanese leaders sought foreign funding and protection. I put the blame first on Lebanon's confessionalist system and most of its rulers who were masters in selling their souls, their communities and Lebanon. That is sadly a historical fact since the Christian-Druze massacres in 1843.<br /><br />Back to modern times.<br /><br />In 1976, the Syrian army invaded Lebanon to prevent a victory of the Lebanese left and the PLO against the Lebanese right (Christians). West-Beirut was besieged and bombarded for months. I lived in the Ras El-Nabeh district and remember the nights with Grad and Katyusha missiles fired by Assad`s troops. Palestinian and Lebanese militias and so many civilians paid a heavy toll. A year later, leftist Lebanese leader Kamal Jumblatt was murdered by soldiers of Assad the father who wanted to control Lebanon and the PLO. He had ordered Jumblatt`s assassination to quell any serious and charismatic form of dissent.<br /><br />Other assassinations against politicians, journalists and clergymen followed. The one event that crushed the remaining serious opposition to Hafez Assad was of Amal leader Musa Sadr who had stubbornly refused to push the Shia community into Assad's war against Christian militias in 1978. Sadr was lured by Assad's ally, Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, to Tripoli where he disappeared in August 1978.<br /><br />Until the end of the Lebanese civil war in 1990, Syrian troops also fought against many Lebanese factions, dividing and ruling at will.<br /><br />From 1990 until 2005 (the year when the Syrian army was forced to leave Lebanon in the wake of mass protests, the "Cedar Revolution") the Baath regime undermined institutions and plundered the country with its cronies in Lebanon`s government and parliament. Today, Syrian interference is still strong as its allies – spearheaded by the Hezbollah – toppled the government of Saad Hariri in January 2011 by forcing Druze leader Walid Jumblatt to pull his support from Hariri. Walid Jumblatt, the son of Kamal Jumblatt, was threatened with death, several high-ranking and Lebanese sources told me. The pro-Syrian government of Premier Najib Mikati was then set up in Beirut in spring 2011.<br /><br />In his 11-year career as a dictator, Bashar Assad committed two fatal strategic mistakes, one in Syria and one in Lebanon: The first was when, after taking over power in June 2000, he promised to introduce political and economic reforms but never delivered. He allowed a “<a href="http://www.hrw.org/news/2009/02/23/forgotten-damascus-spring">Damascus Spring</a>” , a period of intense political and social debate, to flourish between mid-2000 after his father`s death till autumn 2001. Assad the son then crushed dissent when realizing that it threatened the foundations of his regime. The <a href="http://www.menassat.com/?q=en/alerts/4384-syria-authorities-release-last-damascus-spring-prisoners">last prisoner</a> of the Damascus Spring movement was released in August 2008. Many have been detained again since the 2011 intifada started.<br /><br />Bashar Assad’ second fatal mistake was his decision to order the assassination of Lebanese Premier Rafic Hariri in 2005. This was followed by the killing of other anti-Baath Lebanese politicians and journalists like <a href="http://www.samirkassir.net/">Samir Kassir</a> and <a href="http://www.gebrantueni.com/">Jibran Tueni</a>. The series of murders led to the United Nations setting up the <a href="http://www.stl-tsl.org/action/home">Special Tribunal for Lebanon</a> (STL) in the Hague, Netherlands, to investigate and uncover the truth.<br /><br />What we already know is that Bashar Assad, his brother Maher (controls Republican Guard and the elite Army 4th Division) and his brother-in-law Asef Shawkat (controls military intelligence) asked the Lebanese <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/21/AR2010112103987.html">Hezbollah militia to carry out these murders</a> – off course with the blessing of the Iranian regime that funds, arms and ultimately controls Hezbollah.<br /><br />Media reports said <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/21/AR2010112103987.html">Hezbollah members</a> were behind the Hariri murder. UN investigator Detlev Mehlis issued a <a href="http://www.un.org/News/dh/docs/mehlisreport/">report</a> in October 2005, clearly pointing the finger on Assad the son. The report`s main conclusions seemed to be bulletproof. In August 2011 the STL published the <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/62476228/Indictment-in-the-Case-of-Ayyash-et-al">indictment of four Hezbollah members</a> accused of having been part in the assassination plot.<br /><br />Hezbollah, its Iranian backers and Assad accused Israel and the US of being behind the killing of Hariri.<br /><br />As a revenge for the end of the military occupation of Lebanon, and in a partly successful attempt to regain control in Beirut, Bashar Assad and his Iranian allies <a href="http://www.fouadhamdan.org/cms/upload/pdf/Now_is_decision_time_Sayid_Nasrallah_FouadHamdan_DailyStar_ENGLISH_12may2006.pdf">encouraged Hezbollah</a> to step up attacks against Israel`s northern border. This lead to the senseless 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war that left some more than 1,400 people in Lebanon dead. About 160 Israelis were killed. Hezbollah claimed a "victory" despite the many dead, the destruction and a shattered economy. Assad the son managed to destabilize Lebanon and made it clear that via Hezbollah he can at will cause mayhem.<br /><br />But there are good news for Lebanon: The opposition Syrian National Council on 26 January 2012 announced that, after the fall of the Baath regime, it will put relations with its neighbor on a normal track. The main points of the announced policy:<br /><br />_ Borders between the two states will be demarcated, particularly in the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms. Until today the Assad regime has refused to officially declare whether Shebaa is Lebanese or Syrian territory – at the same time it lets Hezbollah claim that Shebaa is Lebanese, giving the Iranian-backed militia a pretext to keep tensions high along the Lebanese-Israeli border.<br /><br />_ Activities of Syrian intelligence and security in Lebanon, which have been systematically interfering in the country’s internal affairs, would end.<br /><br />_ A commission of inquiry would be established to look into the cases of detained Lebanese and missing persons in Syrian prisons. Lebanese NGOs say they have the names of 545 people believed to be in Syrian prisons, all of them victims of enforced disappearance during the 1975-1990 Civil War.<br /><br />If a post-Assad, democratic and free Syria introduces this new policy it would mean an end of controlling Lebanon`s institution by force, an end of assassinations, an end of channeling Iranian arms to Hezbollah and end of the decade-long policy of destabilization. A new era of relations between the two countries would start.<br /><br /><b>The crimes of the Assads against the Palestinian Cause</b><br /><br />The Syrian Baath regime probably murdered more Palestinians directly or indirectly then Israel since the Jewish state was established on Palestinian land in 1948. When the Syrian army invaded Lebanon in 1976 to control the PLO Syrian heavy artillery then backed Lebanese pro-Israeli Christian right-wing militias in their onslaught against the Palestinian refugee camp of Tel al-Zaatar, which was wiped out. Estimates about the killed Palestinians vary between 1,500 and 3,000. In comparison, Israeli troops killed about 1,400 Palestinians during the <a href="http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/docs/UNFFMGC_Report.PDF">Gaza War</a> in 2006.<br /><br />During the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990), Assad the father armed “his” Palestinians under the banner of as-Saiqa headed in the 1970 by Zuheir Mohsen, the PFLP-GC headed by Ahmed Jibril, and the Abu Musa group. Hafez Assad`s aim was to weaken PLO leader Yassir Arafat and hold in his hands alone the Palestinian card in the geopolitical game.<br /><br />I will never forget the as-Saiqa thugs who kidnapped me to Beirut’s Sabra refugee camp for a few hours in 1975 (I was 16) because of a joke I made about one of their gunmen who died during a fight over a loot – and not as a “martyr” in a battle against "imperialists and Zionists". I was lucky that friends saw who abducted me and alarmed my family. After a few phone calls I was released from an underground cell.<br /><br />As-Saiqa was formed as an organization by the Syrian Baath in September 1966 and later activated to build up an alternative to Arafat. The group was used as a proxy force in the Palestinian movement. During the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War, Hafez Assad built as-Saiqa into one of the most important Palestinian militias and forced it to join in Syrian offensives against the PLO when relations between Assad and Arafat were tense.<br /><br />As-Saiqa was responsible of the 1976 massacre of Lebanese Christians in the town of Damur in 1976 - to inflame sectarian tensions and destabilize the country. Today, as-Saiqa has become insignificant. The Assad regime has changed its strategy to supporting Palestinian Islamist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad to undermine the PLO.<br /><br />Syrian troops in 1976 surrounded West Beirut for months and bombed and bombed, killing scores of Lebanese and Palestinians. As mentioned before, I lived in besieged West Beirut and Assad`s troops rained on us missiles and mortar rounds by the thousands until the city fell and Arafat had to accept Assad`s iron fist around his neck. At least for a while.<br /><br />In 1983, Abu Musa gunmen and regular Syrian troops besieged the northern Lebanese town of Tripoli to squelch Arafat and again try to seize control of the PLO. Thousands were injured and killed; Arafat and his surviving guerrillas managed to flee on a boat to Tunisia.<br /><br />In 1985-1988, the Amal militia headed by Nabih Berri (tragically Lebanon’s parliamentary president since 1992) committed crimes against humanity during the infamous “War of the Camps”. Hafez Assad ordered his man, Berri, to attack Palestinians camps in Beirut (Sabra and Chatila where pro-Israeli Lebanese militias massacred some 2,000 Palestinians in 1982, and in Borj al-Barajneh) and southern Lebanon (Ain al-Hlilweh), killing hundreds, in an attempt to crush Arafat’s guerrillas.<br /><br />During these bloody 1980s Assad and his ally Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi ordered the assassination of moderate PLO leaders via the Abu Nidal group. Described by Patrick Seal as a “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Abu-Nidal-Secret-Notorious-Terrorist/dp/0679400664">Gun for Hire</a>”, Abu Nidal was a former PLO guerrilla who became a professional hit-man for Assad the father, Gaddafi and late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.<br /><br />Some of my leftist friends often claim that one should acknowledge that the Assads at least indirectly gave hell to the Israelis by supporting Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad. I disagree. I believe the Syrian regime has played into the hands of the Israeli right by supporting these groups.<br /><br />The Assads weakened the Palestinian cause because the Israeli right used attacks against civilians in Israel, carried out by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as an excuse to expand settlements and push away the dream of establishing a Palestinian state. The leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad are based in Damascus - although by late 2011 Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal was silent about the Syrian Intifada and was allegedly trying to move his headquarters out of Damascus.<br /><br />Regarding Hezbollah, indeed it liberated southern Lebanon after a long guerrilla war that ended in victory in May 2000, when Israeli troops withdrew from an enclave along the border. Earlier, during the 1975-1990 Lebanon Civil War, Iran and Syria gave Hezbollah the green light to monopolize the anti-Israel fight by murdering in the mid 1980s leftist and secular guerrillas who started the intifada against Israeli occupation in 1983. The “Lebanese Resistance” became by force an “Islamic Resistance”, an arm of the Iranian Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guards).<br /><br />Iran and Syria used Hezbollah into a tool to pressure Israel and its Western allies along Israel’s northern border. Hezbollah’s main role since 2000 was to help secure the regimes in Damascus and Tehran. The message sent by the party: “Let the Assad regime in peace, let the regime in Teheran go on with its military nuclear program or else Israel is in trouble with the thousands of missile we got from Iran via Syria”.<br /><br />Islamic Jihad and to a much lesser extent Hamas were used for the same purpose in Gaza and elsewhere in Israel and the Palestine territories.<br /><br />Pressures to liberate the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights or to support the Palestinians establish a state was definitely not on the agenda of the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis.<br /><br />Cynicism at its best occurred when Assad`s security apparatus and PFLP-GC members ferried Palestinian refugees from Damascus to the border on the Golan Heights during the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/15/israeli-troops-kill-eight-nakba-protests">Nakba Day on May 15, 2011</a> (Israel was established 63 years earlier). Many Palestinians managed to cross into the Israeli occupied zone.<br /><br />The same day, Hezbollah orchestrated a similar PR coup and allowed busloads of Palestinian refugees from camps in Lebanon to approach the border from the village of Marun al-Ras. At least 13 Palestinians were shot and killed by Israeli soldiers after Assad, the PFLP-GC and Hezbollah sacrificed them in an attempt to send a warning message to Israel and the West.<br /><br />Ironically, Rami Makhlouf a week earlier send via the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/world/middleeast/11makhlouf.html?_r=1">New York </a><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/world/middleeast/11makhlouf.html?_r=1">Times</a> this message: “If there is no stability here, there’s no way there will be stability in Israel... No way, and nobody can guarantee what will happen after, God forbid, anything happens to this (Syrian) regime.” Asked if it was a warning or a threat, Makhlouf answered, "I didn't say war. What I’m saying is don’t let us suffer, don’t put a lot of pressure on the president, don’t push Syria to do anything it is not happy to do."<br /><br />In mid-August the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which assists Palestinian refugees, said about 10,000 residents of a Palestinian refugee district in the Syrian port city of Latakia had fled during an assault, as Syrian security forces carried out arrests. "A forgotten population has now become a disappeared population," said UNRWA officials Christopher Gunness.<br /><br />The district under attack, Raml, was set up in Latakia after 1948 when Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes during the battle for Palestine. Raml grew into one of the city’s largest areas. Demonstrations have erupted there since the Syrian intifada began in March 2011.<br /><br />Mr. Gunness said forces directed heavy fire into the neighbourhood and that Syrian security officials had told some of the residents to leave. The Syrian authorities have refused UNRWA access to Raml, he said. PLO official Yasser Abed Rabbo described the attack on Raml as “a crime against humanity”.<br /><br />Meanwhile, Hamas has dumped the Assad regime; its activists have left Damascus and too refuge in Qatar, Jordan and Egypt. <br /><br /><b>The Syrian intifada</b><br /><br />So many massacres have been taking place in Syria since March 2011. One highlight being Maher Assad filming people his troops killed, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDeV9I8c3YA&skipcontrinter=1">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDeV9I8c3YA&skipcontrinter=1</a>. I will spare readers horrific images and films about the daily killing in Syria.<br /><br />Meanwhile, Syrian activists seeking refuge in Lebanon are in constant danger. On May 24, 2011 Shibli al-Ayssami, an elderly man and one of the founders of the Syrian Baath, was kidnapped by unknown men in Aley, Lebanon. Until recently little came out about the investigation. Al-Ayssami retired from politics in 1992 and moved in 2003 to Egypt, before leaving for the US in 2008. He was in Lebanon to see his family when he was kidnapped.<br /><br />The Lebanese anti-Syrian portal NOW Lebanon quoted in August 2011 a “high-ranking Internal Security Forces (ISF) officer” admitting that the investigation might not have been conducted properly for political reasons, as many Lebanese security officers are close to the Syrian regime. But, he noted, the ISF’s intelligence branch conducted its own inquiry into the disappearance and gathered valuable information. “We are 90 percent sure that al-Ayssami was taken by members of a major political party now in government, known for its Syrian ties,” he said.<br /><br />This information was backed up by a report released in August 2011 by the Syrian Committee for Human Rights (SCHR), which accused a member of the Lebanese security apparatus of kidnapping al-Ayssami. “The officer is known to be close to a local party that is currently aligned to Syria. We have information about the license plate of the car that transferred al-Ayssami to Syria,” SCHR President Walid Saffour told NOW Lebanon. “Al-Ayssami is currently being held prisoner in a military intelligence building in Damascus.”<br /><br />The SCHR report read, “Lebanon under the current regime is not a country that is safe for Syrian dissidents.”<br /><br />The al-Ayssami case resembles that of the Jassem brothers, three Syrians who were arrested by the Lebanese security services in February 2011 for distributing flyers calling for democratic change in Syria. They vanished after their release. Later reports said one of the men died in custody.<br /><br />Such disappearances highlight the Lebanese state’s failure to protect people in the country as well as the lack of judicial oversight in investigating possible cases of police corruption and collusion with the Syrian regime. “A culture of impunity prevails currently in Lebanon,” said Nadim Houry, head researcher at Human Rights Watch in Beirut.<br /><br />Back to Syria where the success of the Local Coordination Committees (LCCs) stems from their ability to stay decentralized, work in secret and fashion messages and slogans that mobilize the masses. The youthful demonstrators who make up these LCCs have bridged divides of sect, religion and class. They built on years of local dissidence that created informal networks of friends and colleagues.<br /><br />“Reporting the news, that’s how we started,” said activist Rami Nakhke (know online as Malath Aumran). Even before the uprising, activists had smuggled in cell phones, satellite modems and computers in preparation for the intifada. In the earliest days, activists managed to offer a narrative of the uprising that was revealing, incomplete and subjective. In the weeks that ensued activists coalesced into committees that reached out to one another.<br /><br />Rami Nakhle said the first committee arose in Daraya, a suburb of Damascus, and the best-organized were in Syria’s third-largest city, Homs. There, activists came together in committees, with a small number of people helping coordinate many more on the ground to document demonstrations. It is in a way like a news agency coordinating hundreds of citizen journalists.<br /><br />Nationwide, thousands are fully engaged in the committees, with the majority of them overwhelmingly young. Across Syria, many activists who are acknowledged as committee leaders try to communicate via internet and satellite phones.<br /><br />The Syrian government has been cracking down on protesters’ use of social media and the Internet. Syrian activists said security officials are moving on multiple fronts:<br /><br />_ They force detained dissidents turn over their Facebook passwords<br />_ They switch off the mobile network at times, sharply limiting the ability of dissidents to upload videos of protests to YouTube, but many are relying on satellite technology to bypass this<br />_ Supporters of Assad the son are using the same online tools to try to discredit dissidents<br />_ Regime thugs have been confiscating cameras, mobile phones and laptops of people they suspect of supporting the intifada.<br /><br /><img src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/p480x480/301387_10150860936360398_541545397_20920157_669429923_n.jpg" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Leave, blood general"</span></span></div>
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</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />With foreign journalists barred from the country, dissidents have been working with exiles and using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to draw global attention to the brutal crackdown. The Facebook page </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Syrian.Revolution" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Syrian Revolution 2011</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and many others have been a vital source of information for dissidents. “The only way we get information is through the citizen journalists,” said Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian activist based in Maryland who was one of several Syrian exiles to help organize delivery of satellite phones, cameras and laptops into Syria. “Without them, we would not know anything.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To help counter the protesters’ successful online narrative, pro-government supporters in Syria have created Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and YouTube channels to disseminate pro-regime messages. In addition, the </span><a href="http://www.infowar-monitor.net/2011/05/7349/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Syrian Electronic Army group</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">” is working to disrupt dissident efforts. Their Facebook page was shut down by Facebook for outlining detailed instructions on how to attack opponents online, a violation of Facebook’s terms of service. In this </span><a href="http://www.syrian-es.com/about-us.html" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">website</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, the “electronic army” describes itself as “enthusiastic Syrian youths who could not stay passive towards the massive distortion of facts about the recent uprising in Syria”. It boasts about hacking enemy sites.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Intifada humor</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A group called the “Strong Heroes Of Moscow” released a </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEUPnzzIsjw&feature=player_embedded" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">rap video</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> in June 2011 satirizing Assad the son. Aljazeera TV published an </span><a href="http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/syria-jul-2-2011-1747" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">English translation</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> of the Arabic lyrics, which say that “freedom” is a “conspiracy coming from Mars.” Here is an excerpt:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"We’re going to fill all the cells, we’re going to fill all the prisons. We want to empty the Russian guns, for the sake of the Assadi nation.Your name is always up there, your voice is heard up in the skies. Even if your own people starve to death we will elect you for eternity. We don’t have one opinion, or two opinions. We have your light that blinds the eyes. You are our magnificent, you beautiful thing. You are the king of humanity!" When the song is over, the video cuts to footage of men dressed in military gear beating a protester on his knees.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One man, Ibrahim Kachouch, became famous in June 2011 when he sang </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mG3V2fBYbw" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">very creative and funny anti-Assad slogans in a song</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> to the crowds. He was later </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-bePMAlEok&skipcontrinter=1" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">killed</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> in Hama by regime thugs. People repeat his song "Yalla ir7al ya Bashar!" (Come on Bashar, leave) at every anti-Assad demonstration in Syria and abroad.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/rev.multimediateam" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">multimedia team of the Syrian intifada</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> has created satirical posters like this:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">“Shabbih (ghost) Nr. 1 – Specialized in killing demonstrators” </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <br />An example of a Facebook activist’s humor: <br /> <br />كتشفنا للأسف أن<br />حسني مش مبارك<br /> و بشار مش اسد<br /> و بن علي مش زين<br /> و علي عبد الله مش صالح<br /> و القذافي طلع مش معمر شي <br /> <br />I especially liked this film <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRh4hd9zl-w">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRh4hd9zl-w</a> that made me tweet the following: "Congratulations #Nasrallah + his #Hezbollah for turning #Syria people against #Lebanon #Shia!" The Syrian opposition has been charging that Hezbollah members and Pasdaran were actively supporting Assad's troops in arresting, torturing and killing.<br /><br />Bashar Assad seems to have no humor at all. In the early morning hours of August 24, 2011 masked members of his security forces pulled Syrian cartoonist Ali Farzat out of his car near Damascus' Umayyad Mosque. He was then <a href="http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/syrian-cartoonist-ali-farzat-beaten">beaten</a>, his hands broken, and dumped on the road leading to the airport. Pictures of Farzat convalescing in a hospital bed were <a href="http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=s.240904439287374&type=1">posted</a> online. <br /><br /><img height="315" src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/377403_10150428073619475_74184769474_8799273_1888082731_n.jpg" width="320" /> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Bashar Assad, by Ali Farzat</span></span></div>
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<br />Farzat was no ordinary Syrian opposed to the Assad regime; he is one of the Arab world's finest political cartoonists. During the short-lived moment of political liberalization at the beginning of Bashar's reign in 2000, he launched his own satirical newspaper, al-Domari. It was soon closed as Syrian authorities returned to their old habits. But Farzat kept drawing.<br /><br />One fun site is <a href="https://www.facebook.com/imlover.so.imstupid">https://www.facebook.com/imlover.so.imstupid</a> where a person or a team ridicules Assad and his stooges who regularly shout to their dictator "Minhibbak" (we love you).<br /><br />In Homs, the "Stalingrad" of the Assad regime, people are known for their humor. They can make fun of themselves, even under bombs. Jokes from there:<br /><br />_ A man brings home a chicken to be cooked in the oven. But there’s no gas, she tells him. The stove? No electricity, she moans. Spared, the chicken shouts the slogan of Assad supporters: “Allah, Suriya, Bashar wa bass!" (God, Syria, Bashar and no one else)<br /><br />_ A Homsi asks his friend, "Will we continue demonstrating after the fall of the regime?" The friend, says "What does this have to do with that?"<br /><br />_ When Assad the son promised a referendum on a new constitution to take place end feb 2012: <br /><br /> !حمصي ع الدستور الجديد راح يترشح عالرئاسة .. قلو الموظف: حيوان انت ولا؟ أبتفهم؟ جحش <br />جاوب الحمصي: يعني هي من شروط الترشح للرئاسة؟<br /><br /> :منحبكجي قال لـــ حمصــي <br />هي مؤامرة لتقسيم سوريا الأسد ..<br />صفن الحمصي شوي<br /> وقال والله فكرة إنتو خدو الأسد ونحنا مناخد سوريا<br /> <br />Here is a slogan people chant when demonstrating: Ya Bashar, ya Bashar, na7na ma 3andna thawrat Facebook, na7na 3andna thawrat teis abuk! (Bashar, Bashar, we are not having a Facebook revolution, we are having a revolution against your father's idiot, i.e. you).<br /><br />Asma Assad provoked someone into setting up a mock website under her name, <a href="http://www.asmaassad.com/">http://www.asmaassad.com/</a>, in which she is quoted as writing: "I am Asma Assad. I am the wife of a vicious war criminal. He murders innocent civilians. He sends his henchman to torture children, snipe innocent civilians, rape women, young girls, and boys. He is currently decimating my hometown, Homs. He bombs mosques, churches, hospitals and his brutality knows no limits. He is trying to pit Alawites against Sunnis against Christians and against Kurds. I told him this will not work, but he is confident that it will..."<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu3DykovEEDzwrmeZWp87TPcguzUAhBdy4-GKh5dE845EyXJ8U258V91L31xWXzancTulzG8iU7yzsvOK1zkMvo-2Bsm8fgjObhyEpOGfjAN3Lg5BSrhDM4UzJKeUELT-EgRVb4z0wT30/s1600/amuda+in+hasaka+region_Feb2012.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu3DykovEEDzwrmeZWp87TPcguzUAhBdy4-GKh5dE845EyXJ8U258V91L31xWXzancTulzG8iU7yzsvOK1zkMvo-2Bsm8fgjObhyEpOGfjAN3Lg5BSrhDM4UzJKeUELT-EgRVb4z0wT30/s400/amuda+in+hasaka+region_Feb2012.jpg" /></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Amuda in Hasaka region, Feb 2012</span></span></div>
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<b>THE END</b><br /><br />Looking back to the era of the pre-Syrian intifada, one cannot but remember the mother of all propaganda quotes from Bashar Assad, published in the Wall Street Journal on 31 January 2011: "If you didn’t see the need for reform before what happened in Egypt and Tunisia, it’s too late to do any reform... Syria is stable. Why? Because you have to be very closely linked to the beliefs of the people. This is the core issue. When there is divergence… you will have this vacuum that creates disturbances".<br /><br />Assad the son did not admit the need for reform, and he was dead wrong when claiming that Syria was stable. Six weeks later the Syrian intifada started on March 15. His delusional approach has been developing to the worse since then. In December 2011, Bashar Assad gave a disturbing <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/8940499/President-Assad-I-dont-feel-guilty.html">interview</a> to a US TV station in which he claimed he is "not guilty" of any wrongdoings and that he did not give any orders to shoot at people.<br /><br />In a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/arabic/middleeast/2012/01/120110_syria_assad_speech.shtml">speech</a> on 10 January 2012 he was not only as delusional as the previous ones, he was defiant and clearly wanted to mobilize his supporters. He spoke to the Shabiha and not to the people. Days later he was <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrmBwCjEXIM">speaking</a> to crowds in the Omayyad Square in Damascus, a desperate act that reminded me of Gaddafi speeches in Tripoli's Green Square before he was toppled.<br /><br />Meanwhile, the Syrian intifada led to the isolation of the Assad regime, to US, EU and Arab league sanctions and to more and more defections among the army and security forces. A Free Syrian Army has started to form and defend protesters. And the Syrian National Council (SNC) was established, a coalition that includes the LCCs, the exiled Moslem Brotherhood, liberals and intellectuals from all walks of life.<br /><br />By March 2012, the Syrian rebels were in control of numerous urban and rural areas - by day and night. At night, .Assad's troops and Shabiha cannot move safely between many cities.<br /><br />The only ones left who still believe Bashar Assad can introduce reforms and save his regime are autocrats and dictators like Russian Premier Vladimir Putin (linked to the rigging of parliamentary elections), Sudanese President Omar Bashir (wanted for crimes against humanity) and Iran's leaders (who rigged past elections and are responsible for numerous human rights violations). Not the best friends you can rely on when in deep trouble.<br /><br />A ruler like Bashar Assad who is responsible for ordering the arrests, torture and killing of peaceful activists can never introduce any serious reforms. There is no way back for a dictator the moment he enters the vicious circle of violence. Any serious reform would lead to his arrest – he, family members and cronies. See the fate of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his two sons. This is also why a dictator like Libya's Moammar Gaddafi could only fight until his death in the summer of 2011 - and not give an inch of real power or introduce a millimeter of political reform. Too much blood, too much plundering. Fear from accountability.<br /><br />After declaring the end of state of emergency in the spring of 2011, Assad the son in July gave the green light for a "national dialogue" that saw members of the regime and their supporters talking with themselves. In early August 2011 he passed a decree allowing a multi-party system. These moves where at best cynical public relations. The Baath party, which controls the country since 1963, was still guaranteed by the Syrian constitution the role of "leading state and society".<br /><br />Bashar Assad has chosen force as his ultimate response to the popular intifada sweeping Syria. He cannot and will not change his strategy of brutal repression. His back is on the wall. He will fight until the bitter end because he and his entourage have no place in a free and democratic Syria – except in jail.<br /><br /><img height="300" src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/424559_10150583878393600_504238599_9245383_1103816656_n.jpg" width="400" /> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Syrian regime</span></span></div>
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<br />The Baath regime is dying and will be pulled down or it may implode in a surprise development. This is inevitable because the wall of fear is gone and because it is now the Assad clan and their stooges who are afraid. People will not stop protesting and fighting despite the brutal repression.<br /><br />Abdel Hafidh Ghoga, Vice chairman of Libya's Transitional National Council in August 2011, sent an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/world/africa/28benghazi.html?ref=middleeast">advice</a> to Assad the son, shortly after the fall of Gaddafi: "He should be extremely worried because he’s following in the same steps that Gaddafi did, and he is as doomed. Without doubt, when the people of a nation have marched forward and demanded democracy and freedom, and, in particular, when there has been such a loss of blood, there is no turning back."<br /><br />Bashar Assad did not listen and will not; he cannot but govern without the consent of those being governed. His <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrmBwCjEXIM">appearance </a>in Umayyade Square in Damascus on January 11, 2012 reminded me of Gaddafi's regular speeches in Tripoli's "Green Square" before the latter was toppled. Dictators desperately tend to reach out to the people when things get really messy.<br /><br />The Arab League gave it a shot, but its mission in Syria failed to stop the killing and in January 2012 ended its mission because of the deteriorating security situation. Its head resigned a month later. Tunisia in February 2012 shut down the Syrian embassy in Tunis, a move followed by other Arab states. Meanwhile, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have called for arming the opposition Free Syrian Army.<br /><br />The isolation of Bashar Assad became truly global when on 16 February 2012 the UN General Assembly approved a non-binding resolution calling for the removal of Assad the son from power. This came after Arab League members states, the US and the EU failed on February 4th to pass a UN Security Council resolution demanding decisive actions to protect the Syrian people. Russia and China vetoed this, a move that will just prolong the agony and strengthen the resolve of the Syrian people. It will not save Assad. The Syrian dictator and the Baath regime are doomed. Nothing and no one can save them.<br /><br />And after the fall of the Baath regime Syria will be come a source of stability in the region.<br /><br /><br />Action: Ask the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute Bashar Assad. <a href="http://fouadhamdan.blogspot.com/2011/06/icc-must-prosecute-syras-assad-to-help.html">Write a letter to the ICC</a>!<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.fouadhamdan.org/">Fouad Hamdan</a> is a former correspondent of the German Press Agency DPA in Cairo and the Gulf (1987-1990). He established Greenpeace Lebanon (1994-1999) and worked as Communications Director of Greenpeace Germany (1999-2004). Fouad was the founding executive director of the <a href="http://www.ahrfund.org/">Arab Human Rights Fund</a> in Beirut (2008-2012). Since January 2011 he has been working on <a href="http://www.fouadhamdan.org/cms/front_content.php?idcat=2">democracy-building projects</a> in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. "Hopefully also in Syria soon," he says.<br /><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYgyUnvYjEHzFVoTcfXm6bvfsHWrwffbbeuHqK0Jpgs2DNIM8s9azYZobdVqMsM7Kxuth3Nu45EBa_DnOdxC1dnVrbPgAwp_FEE4e-wpuit78LoArVo537mJkazi2F6JguEKUJi-9L5Uc/s1600/390577_259693544080914_100001208113149_802258_674550049_n.jpg"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYgyUnvYjEHzFVoTcfXm6bvfsHWrwffbbeuHqK0Jpgs2DNIM8s9azYZobdVqMsM7Kxuth3Nu45EBa_DnOdxC1dnVrbPgAwp_FEE4e-wpuit78LoArVo537mJkazi2F6JguEKUJi-9L5Uc/s320/390577_259693544080914_100001208113149_802258_674550049_n.jpg" width="115" /></a><br /><br />LINKS:<br /><br />_ The Syrian National Council: </span><a href="http://www.syriancouncil.org/" style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">www.SyrianCouncil.org</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ Syrian Revolution</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> on Facebook: </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Syrian.Revolution" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">https://www.facebook.com/Syrian.Revolution</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/rev.multimediateam" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">https://www.facebook.com/rev.multimediateam</a><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ The free Syrian Journalists Association (for the time being from exile, soon from free Damascus): <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SyrianJournalistsAssociation">https://www.facebook.com/SyrianJournalistsAssociation</a><br />_ The Free Syrian Army: </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/army.syriafree" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">https://www.facebook.com/army.syriafree</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ The Assad emails, published 15 March 2012: </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/14/assad-emails-lift-lid-inner-circle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/14/assad-emails-lift-lid-inner-circle</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ The Arab League mission in Syria: </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwkgqBIOh60&feature=player_embedded#!" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwkgqBIOh60&feature=p</a><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwkgqBIOh60&feature=player_embedded#!" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">layer_embedded#!</a><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ Syrian Observatory for Human Rights: <a href="http://www.syriahr.com/">http://www.syriahr.com/</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Syrian-Observatory-for-Human-Rights/121855461256134?sk=wall">https://www.facebook.com/pages/Syrian-Observatory-for-Human-Rights/121855461256134?sk=wall</a><br />_ Caricaturist Ali Farzat: <a href="http://www.ali-ferzat.com/">http://www.ali-ferzat.com/</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ali-Farzat-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%8A-%D9%81%D8%B1%D8%B2%D8%A7%D8%AA/74184769474?sk=wall">https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ali-Farzat-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%8A-%D9%81%D8%B1%D8%B2%D8%A7%D8%AA/74184769474?sk=wall</a><br />_ Syrian Revolution General Commission: <a href="http://www.srgcommission.org/">http://www.srgcommission.org/</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SyrianRevolutionGeneralCommission">https://www.facebook.com/SyrianRevolutionGeneralCommission</a><br />_ Understanding the roots of the Assad dictatorship: <a href="http://www.ademocracynet.com/index.php?page=articles&action=Detail&id=2507">http://www.ademocracynet.com/index.php?page=articles&action=Detail&id=2507</a><br />_ The Damascus Bureau, <a href="http://damascusbureau.org/arabic/">http://damascusbureau.org/arabic/</a><br />_ Map of the battle for Homs, <a href="http://syriamap.wordpress.com/">http://syriamap.wordpress.com/</a><br />_ Mock website of Asma Assad, <a href="http://www.asmaassad.com/">http://www.asmaassad.com/</a><br /><br />One of the many heroes of the Syrian revolution, Fadwa Suleiman, who is an Alawi . Check her statements and activities in the Homs area:<br />_ <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PlQlLxh5rEE">http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PlQlLxh5rEE</a><br />_ <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUx3SPSqI8E&feature=related">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUx3SPSqI8E&feature=related</a><br />_ <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EWjlWCs1M3U">http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EWjlWCs1M3U</a><br /><br />_ Online activists I recommend you follow:<br /><a href="https://www.facebook.com/imlover.so.imstupid?sk=info">https://www.facebook.com/imlover.so.imstupid?sk=info</a><br /><a href="https://www.facebook.com/malath.aumran">https://www.facebook.com/malath.aumran</a><br /><a href="https://www.facebook.com/fadialhaddad">https://www.facebook.com/fadialhaddad</a><br /><a href="https://www.facebook.com/gkabbani">https://www.facebook.com/gkabbani</a><br /><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ola.ragipoglu">https://www.facebook.com/ola.ragipoglu</a><br /><a href="https://www.facebook.com/alexanderpagesy">https://www.facebook.com/alexanderpagesy</a><br /><br />_ Videos and film archive: <a href="http://onsyria.com/">http://onsyria.com/</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Syrian.R.V?sk=wall">https://www.facebook.com/Syrian.R.V?sk=wall</a><br />_ The Assad Clan: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150265113601430&set=a.10150113415956430.283411.541221429&type=1&theater">https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150265113601430&set=a.10150113415956430.283411.541221429&type=1&theater</a><br />_ Full length Assad speech on 10 January 2012: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vcWpvEYIiXc#!">http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vcWpvEYIiXc#!</a><br />_ Lost chances of Assad the son: <a href="http://www.merip.org/mero/mero041311">http://www.merip.org/mero/mero041311</a><br />_ The Forum for National Dialogue, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4575987.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4575987.stm</a><br />_ The Damascus Declaration, <a href="http://www.demdigest.net/damascusdeclaration.html">http://www.demdigest.net/damascusdeclaration.html</a><br />_ Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2010, <a href="http://www.transparency.org/publications/publications/cpi2010">http://www.transparency.org/publications/publications/cpi2010</a><br />_ WikiLeaks about Rami Makhlouf, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/143458">http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/143458</a><br /><br />Lebanon:<br />_ On Hezbollah and its senseless war with Israel in 2006, <a href="http://www.fouadhamdan.org/cms/upload/pdf/Now_is_decision_time_Sayid_Nasrallah_FouadHamdan_DailyStar_ENGLISH_12may2006.pdf">http://www.fouadhamdan.org/cms/upload/pdf/Now_is_decision_time_Sayid_Nasrallah_FouadHamdan_DailyStar_ENGLISH_12may2006.pdf</a><br /><br />Pro-Assad sites:<br />_ Addounia TV, <a href="http://www.addounia.tv/web/main.php">http://www.addounia.tv/web/main.php</a><br />_ The Syrian Electronic Army Group, <a href="http://www.syrian-es.com/">http://www.syrian-es.com/</a><br />_ <a href="http://www.ademocracynet.com/index.php?page=articles&action=Detail&id=928">http://www.ademocracynet.com/index.php?page=articles&action=Detail&id=928</a><br />_ <a href="https://www.facebook.com/president.al.asad">https://www.facebook.com/president.al.asad</a></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/syria.tube" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">https://www.facebook.com/syria.tube</a><br />
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</div>Fouad Hamdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16250340871594600594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1922141959062330613.post-50816758934178099232011-10-08T18:21:00.000+03:002011-10-09T14:27:05.973+03:00Tunisian Election Season Kicks Off - Personal Integrity and Credibility of Candidates Likely More Important than Ideology<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Tunis, summer 2011</span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The elections campaign is now in full flow on the internet, on Facebook, in the newspapers. Candidates are already on the road giving speeches and holding public meetings.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br />There are 105 parties registered and hundreds of independent lists, but I think personal trust, credibility and integrity will play more of a role in these elections than political ideology.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br />Everyone wants to see the people they are going to vote for. This is a small country and on a local level, people will be familiar with the people on the lists in their voting districts.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br />So far, most people have the same message – creating jobs, reforming the justice system and the police, boosting the economy in poor regions, fighting corruption and protecting the environment.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br />There are candidates who have already made all kinds of unrealistic promises, but people in Tunisia are not stupid. No-one believes that tomorrow everything will be solved. Even the few illiterate people here are street smart.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br />More than half the public are still undecided – they just don’t know who they will vote for and are waiting to see the campaign and find out more about the abilities of the various candidates. It is going to be less about parties and more about personalities.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br />I think it is wonderful, and the campaign season is going amazingly well. Wherever you go people are talking politics. Taxi drivers, students, activists, and business people – everybody is volunteering or discussing or involved in some kind of political activity.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br />All the big parties have Facebook pages and are tweeting like crazy, uploading photographs. I could spend the whole day following the various campaigns; I have to make an effort to limit myself to 45 minutes daily.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br />It’s incredible how mature people are and how fast they are learning what it will mean to run a country democratically and the importance that free discussion plays in that process.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br />It is good at this point to have so many parties. This amount of groups will more accurately reflect people’s views and will give a greater sense of legitimacy to the results. Those who are elected will at first be tasked with writing a new constitution, but will still function as a de facto parliament.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br />All the secular, moderate, post-revolutionary political parties are facing a particularly big challenge to convince the public to vote for something new. I have strong doubts that all the old parties will be able to solve Tunisia’s problems, and that includes the Muslim Brotherhood party, Ennahda.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br />Some are still living in the 1970s and 1980s, with many in the movement still privately dreaming of setting up an Islamic republic. There are some who talk in double-speak; they refer to personal freedom, and pledge that liberal democracy is untouchable, but in reality they do not believe in the separation of religion and state and their positions remain ambiguous. Ennadha even, here and there, have women connected to the party who are not veiled, but this doesn’t mean anything. It is cheap PR.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br />However, they currently seem the strongest party and will probably be part of any new government, so people will see for themselves what their true face is. And I hope Ennadha will be involved in the government. This will not only test their responsibility and ability but will be healthy for Tunisia`s young democracy. It won’t be good if only secular parties are represented, and won’t be democratic if such a popular party is not integrated in a legitimate government.<br /><br />Then again, it is impossible to gauge their actual strength. There have been various opinion polls but none of them have been serious or meaningful.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br />There are fears that some elements of the former regime could create security problems here and there during the election season, but it won’t be possible for them to affect an unstoppable process. They can’t stop history. I am optimistic; I think turn-out will be extremely high. It won’t be easy, but in the end the people will win.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br />* Article first published with International War and peace Reporting, <a href="http://iwpr.net/report-news/tunisian-election-season-kicks">http://iwpr.net/report-news/tunisian-election-season-kicks</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br />* More info about elections in Tunisia: <a href="http://www.atide.org/">http://www.atide.org/</a><br />* You are Tunisian and you are not sure who to vote for? Go to <a href="http://www.ikhtiartounes.org/">www.ikhtiartounes.org</a><br />* Watch 2 videos by <span class="apple-style-span"><span lang="FR" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; line-height: 115%;">Association Tunisienne
des Femmes Démocrates</span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span lang="FR" style="line-height: 115%;"> (</span></span><span lang="EN-CA" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://femmesdemocrates.org/"><span lang="FR">ATFD</span></a></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span lang="FR" style="line-height: 115%;">) to motivate women to vote on October 23 - an dnot let men steal their votes/voices:</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lhwvhjwpJK4">http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lhwvhjwpJK4</a><br />_ <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xfv6paL7Gvk">http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xfv6paL7Gvk</a></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_964938088">Fouad</a></span></i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.fouadhamdan.org/"> Hamdan</a>, a former DPA correspondent in Cairo and the Gulf, set up Greenpeace Lebanon in 1994-1999. He was the founding executive director of the Arab Human Rights Fund in Beirut in 2008-10. Since January 2011 he has been working on democracy-building projects in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.</span></i></span></div>
Fouad Hamdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16250340871594600594noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1922141959062330613.post-23471362475671676142011-09-18T15:38:00.001+03:002011-09-30T13:51:58.566+03:00The sound of Arab democracy in Tunisia<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Download 6 songs for free from Tunisian women. <br /><a href="http://www.latunisievote.org/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=58&id=291&Itemid&lang=fr">http://www.latunisievote.org/i</a><a href="http://www.latunisievote.org/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=58&id=291&Itemid&lang=fr">ndex.php?option=com_flexiconte</a><a href="http://www.latunisievote.org/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=58&id=291&Itemid&lang=fr">nt&view=items&cid=58&id=291&It</a><a href="http://www.latunisievote.org/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=58&id=291&Itemid&lang=fr">emid&lang=fr</a></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Project by my friends from La Tunisie Vote 2011 and <a href="http://www.mict-international.org/">www.mict-international.org</a></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Check also this wonderful music clip, ENTI ESSOUT ("You are the Voice"), to motivate Tunisians to vote for the Constitutional Assembly on October 23, 2011 (UNDP project):</span><br />
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Fouad Hamdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16250340871594600594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1922141959062330613.post-21753728105776464032011-09-17T13:53:00.001+03:002011-09-30T13:50:33.056+03:00www.ikhtiartounes.org guides Tunisians when choosing who to vote for<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Tunisian group Jeunes Démocrates Indépendants (<a href="http://www.jidtunisie.net/">JID</a>) launched on 15 September 2011 <a href="http://www.ikhtiartounes.org/">www.ikhtiartounes.org</a>. It informs users about the political parties that are closest to ones expectations and values, ahead of elections for the Constitutional Assembly scheduled on October 23. This historic event in the Arab region is a first step in establishing an open and democratic Tunisia.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Ikhtiar” in Arabic means “choice”.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvHVg-azQ1eXLUhrjcgaIr8omM7KIXS2p9aXp11sVr7sGqE-f6kL4i6eLKG05FHIDhLByyAidmNPDAvXmblG5-jseUfavZ50o6JkYbf46y9QHIRdaG4EOGEbzLGjYsGF4mjBPQUVJzG2Y/s1600/Ikhtiartounes.org+press+conference_Tunis_15sept2011_LOW2.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvHVg-azQ1eXLUhrjcgaIr8omM7KIXS2p9aXp11sVr7sGqE-f6kL4i6eLKG05FHIDhLByyAidmNPDAvXmblG5-jseUfavZ50o6JkYbf46y9QHIRdaG4EOGEbzLGjYsGF4mjBPQUVJzG2Y/s400/Ikhtiartounes.org+press+conference_Tunis_15sept2011_LOW2.jpg" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Tunis, 15 Sept 2011 - Launching the site</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the heart of the website is a questionnaire providing the positions of political parties on the main issues debated in Tunisia today – the nature of the future political system, human rights, institutional reforms, economic policies, transitional justice, environment, etc.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The questionnaire was formulated by JID members and a committee of Tunisian experts in law, economics, development, environment and communications. All are politically independent, not running for the Constitutional Assembly - and they are known for their integrity. The questionnaire was subjected to the strict principle of neutrality. The team limited itself to 30 theses that they considered to be most relevant. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Users comment in ikhtiartounes.org to the 30 theses with “Agree”, “Do not agree” or “No opinion”. At the end, the tool presents the political parties that are close to the a user’s opinions. ikhtiartounes.org is inspired by a similar tool introduced in German and European Union parliamentary elections, the <a href="http://www.wahl-o-mat.de/berlin2011/">Wahlomat</a> and <a href="http://www.votematch.eu/">Vote Match</a>. <br /><br />Why ikhtiartounes.org?<br /><br />After Tunisian dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was toppled on 14 January 2011 more than one hundred political parties registered for the planned elections, in addition to hundreds of lists of independents. This is very good news and shows that many Tunisians want to play an active role in shaping their country`s future. <br /><br />But choosing among 100 and more can be quite confusing. This may lead to some deciding not to vote. One can assume that hardly anyone will be able to read all the political programs of all parties. Adding to the confusion, only a handful of parties are known. This is where ikhtiartounes.org can help. <br /><br />What is the impact of this project? More interest for political issues, more debates among people and inside parties, less voter abstention. <br /><br />The questionnaire was sent to all Tunisian parties end of July 2011. We know that the It provoked among many parties debates over issues they did not discuss before. Examples: Should private schools be banned? Should all privatized companies be re-nationalized? Should wealthy regions transfer funds to poorer ones? <br /><br />In several cases, debates inside parties were heated, numerous party sources told us. Our project basically helped parties formulate positions on issues they sometimes just forgot. It also helped sharpen older positions. ikhtiartounes.org turned out to be party education at its best.<br /><br />When the website went online on September 15, several parties contacted us the same day and asked in panic to change some of their positions. Thousands of people had started to make the political test and many were outraged about some positions of parties they wanted to vote for. One known progressive party had said in the questionnaire that it was against the separation of state and religion (they had a twisted intellectual rational that only few understood). Their power base freaked out. The party felt the heat, called us and asked to correct their position.<br /><br />In another case, an Islamist party systematically contradicted itself in many points in iktiartounes.org. In the questionnaire it supported electing a president by the people, but in its official program it opposes this! In the questionnaire it supports “without reservations” international human rights conventions, than it opposes equal rights for women and men in matters of heritage. What is really shocking to the poor power base of this Islamist party is the fact that it clicked “do not agree” under the thesis “Wealthy regions in Tunisia should financially support poorer regions”. <br /><br />Ikhtiartounes.org helps uncover contradictions and in some cases tears down masks. Tunisians voters are able to scan the level of credibility of all Tunisian parties – the ones they thought they would vote for and the ones they oppose. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Most team members of ikhtiartounes.org - Tunis, 15 Sept 2011</span> </span></div>
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<br />I had the privilege to manage that project right from the beginning and coordinate all players. The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (<a href="http://www.bmz.de/en/">BMZ</a>) and implemented by the German international cooperation agency, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit" (<a href="http://www.giz.de/">GIZ</a>) and the Berlin-based NGO Media in Cooperation and Transition (<a href="http://www.mict-international.org/">MICT</a>) in Berlin. GIZ hired me for that mission which started in May and ends in October 2011. <br /><br />SHUKRAN!<br />_ Thanks to the team of Jeunes Indépendants Démocrates (<a href="http://www.jidtunisie.net/">JID</a>): Zied Boussen, Jihene Ben Yehia, Youssef Blaiech, Kerim Milli, Cherifa Ben Milad, Ines Abid, Hella Nouri, Myriam Ben Sliman, Skandar Labibdi and the dozens of others JID who are the heart of this project!<br />_ Thanks to the Tunisian experts who advised and helped: Awatef Mabrouk, Salsabil Klibi, Sana Ben Achour, Aya Khiari, Mounir Majdoub, Kouraich Jaouahdou, Faouzi Belhaj. <br />_ Thanks to the funder of this project, GIZ, and its team in Tunisia: Carolin Welzel, Marion Geiss, Kirsten Schuettler, Zina Abdellaoui, Astrid Spilker, Rainer Krischel and and and...<br />_ Thanks to Niccole Choueiry, Dirk Spilker and the team of <a href="http://www.mict-international.org/">MICT</a> that made this possible. <br />_ Thanks to the “Centre Tunis pour les Libertés de la Presse” where we had our press conference today.<br />_ And, finally, thanks to all my new Tunisian friends who advised me and guided me through this amazing new experience – watching an Arab democracy developing live!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.fouadhamdan.org/">Fouad Hamdan</a>, a former correspondent of the German news agency </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.dpa.de/English.82.0.html">DPA </a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in Cairo and the Gulf, was the founding executive director of the <a href="http://www.ahrfund.org/">Arab Human Rights Fund</a> in Beirut in 2008-2010. He set up <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/arabic/">Greenpeace in Lebanon</a> from 1994-1999. Since January 2011 he has been carrying out <a href="http://www.fouadhamdan.org/cms/front_content.php?idcat=2">democracy-building projects</a> in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.</span></div>
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Fouad Hamdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16250340871594600594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1922141959062330613.post-63502699244900652242011-09-03T11:11:00.001+03:002011-09-06T10:39:54.149+03:00Malgré de nombreux obstacles, la démocratie en Tunisie ne peut pas être arrêtée<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Article in <b><a href="http://fouadhamdan.blogspot.com/2011/08/tunisian-progress-to-democracy.html">English HERE</a></b></i>.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Où que vous soyez à Tunis aujourd'hui, vous entendez des débats houleux: qui gouvernera le pays après les élections libres pour l’Assemblée Constitutionnelle le 23 octobre 2011? Le parti islamiste Ennahda va t’il transformer la Tunisie en un état de style iranien? Pourquoi les partis laïques ne sont-ils pas si bien organisés? Pour qui voter parmi les 100 nouveaux partis? </span></div>
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<span lang="FR"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Détendez-vous dans un café dans l'ancienne Médina de Tunis, dans le quartier des classes moyennes de Nasr ou dans la banlieue chic de Marsa – presque tout le monde discute avec passion la situation actuelle et à quoi une future démocratie tunisienne devrait prendre forme. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="FR"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cette explosion de nouvelles libertés, depuis que le président Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali a fuit vers l'Arabie Saoudite le 14 janvier 2011 après un soulèvement de trois semaines, est un acquis que personne ne pourra jamais enlever aux Tunisiens. S'il y a un consensus dans le pays d'aujourd'hui, c'est que la liberté d'expression, qui a été durement gagnée, est intouchable. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">"Comme elle es belle la Tunisie sans Ben Ali Baba et les 40 voleurs"</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Tunis, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">e</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">t</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">é</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> 2011</span></span></div>
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<span lang="FR"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Les sujets controversés sont nombreux: la nature du futur système (le pouvoir entre les mains du président ou du premier ministre?), la relation entre Etat et religion, les droits de la femme, la politique économique, la réforme du système judiciaire et des institutions sécuritaires, la corruption. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="FR"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Beaucoup ont cru le 14 janvier que désormais tout irait bien. Mais les Tunisiens ce sont vite rendu compte que le gouvernement du premier ministre Mohammed Ghannouchi, qui a succédé à Ben Ali, a voulu perpétuer le régime détesté. Il a été renversé après des vagues de protestations et remplacé le 27 février par Beji Caid El-Sebsi, un ancien ministre sous l’ancien Président Habib Bourguiba, autoritaire mais vénéré. Le gouvernement de transition de Mr El-Sebsi dirige maintenant le pays à travers des eaux troubles jusqu'aux élections prévues. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="FR">En parallèle, le « </span><span lang="FR" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;">Conseil Supérieur pour la Réalisation des Objectifs de la Révolution, de la Réforme Politique et de la Transition Démocratique », </span><span lang="FR">une sorte de commission de réforme politique présidée par le professeur de droit Yadh Ben Achour, a été mise en place. Le conseil supérieur comprend des juges, des membres de la société civile et les représentants des principaux partis qui ont survécu à des années d'oppression en Tunisie et en exil. Ce conseil a mis en place une commission électorale, dirigée par l’éminent défenseur des droits de l’homme, Kamel Jendoubi, qui va organiser et surveiller les élections prévues. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="FR"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">En principe tout est sur la bonne voie en Tunisie. On peut décider d'être pessimiste et croire que l'islamisme est à la hausse, ce qui conduirait à une érosion des droits personnels et des droits de la femme. Oui, l'économie est en difficulté depuis décembre 2010; le taux de chômage des jeunes et la pauvreté dans les zones rurales sont une source d'instabilité. Un fait inquiétant est aussi que des membres du parti dissous de Ben Ali, le Rassemblement Constitutionnel Démocratique (RCD), occupent des postes clés dans l'appareil sécuritaire et dans la justice.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="FR"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Depuis la chute de Ben Ali, la Tunisie a été régulièrement secouée par des grèves et des manifestations, parfois violentes. Les membres de la société civile voient les RCDistes derrière ces flambées de violence. Dans un incident en juin dernier, sept personnes ont été tuées dans la ville minière de Metlaoui, des magasins pillés et incendiés. Cela faisait suite à des rumeurs que seulement certaines familles seraient offertes des emplois dans le complexe de phosphate de Gafsa qui se trouve à proximité. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="FR"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Au début d'août, des milliers ont protesté à Tunis et autres villes contre ce qu'ils considéraient comme l'échec du gouvernement de rompre avec l'héritage de Ben Ali. Les protestations ont été déclenchées par la libération de prison de l'ancien ministre de la Justice Bechir Tekkari et par les nouvelles que Saida Agrebi, une amie de Leila Trabelsi, l’épouse de Ben Ali, avait pu fuir à Paris.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">El-Sebsi a vite réagit et promis que son gouvernement de transition prendrait une ligne plus dure sur les alliés du président déchu. Je doute qu’il puisse le faire car son cabinet n'a pas la légitimité d'introduire des réformes profondes. Condamner tous les hauts fonctionnaires et hommes d'affaires responsables des crimes du passé ne sera pas possible durant cette période de transition. Pour calmer les esprits, un tribunal de Tunis a condamné en juin Ben Ali à 35 ans de prison. L'ancien dictateur a été jugé par contumance, car l'Arabie Saoudite refuse de l'extrader. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Text en Arabe: "Je suis Musulman, je suis Tunisien, je suis contre Ennahda"</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Manifestation a Tunis, mai 2011</span></div>
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<span lang="FR"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pendant ce temps, la politique nébuleuse d’Ennahda provoque la méfiance des laïques, les manifestations régulières provoquent davantage un sentiment d'instabilité et les loyalistes de Ben Ali tentent régulièrement de perturber le processus démocratique. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="FR">Je suis néanmoins optimisme, et je crois en la sagesse de la feuille de route que les Tunisiens ont développé pour bâtir un système démocratique. Le </span><span lang="FR" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;">conseil supérieur </span><span lang="FR">et El-Sebsi sont largement acceptés, tandis que le généraux de l'armée, sans ambitions politiques, garantissent la sécurité et contrôlent d’une façon très subtile la police et les services de renseignement qui sont haies par la population. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="FR"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ennahda, pour sa part, a récemment perdu les voix de beaucoup de femmes quand le parti a suggéré que la meilleure façon de résoudre le problème du chômage des jeunes serait de payer environ 200 euro par mois pour chaque femme qui quitte son emploi et reste à la maison. Ceci n'était pas seulement un désastre en relations publiques, mais aussi économiquement non viable. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="FR"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">J’ai discuté avec beaucoup de Tunisiennes croyantes. La plupart ne savent pas encore pour qui voter le 23 octobre, mais elles sont claires pour qui elles ne donneraient pas leurs voix: Ennahda. La raison que j’ai entendue maintes fois: « Parce qu'ils ont un double langage et parce qu'ils sont contre les femmes ».<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="FR"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Il est clair que le chef d’Ennahda, Rachid Ghannouchi, va marginaliser le parti s'il ne devient pas un vrai démocrate. Il martèle souvent que son parti veut être moderne et démocratique comme le parti turque de Justice et Développement (AKP). En réalité, Ennahda manque une position cohérente sur la <span class="apple-style-span">Déclaration Universelle pour les Droits de l’Homme</span> et sur la question de donner aux femmes tunisiennes des droits égaux dans la question de l’héritage. Ennahda signifie « éveil ». Le temps est venu d’être à la hauteur de ce nom. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">"Liberté" - Medina de Tunis, eté 2011</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Les Tunisiens font aussi face a d'autres défis: les partis d'opposition et les membres de la société civile ont développé des compétences de survie en Tunisie et en exile dans l’ère oppressive de Ben Ali; mais se battre pour des idées dans une société libre est un autre art. Ils sont en train d'apprendre durement comment formuler et communiquer des programmes politiques et des campagnes pour gagner des voix et des membres.</span></div>
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<span lang="FR"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Depuis janvier, les Tunisiens développent à grande vitesse une culture démocratique qui leur permettra de faire face à quatre défis majeurs après les élections du 23 octobre: créer une coalition de plusieurs partis pour former le premier gouvernement tunisien véritablement légitime ; réformer la police et la justice; éliminer les déséquilibres économiques régionaux et créer des emplois pour les jeunes; lancer un processus de justice transitionnelle et entrainer en justice les hauts responsables de violations des droits de l`homme et combattre la corruption. En parallèle, l'assemblée élue formulera une nouvelle constitution. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="FR"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">La révolution en Tunisie n'a pas pris fin lorsque Ben Ali a fuit, elle continue lentement depuis lors, et prendra un nouvel élan après la date historique du 23 octobre. Le peuple tunisien, qui abhorre la violence et l'extrémisme, restera vigilant contre une éventuelle contre-révolution. Je suis convaincu que les anciens cadres du RCD, les Baasistes idéologiques et les Salafistes fondamentalistes n'ont aucune chance politique. La Tunisie va se développer en une démocratie arabe exemplaire, malgré de nombreux obstacles. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="FR"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">« Nous avons de nombreuses années difficiles à venir », déclare Sana Ben Achour, une activiste de grande renommée des droits de femmes. « Mais n’ayez aucun doute que la Tunisie va surmonter toutes les difficultés. Et si à un certain point les hommes n'ont pas le courage de combattre, eh bien les femmes tunisiennes continueront la lutte, car elles n'abandonneront jamais ». <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="FR"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Je la crois. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="FR"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://www.fouadhamdan.org/">Fouad Hamdan</a>, ancien correspondant de l’agence de presse allemande DPA au Caire et dans le Golfe, a établit Greenpeace Liban en 1994-1999. Il était le directeur exécutif du Fonds Arabe pour les Droits Humains en 2008-2010. Depuis janvier 2011 il mène des projets de démocratisation en Tunisie, Libye et Egypte.</i><i><o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
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Fouad Hamdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16250340871594600594noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1922141959062330613.post-78408678896244749632011-08-31T13:59:00.005+03:002011-09-17T13:53:10.461+03:00Tunisian Progress to Democracy Unstoppable - Despite many obstacles, prospects for reforms still look good.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Article en <a href="http://fouadhamdan.blogspot.com/2011/09/malgre-de-nombreux-obstacles-la.html"><b>Fran<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 15px;">ç</span>ais ICI</b></a></i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wherever you are in Tunis today you experience heated debates: who will rule the country after free elections for a constitutional assembly on October 23? Will the Islamic Ennahda party turn Tunisia into an Iranian-style state? Why the secular parties are not so well organised? Who to vote for among the 100 and more new parties?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sit in a cafe in the old medina of Tunis, in the middle-class Nasr area or in the posh Marsa suburb - almost everyone is arguing passionately about the current situation and how a Tunisian democracy should look.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The explosion of newly-found freedoms since President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia on January 14 , after a three-week uprising, is something no one can ever take away from Tunisians. If there is any consensus among the people today it is that the hard-won freedom of expression is untouchable.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">"Tunis is so beautiful without Ben Ali Baba and the 40 thieves!" Tunis, summer 2011</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The country's hot topics are many: the nature of the future system - should power be in hands of the president or prime minister - the relationship between state and religion, women's rights, economic policies, reforming the judiciary and security apparatus and corruption. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On January 14 many believed that from now on all would be just fine. But Tunisians quickly realised that the government of premier Mohammed Ghannouchi, who took over from Ben Ali, wanted to perpetuate the hated regime. He was toppled after waves of protests and replaced on February 27 by Beji Caid el-Sebsi, a former minister under the authoritarian but revered late president Habib Bourguiba. El-Sebsi's transitional government is currently navigating the country through troubled waters until the planned elections.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In parallel, a "Higher Commission for the Achievement of the Objectives of the Revolution and the Democratic Transition", a sort of political reform commission chaired by law professor Yadh Ben Achour, was set up. It includes judges, civil society members and representatives of the major parties that survived years of oppression both in Tunis and in exile. The high commission set up an electoral committee, headed by veteran human rights activist Kamel Jendoubi, which will organise and monitor the planned elections.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In principle all is on track in Tunisia. One may decide to be pessimistic and claim that Islamism is on the rise, leading to an erosion of personal rights and women's rights, that the economy has been in flux since December 2010 and that youth unemployment and poverty in rural areas are still a source of even more instability. A worrying fact is also that members of Ben Ali's dissolved party, the Constitutional Democratic rally, RCD, are clinging to key positions in the security apparatus and the judiciary.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since Ben Ali's downfall, the country has been rocked by regular demonstrations. Members of civil society see former RCD members behind outbreaks of violence. In one incident, seven people were killed in June in the mining town of Metlaoui, with shops looted and set on fire after rumours circulated that only certain tribes would be offered jobs at the nearby Gafsa phosphate complex.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In early August, thousands protested in Tunis and provincial cities over what they saw as the government`s failure to break with the legacy of Ben Ali. The protests were sparked by the release of former justice minister Bechir Tekkari from prison and the news that Saida Agrebi, a friend of Ben Ali's wife Leila Trabelsi, had fled to Paris.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">El-Sebsi promised that his transitional government would take a tougher line on allies of the ousted president. But it seems doubtful that he can do so as his cabinet does not have the legitimacy to introduce serious reforms. Holding all top officials and businessmen accountable for past crimes will not be possible during this transition period. To calm tempers, in June a Tunis court sentenced Ben Ali to 35 years in jail. The former dictator was tried in absentia because Saudi Arabia refuses to extradite him.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Meanwhile, Ennahda's nebulous policies fuel mistrust, regular protests provoke further instability and Ben Ali loyalists regularly attempt to disrupt the democratic process. Optimism is nonetheless possible, and there is wisdom in the road map Tunisians have developed to move towards a truly open and democratic system. The higher commission and el-Sebsi are widely accepted, while army generals with no political ambitions are guaranteeing overall security and keeping a close eye on the hated police and intelligence apparatus.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the meantime, Ennahda lost many women's votes when it recently suggested that the best way to solve the problem of youth unemployment would be to pay about 280 US dollars per month for every woman who left her job to stay at home. This was not only a public relations disaster but also economic nonsense.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Afterwards, many religious women, although undecided about whom they would vote for, were clear for whom they would not be voting. Ennahda, "because they have a double-language and because they are against women", I was told.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ennahda leader Rachid Ghannouchi will marginalise the party if he does not truly democratise. He often says the party wants to be modern and democratic like Turkey`s ruling Justice and Development Party, AKP, but a clear position is missing on universal human rights and on the issue of giving Tunisian women equal rights in heritage. Ennahda means "awakening". Time has come to live up to this name.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tunisia is also facing other challenges: opposition parties and civil society groups developed survival skills when opposing Ben Ali`s regime at home and in exile, but fighting for ideas in a free society is another art. They are now learning the hard way how to develop political programs and advocacy campaigns and how to win votes and members.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tunisians are developing at high-speed a democratic culture that will enable them to face four major challenges after elections on October 23 - to create a coalition of several parties to form Tunisia`s first truly legitimate government, to reform the police and judiciary, tackle regional economic imbalances and create jobs for youth as well as starting a process of transitional justice and prosecuting top human rights abusers and corrupt individuals. In parallel, the elected assembly will formulate a new constitution.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The revolution in Tunisia did not end when Ben Ali fled; it has been continuing slowly since then and will take a boost after October 23. The Tunisian people, who abhor violence and extremism, have been and will remain vigilant against a possible counter-revolution. Former RCD cadres, ideological Baathists and fundamentalist Salafists have no chance to win massive fellowship.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I believe Tunisia will develop into an exemplary Arab democracy, despite a bumpy road ahead. "We have many tough years ahead," said Sana Ben Achour, a leading women rights activist. "But have no doubt that Tunisia will overcome all difficulties. And if at some point men do not have the courage to fight anymore Tunisian women will continue fighting because they never give up".</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I believe her.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.fouadhamdan.org/">Fouad Hamdan</a>, a former DPA correspondent in Cairo and the Gulf, was the founding executive director of the Arab Human Rights Fund in Beirut in 2008-2010. He set up Greenpeace in Lebanon from 1994-1999. Since January 2011 he has been carrying out democracy-building projects in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. The article was also published in the <a href="http://iwpr.net/report-news/tunisian-progress-democracy-unstoppable">IWPR site</a> on the Arab Spring.</span></div>
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Fouad Hamdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16250340871594600594noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1922141959062330613.post-22030407755037109052011-06-17T19:19:00.016+03:002011-08-23T13:58:50.233+03:00Women (+men) from the Arab region at the Venice Biennale 2011 – a view from a political angle<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Venice Biennale, 3 June 2011 (my first Biennale) - I entered the dark space of the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://saudipavilionvenice.com/?page_id=540">Saudi Arabian Pavilion</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and there it is - the “Black Arch” of Raja and Shadia Alem hits you at once. The sisters, who grew up in Mecca in the 1970s and now live in Paris, stun visitors with a huge mirror in the shape of Earth; the back of the mirror is off course black. In front of it is a carpet of more than 1,400 steel balls from which emerges a modern Ka’aba-like cube. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I take a step back, take a deep breath, watch and hear... To the right of the installation a projection shows a church and Venetian images, and you hear prayers and voices in Italian. Back to near darkness which is followed by another projection of waves at the centre. Again near darkness, then a projection to the left in which you see a mosque and hear prayers and voices in Arabic. Wow!</span><br />
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</span></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Power women Raja and Shadia explain, “Black Arch is about two visions of the world and of two cities, Mecca and Venice, of two cultures that meet”. They tell me in an interview: “Our work is about East and West, man and woman. There are barriers. But we carry all cultures in us. This breaks barriers. Our work makes you feel that you are part of one universe.” So much black in your work, why? Raja answers: “I grew up aware of the physical presence of black all around, of the black silhouettes of Saudi women, the black cloth of the al-Ka’aba and the black stone”. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I ask them if they plan to exhibit their work in Saudi Arabia after the premiere in Venice. “Inshallah”, is the answer with a charming smile. I doubt this would be possible as long as the country is under control of the fundamentalist Wahabi brand of Islam. The Saudi religious police (real name: “<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;">The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vices</span>”)</span> would not tolerate any projection of a church with the sound of Christian prayers. I also doubt they would appreciate the aesthetics of a modern Ka’aba. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I cannot but hope that one day Saudi Arabia will have on its soil a museum of modern art. A centre piece of its permanent exhibition should be the “Black Arch”. Saudis can be proud of it. By the anachronistic religious police would be a footnote of the very dark past.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the nearby pavilion of the United Arab Emirates I am welcomed by a smiling Lateefa Ben Maktoum. Dressed and veiled in black she explains her photo exhibition. Two pictures strike me as sad and critical of the dramatic sociological changes that occurred in Dubai during the past decades. In one picture a faceless and veiled woman looks down against the background of Dubai’s tower buildings. All in a fake green. The other picture shows a picture of a veiled woman with a rather disturbing look in her face. She is standing on wetland facing the Gulf Sea, holding a suitcase and looking towards the horizon. She just wants to flee, as far away and as fast away as possible.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZRnDbpYsYTGv31uTUATFhvngKecT_bCHBQ8sQ3xo9O1vwfj9d7FDijHiw-8CPcZ6XG3Q4hbKO5jSEb0TcbWoUEQs2QK0wwuozyLnjRSI29m8dZppqn-qlthNTN8ugFZqHK7x_SuCXHjo/s1600/lateefa1_june2011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZRnDbpYsYTGv31uTUATFhvngKecT_bCHBQ8sQ3xo9O1vwfj9d7FDijHiw-8CPcZ6XG3Q4hbKO5jSEb0TcbWoUEQs2QK0wwuozyLnjRSI29m8dZppqn-qlthNTN8ugFZqHK7x_SuCXHjo/s400/lateefa1_june2011.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">“The last Look”, by Lateefa Ben Maktoum, UAE pavilion</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Left: Lateefa watching... (she allows photos only without her face)</span></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFKjFesbhj1zB-vrf8nqsTYGqVUXpxs4wN006QyJmfNk7Ny4Q7Rx6b7gggXc_fvbt-f5RAVObwtvCMIXO8HkvhgKLhyNcgSAjQUoescdpwsQq-OJEprwZMcPF6K3AcQyA0HRw5QMA9b98/s1600/lateefa2_june2011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFKjFesbhj1zB-vrf8nqsTYGqVUXpxs4wN006QyJmfNk7Ny4Q7Rx6b7gggXc_fvbt-f5RAVObwtvCMIXO8HkvhgKLhyNcgSAjQUoescdpwsQq-OJEprwZMcPF6K3AcQyA0HRw5QMA9b98/s400/lateefa2_june2011.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">“Reflecting”, by Lateefa Ben Maktoum, UAE pavilion</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Left: Lateefa watching... </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">(she allows photos only without her face)</span></div></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It does feel quite lonely to live among towers of glass and steel in the middle of the desert. Does not fit. Will never fit. I would want to flee – into a surreal green world that exists only in fantasies or far away on a boat. But Lateefa strikes back: “I do not see the figures in my images as being lonely. I see them as being captured in a solitary moment of thought. They reflect on their surroundings and the changes that they witness happening around them.” She is a bit uncomfortable with my critical view; I accept her softer approach. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Noteworthy is that Lateefa contributed to the UAE’s art scene by founding <a href="http://www.tashkeel.org/">Tashkeel</a>, a public studio providing specialist facilities for artists and designers to work together. “An artist needs feedback to grow,” she argues. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Check the website of the <a href="http://www.uaepavilion.org/">UAE pavilion</a> and an <a href="http://www.artinthecity.com/en/articles/post/2011/05/24/lateefa-bint-maktoum-at-the-54th-venice-biennale/207/">interview with Lateefa</a>.</span><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the same pavilion Reem al-Ghaith exhibits <a href="http://www.artinthecity.com/en/articles/post/2011/05/24/reem-al-ghaith-at-the-54th-venice-biennale/208/">her installation</a> about construction in Dubai. A bit chaotic, reflecting the wild construction boom leading the Dubai’s financial crisis in 2008. It is similar to the installation “What’s left of her Land” shown at the Sharjah Biennale in 2009. The official brochure says, “The history, traditions and changing landscape of Dubai and the UAE serve as continuous inspiration to her work... Her pieces ... serve as a form of documentary or visual archive for future generations to bear witness to the changes this country has undergone”. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPFw7-OaXeyoe66ciQhjViucDwKghwjdM5No2hbytV6gp3Jm-gCLdBKOaOOQOuZWRDKDNOdIIYrHEeFw7UA9Wmaw7PYV_JCW6os6YAvyMfSaeDAG6suKi538tcdDFCFLjV1cU5MjofEHw/s1600/L1040234.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPFw7-OaXeyoe66ciQhjViucDwKghwjdM5No2hbytV6gp3Jm-gCLdBKOaOOQOuZWRDKDNOdIIYrHEeFw7UA9Wmaw7PYV_JCW6os6YAvyMfSaeDAG6suKi538tcdDFCFLjV1cU5MjofEHw/s400/L1040234.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Reem al-Ghaith, </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">“What’s left of her Land”, UAE pavilion</span> </span></div><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The third UAE artist is Abdullah al-Saadi, who observes and contemplates and picks on details. <a href="http://www.artinthecity.com/en/articles/post/2011/05/24/abdullah-al-saadi-at-the-54th-venice-biennale/206/">His work</a> centers on “Naked Sweet Potatoes”, which is also the title of his art. Abdullah walked on foot across the desert of the UAE and Oman accompanied by a dog and a donkey. He documented his journey with water colours, a diary, photographs, short films and engravings of sweet potatoes on stones. The latter he describes as “studies of the male and female forms of sweet potatoes”. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpWAABe2IB0GuPpZ73s7V_x_GvsZhZRT6HxVJO_EgL1hE39UR6VBqzRkFzdS5oxlOETywq0zu61hyphenhyphen6A6jw8mJDy4Iq61CDZbepCyjXbmN7UE5rC1ekmJcPt_jUZj1ZXR70Cn7F_TZtHu4/s1600/L1040232.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpWAABe2IB0GuPpZ73s7V_x_GvsZhZRT6HxVJO_EgL1hE39UR6VBqzRkFzdS5oxlOETywq0zu61hyphenhyphen6A6jw8mJDy4Iq61CDZbepCyjXbmN7UE5rC1ekmJcPt_jUZj1ZXR70Cn7F_TZtHu4/s640/L1040232.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Abdullah al-Saadi, “Naked Sweet Potatoes”, UAE pavilion</span> </span></div></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Very creative and amusing observations, indeed. Abdullah is no fan of the UAE’s steel and glass towers. He lives in the mountainous region of Khorfakan on the Gulf of Oman. He just loves nature. And I love his work. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To the Iraqi pavilion where six very talented artists interpret the theme of water. Title: “Wounded Water”. And wounded is Iraq and its people, indeed. Remember the ecological disaster former dictator Saddam Hussein created in the southern marshlands by draining them. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the entrance of the pavilion, <a href="http://www.walidsiti.com/">Walid Siti</a> exhibits on the wall in red: A river-like wound goes from one end to the other in a bloodied landscape in Iraq. The <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r4eu8_bdog">interview</a> he gave me about his art and Iraq is touching.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKFLuQI46PMNE11MqQxfeDotnswYPJoxBQJ94iXm4eBkvPGXleFYN-QSBFRG30CBeeuBDCQt48Kh4k7V9DrLKh3CBlyltr1MxsTw2UFexNY4MocIfwwGkm79-FJNljJG8FMLOT9qS9Jr4/s1600/L1040166.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKFLuQI46PMNE11MqQxfeDotnswYPJoxBQJ94iXm4eBkvPGXleFYN-QSBFRG30CBeeuBDCQt48Kh4k7V9DrLKh3CBlyltr1MxsTw2UFexNY4MocIfwwGkm79-FJNljJG8FMLOT9qS9Jr4/s400/L1040166.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Walid Sati’s river in bloodied landscape in Iraq</span></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.azadnanakeli.com/">Azad Nanakeli</a>, another Iraqi Kurdish artist, shows a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68z38jXDtz8&feature=youtu.be">video </a>with a man pouring water over his head. His opposite is himself being polluted by red and yellow toxins. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4etzKlR1PAV99JjcXlkZNFOniaIO7eFbHg0N-Jez8ylbL5gArq41YUCMttWXOcjT0HzH-417pxM24_GlMMxdOw01ywU7hTt5BpA4OnTI4QR0RZtLjZIayDc39XBbZNwlVTQPCtrpb3Nw/s1600/L1040178.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4etzKlR1PAV99JjcXlkZNFOniaIO7eFbHg0N-Jez8ylbL5gArq41YUCMttWXOcjT0HzH-417pxM24_GlMMxdOw01ywU7hTt5BpA4OnTI4QR0RZtLjZIayDc39XBbZNwlVTQPCtrpb3Nw/s400/L1040178.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Azad Nanakeli’s “destneuj (purification)", Iraqi pavilion</span></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Egyptian pavilion focuses on Ahmed Basiony, an artist and hero of the Egyptian revolution that toppled dictator Hosny Mubarak early 2011. Ahmed was among the first who marched in Cairo's Tahrir Square. He had his camera with him. The video exhibition shows simultaneously footage he took and news reports. This is a homage to <a href="http://www.ahmedbasiony.com/about.html" style="line-height: normal;">Ahmed</a> who was killed at the age of 33 by a sniper in Cairo on January 28, 2011. He unfortunately did not live to experience real freedom in Egypt. But he and all who gave their lives for Egypt will <a href="http://1000memories.com/ahmed-basiony" style="line-height: normal;">never be forgotten</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx_SU-j8luqVqM8IrCqgLJtaaBRFYpwQiZBGLUx2rsBaB-CYuyKVwBTT1X5Ix5t9AK-9z1T6Kd6FXITnT2NsM_n98csA2G9xzXS2Wgdzx4GK9t_hTSfkEo1YP1NUZ4JwlMk36HuHnL4Aw/s1600/ahmed+basioni_june2011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx_SU-j8luqVqM8IrCqgLJtaaBRFYpwQiZBGLUx2rsBaB-CYuyKVwBTT1X5Ix5t9AK-9z1T6Kd6FXITnT2NsM_n98csA2G9xzXS2Wgdzx4GK9t_hTSfkEo1YP1NUZ4JwlMk36HuHnL4Aw/s400/ahmed+basioni_june2011.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">From the brochure about Ahmed Basiony, Egypt pavilion</span></div></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“<a href="http://www.thefutureofapromise.com/">The Future of a Promise</a>” is <span style="color: black;">the Biennale’s largest pan-Arab exhibition of contemporary art. Arabs from many states exhibit about 25 works – installations, performances, photography, videos and sculpture art. My favorite is </span>Ziad Abillama’s “Untitled (Arabes)”, a post with signs in all directions showing where Arabs may sail from? The Lebanese artists provokes in Italy where the government is claiming the country is being invaded by Arabs via the island of Lampedusa. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTQVbu38Pt4cE19Brj2DxdEpTvlyBOIjbAzPICfwvd1ctMTqeXSKg4LIHR1KRXcs-GytSUXSsO6MjPUS6N3jqpF5Wugj9O_PF23BynaLIiJefFF23ANghs19ZZzzHJj9Pxc-78sm1lrd4/s1600/16-another-show-2_634433523762373608_main.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTQVbu38Pt4cE19Brj2DxdEpTvlyBOIjbAzPICfwvd1ctMTqeXSKg4LIHR1KRXcs-GytSUXSsO6MjPUS6N3jqpF5Wugj9O_PF23BynaLIiJefFF23ANghs19ZZzzHJj9Pxc-78sm1lrd4/s400/16-another-show-2_634433523762373608_main.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Ziad Abillama’s “Untitled (Arabes)”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unfortunately I was not able to visit the Syrian pavilion in which Syrian and Italian artists exhibited under the motto "Evolution"- </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to identify contradiction between subjectivity (desires) and objectivity (daily life). Watch this <a href="http://vodpod.com/watch/10676051-evolution-syrian-at-the-venice-biennale-2011">video</a>. Note that there is a <a href="http://blogs.artinfo.com/artintheair/2011/06/02/syrians-not-too-happy-with-the-art-in-the-syrian-pavilion/">controversy</a> over the fact that most artists and all curators are non-Syrians.<br />
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</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now don’t be shocked, but when I mean in the title of this blog “Arab region” I include Israel. Its pavilion is amazing – only works of <a href="http://www.sigalitlandau.com/" style="line-height: normal;">Sigalit Landau</a> on water and peace in a trouble region. My favorite is the “Salt Crystal Fishing Net”. She bought the net from Jaffa fishermen and dipped it in Dead Sea water. The result is bundle of white mass with crystal reflection. She writes in her brochure, “These fishing nets catch magnificent crystals, beautiful but sterile. A fishing net evokes fertility and life, but there it is caked in deadly amount of salt”.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1xF3QDMHUWwGyp7ab4Tk4PS9Dy6i649PtuZhpv7gR7KQvR7IUX1ZqocZzOqb_Dldt7krsGEei6tCmL6OIe_TrJQwLUAAhFSa7cl0bU_s4OHNdQXQG6n1Wa4Tjh2JDO7mqjEIkQzW_pxI/s1600/L1040075+-+Copy.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1xF3QDMHUWwGyp7ab4Tk4PS9Dy6i649PtuZhpv7gR7KQvR7IUX1ZqocZzOqb_Dldt7krsGEei6tCmL6OIe_TrJQwLUAAhFSa7cl0bU_s4OHNdQXQG6n1Wa4Tjh2JDO7mqjEIkQzW_pxI/s400/L1040075+-+Copy.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Sigalit Landau, “Salt Crystal Fishing Net”, Israeli pavilion</span></span></div><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another favorite is her <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAdOkEO-2KA" style="line-height: normal;">video installation “Laces” </a>in which a girl under a negotiating table binds negotiators together with the laces of their shoes. Sigalit Landau writes, “The negotiating table is not theater or fiction, but rather an engagement, a dream, a lament for the future. This future is the life of the child who appears on the laptop-computer screens”. The slogan of the Israeli Pavilion is “One man’s floor in another man’s feelings”. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguhC2SHvOAylMd2K-5cmvEEn8MQJ229ikP5OKLBUi8UXbYQ77srAtu688GryCtQmhfiXSrgaJiKotXY7r-3shUjbZQUlvppKNS_UD3JGF2owFxkAEYRAyp3UMVOnrBPdyFtdplrJG4piA/s1600/L1040082.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguhC2SHvOAylMd2K-5cmvEEn8MQJ229ikP5OKLBUi8UXbYQ77srAtu688GryCtQmhfiXSrgaJiKotXY7r-3shUjbZQUlvppKNS_UD3JGF2owFxkAEYRAyp3UMVOnrBPdyFtdplrJG4piA/s400/L1040082.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Sigalit Landau, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAdOkEO-2KA" style="line-height: normal;">video installation “Laces”</a>, Israeli pavilion</span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/37350/bahrain-and-lebanon-withdraw-from-the-venice-biennale-due-to-mideast-turmoil-while-egypts-participation-is-uncertain/">Lebanon and Bahrain cancelled</a> last minute. A shame for the governments of these two countries. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Lebanese pavilion was to be titled "Lebanon As a State of Mind". Its curator, George Rabbah, told Art Info in an <a href="http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/37393/resculpting-lebanons-constitution-at-the-venice-biennale-a-qa-with-curator-georges-rabbath/">interview</a> that the cancellation had nothing to do with the fact that Lebanon was without a functioning government for months till mid June 2011. He claims: "(The opposition came) from a lot of the actors of the Lebanese art scene. I found out at some point that the Lebanese scene is partly something that has to do with power positions. There are power centers that control access to funds, etc., and also access to patrons of art because they know them, in a way. I don't want to sound too paranoid, but I'm not the only one that's shocked".<br />
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In Bahrain authorities in 2011 have been trying to crush</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> a pro-democracy movement - so no time to think about art. Reminder: In 2010, Bahrain won the Golden Lion for best national participation at that year's Architecture Biennale with a <a href="http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/11338/bahrain-wins-golden-lion-for-best-national-pavilion-at-venice-biennale.html">wonderful exhibition</a> of original fishermen huts.</span><br />
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A few lines about the Venice Biennale which was launched in 1895: Since then countries offer their artists a showcase in pavilions funded by government institutions, firms and/or private donors. 89 national pavilions opened their doors in Venice in 2011, the highest number ever. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Germany won in 2011 </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the Biennale’s highest honor, the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15131855,00.html">Golden Lion</a> for best national contribution. The work is by Christoph Schlingensief, the German artist who died in August 2010. His "<a href="http://www.deutscher-pavillon.org/en">Church of Fear" installation</a> is a massive critique against society and the Church. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was my first Biennale, and it was fascinating because it saw how art is very political - and not only in the Arab region. Artists have been playing a crucial role in countries under dictatorships (softly destabilizing them), and they helped topple dictators (remember </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ahmed Basiony)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. Arabs can be proud of most of the work exhibited in Venice in 2011, the year of Arab democracy on the rise. My dream is that one day Palestinians and Israelis exhibit together in Venice, and that Arab artists can exhibit anything they wish in every Arab state. No more fear, no censorship and no taboos.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>NB</u>: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Impossible to write about art from the Arab region at the mother of Biennales without visiting the US and Iranian pavilions</i>. </span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal;">I love the tank on its head in front of the <a href="http://www.imamuseum.org/venice">US pavilion</a>. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">On top a person regularly jogs on a functioning treadmill. When the person runs, the tank engine roars and the chains turn. </span></span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX_xys0tel0&feature=related" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal;">Watch the video</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> of a ridiculous and h</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">elpless monster. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Typically big and ... American! </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">John Lennon would have loved it!</span><br />
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</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaYR0b8k5kQQ_C9FXg_EQCPApb4fUZ0WG1GY-Xrg0kln0CwIPGxnGMgIBRp1u2idfkod3V9NjgYtQRiTGOtATaC1T-LQYFTndHODzcqRjAeAVPQV_kHUgCiZ_QZZDcq7Z_VESHhjEYOuo/s1600/Tank+on+head_june2011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaYR0b8k5kQQ_C9FXg_EQCPApb4fUZ0WG1GY-Xrg0kln0CwIPGxnGMgIBRp1u2idfkod3V9NjgYtQRiTGOtATaC1T-LQYFTndHODzcqRjAeAVPQV_kHUgCiZ_QZZDcq7Z_VESHhjEYOuo/s400/Tank+on+head_june2011.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Allora & Galzadilla, "Tank and Field", US pavilion</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; line-height: normal; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the state-sponsored <a href="http://art-2011.mylocalguide.org/place/islamic-republic-of-iran-pavilion-palazzo-malipiero/21505">Iranian pavilion</a>, a heartbreaking installation of </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Morteza Darehbaghi </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">with pictures of human losses during the war Iran-Iraq 1980-1988.</span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://www.fouadhamdan.org/">Fouad Hamdan</a> is an independent Arab pro-democracy activist who established and headed <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/lebanon/ar/">Greenpeace Lebanon </a>in 1994-1999 and was the founding executive director of the <a href="http://ahrfund.org/">Arab Human Rights Fund</a> in Beirut in 2008-2010. Since January 2011 he is advising on a voluntary basis Arab NGOs and activists, and he is working as a consultant for <a href="http://mict-international.org/">Media in Cooperation and Transition</a> and the <a href="http://gc-ca.org/">Global Campaign for Climate Action</a>. From May-September 2011 he is heading a pro-democracy project in Tunisia. He also trains Tunisian and Egyptian NGOs on developing communications strategies.</i></span></div></div></div></div>Fouad Hamdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16250340871594600594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1922141959062330613.post-9206872348598753402011-05-08T03:10:00.007+03:002011-05-09T01:30:40.775+03:00Tunisia in May 2011 - Revolution Reloaded?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 14px;">Tunis, 7th May 2011 - I saw in the Tunisian capital how police attacked </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">with teargas and batons </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">protesters demanding the start of a new revolution "Asha3eb yurid thawra min jadid!" (The people want a new revolution). </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHVr4js98HBBKUl-C9MXUsa7JOtvRRAAf30rMXylGTvgedKxdIG5aoyLXs8BxK6vZkVq7dslV5t9J8uXt634Cx85-wS_9EgTT_z2Wvir-qteRCMqLsAn70QvkHNtRU-5NgQD2z76M6_og/s1600/L1030937.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHVr4js98HBBKUl-C9MXUsa7JOtvRRAAf30rMXylGTvgedKxdIG5aoyLXs8BxK6vZkVq7dslV5t9J8uXt634Cx85-wS_9EgTT_z2Wvir-qteRCMqLsAn70QvkHNtRU-5NgQD2z76M6_og/s400/L1030937.JPG" width="400" /></a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Bourguiba Avenue, 6 May 2011</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 14px;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">Tension has been rising in Tunisia since a former minister warned of a possible coup by loyalists of the ousted regime of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali if Islamists from the Ennahda party win elections for a Constitutional Council scheduled on July 24.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 14px;">Scenes of violence took place all over the country and in the city center in and around Habib Bourguiba Avenue where the infamous Interior Ministry is located. Tear gas was fired in all directions, policemen in uniforms or in civilian and hiding their faces behind masks attacked bystanders and journalists, took away their mobiles and cameras and smashed them. I saw one of them attacking a young girl, throwing her mobile phone on the asphalt and verbally abusing her.</span></span><br />
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</span>No way I could use my camera or mobile as I was between police and not in mid of demonstration. I would have been attacked at once. Policemen in civilian were everywhere. A German journalist from NDR TV, two meters behind me, was taken away by a security guy and interrogated for a while before being allowed to walk away.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The policemen used brutal force against peaceful protesters because they were heading to the interior ministry from streets leading to Habib Bourguiba Avenue. This grey and ugly building from the 1970s is surrounded by barbed wire and protected by army troops. Imagine, the army protecting policemen from the people...</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the nearby Avenue de Paris, glass, waste and burned tires everywhere. Police vans race trough it, jump out, chase peaceful demonstrators to beat them up and curse. They leave the road quickly. I can see that all bystanders in the area just hate them. The policemen know it and feel unsafe. They just behave like an occupying force...<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRLrQG8XnAl0w2Itb7goQiA_POnzNJJwf8jOQ3eK53KE_Pw-i9kGAc8NBzs3zejV988oQeo7UvFkVE-oe_dAaQxl2xlxIHFBZutJLclixMbwpSdcYQc7N7bKoriCMon3guHJ9EpeFxB-8/s1600/L1030953.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRLrQG8XnAl0w2Itb7goQiA_POnzNJJwf8jOQ3eK53KE_Pw-i9kGAc8NBzs3zejV988oQeo7UvFkVE-oe_dAaQxl2xlxIHFBZutJLclixMbwpSdcYQc7N7bKoriCMon3guHJ9EpeFxB-8/s400/L1030953.JPG" width="400" /></a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Avenue de Paris, 7 May 2011</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 14px;">Demonstrators I spoke to said they mistrust the transitional</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 14px;"> government and officials in the system. They say a "counter-revolution" is being carried out by the cronies of the former dictator. Ahmed Dermech, a young student, told me, "We will not give away our newly won freedom. We will go to the streets until our revolution is 100% won". More demos are planned tomorrow.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 14px;">One funny interesting happened. I was speaking with a Tunisian TV team on Habib Bourguiba Avenue on May 7 when a high-ranking police officer approached us and said: "I like to apologize to the media for the attacks committed by policemen yesterday. Please understand that they are not used of being filmed. It was always forbidden to film them, and now they are afraid that their faces and names will be on Facebook. Please put on your jackets in big letters </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">'Press' and I assure you that nothing will happen to you."</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 14px;"> The Tunisian journalists asked if would repeat it all in front of the camera, he said he was not allowed to do so. He was very credible, but it remains to be seen if a change of behavior will really take place.</span></span><br />
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Anyhow, one thing is crystal clear: Tunisians still have a long and arduous road until they set up a real democracy. 23 years of dictatorship cannot be undone in a blink. Changing the mentality of tens of thousands that profited directly from oppression and corruption will probably take a generation or two.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">But I have no doubt that Tunisians will succeed. 63 parties have already been registered since the dictatorship collapsed last January 14; hundreds of NGOs and media outlets have applied for a permit. In Tunis, I am breathing freedom despite all the trouble. This no one can take away from Tunisians anymore. Everyone I spoke to shouted it!</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4tDEW7vXDu8oxy_DWkDzyvMPVVHGk1j1L8ogLRD8Eljqkv_WxwIM9eNeXmoosp3gZe_qxTAUSIzM6_32XiHEh1xRB32SwRq45Pne9pgYGzQBtWfy-RlryFetF0Xo8eP-Pty-Cs9O2Acg/s1600/L1030968.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4tDEW7vXDu8oxy_DWkDzyvMPVVHGk1j1L8ogLRD8Eljqkv_WxwIM9eNeXmoosp3gZe_qxTAUSIzM6_32XiHEh1xRB32SwRq45Pne9pgYGzQBtWfy-RlryFetF0Xo8eP-Pty-Cs9O2Acg/s400/L1030968.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Bourguiba Avenue, ugly building on left is the interior ministry, 7 May 2011</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj45PGvy0oSW4YAMaIh_zjmBMxwqQfX3ujjRjbOl7EMk2-r580_iFXOge5jy1EcWRlhi9otJllBaE40R4-aLuXs6NKNoZf6z1lveZGCClw5LV6S6bnITN8QRtkJFylMkUPiPvyYjzE0f8E/s1600/L1030971.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj45PGvy0oSW4YAMaIh_zjmBMxwqQfX3ujjRjbOl7EMk2-r580_iFXOge5jy1EcWRlhi9otJllBaE40R4-aLuXs6NKNoZf6z1lveZGCClw5LV6S6bnITN8QRtkJFylMkUPiPvyYjzE0f8E/s400/L1030971.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Bourguiba Avenue, Africa hotel left. 7 May 2011</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; line-height: 14px;"><br />
Meanwhile, I am blogging from the Carlton Hotel near the interior ministry. I cannot venture outside anymore because of the curfew from 9pm (Saturday 7 May) till 5am (Sunday 8 May). The only bar still open was in the nearby Africa Hotel. I enjoyed there the great local beer, Celtia, and walked trough ghost town Tunis till about 10pm when policemen shouted from far away. OK, OK, I walked in the hotel and started writing these lines and uploading the photos I took.</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/07/us-tunisia-protests-idUSTRE7461JT20110507" style="line-height: 14px;"></a></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/07/us-tunisia-protests-idUSTRE7461JT20110507">Background from Reuters</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 14px;">: Former interior minister Farhat Rajhi said last Thursday that there could be a "coup" by loyalists of former dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali if Islamists from the Ennahda party won the July 24 elections.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 14px;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Until August 2011 I will head in Tunis a team that will hold interviews and carry out research about each party fighting for seats for the Constitutional Council that is to be elected on July 24. Data about political positions on key issues will be on a website in French and Arabic to help Tunisians chose who to vote for. The project is carried out by the German NGO <a href="http://mict-international.org/">Media in Cooperation and Transition</a>. It did something similar in <a href="http://www.sudanvotes.com/">Sudan in 2010</a>.</span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<a href="http://www.fouadhamdan.org/" style="color: #0066aa; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px;"></a></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.fouadhamdan.org/">Fouad Hamdan</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><i> is an independent Arab pro-democracy activist who established and headed </i></span></span><a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/lebanon/ar/" style="color: #333333; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px;">Greenpeace Lebanon </a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><i>in 1994-1999 and was the founding executive director of the </i></span></span><a href="http://ahrfund.org/" style="color: #333333; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px;">Arab Human Rights Fund</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><i> in 2008-2010. Since then he advising on a voluntary basis Arab NGOs and activists, and he is working as a consultant for </i></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic;"> <a href="http://mict-international.org/">Media in Cooperation and Transition</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #2a2a2a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"> and</span></span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444;">the</span> <a href="http://gc-ca.org/">Global Campaign for Climate Action</a>.</span></span></div>Fouad Hamdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16250340871594600594noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1922141959062330613.post-26546434650869657182011-04-13T15:17:00.004+03:002011-04-30T14:24:18.228+03:00A bus, the civil war and Lebanon`s lost memory<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Remember that little bus that carried Palestinians from West Beirut to their refugee camp in Tel al-Zaatar, East Beirut, on the 13<sup>th</sup> of April 1975?<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">The Lebanese civil war officially started on that day when Christian Phalange militiamen shot and killed 27 Palestinians in that bus while they drove through the Christian Ain el-Rummaneh neighbourhood. From that moment on Lebanon entered hell. For almost 15 years.</span></span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></o:p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOHZxNWaLyLCWuD5gFnJompIa6uTGAYrQa7ybkoS6uGy6O6PeTAT4fy8_i1XReX_iEWLYwXAbhrH5ULvD850CMAAaymrh9QbhGwDUvokkuFKZZCCx-wxscxeehvuEGDzdRfgs5YwPWsNI/s1600/2007+pic+of+bus+with+owner+Sami+Hamdan%252C+62_april2007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOHZxNWaLyLCWuD5gFnJompIa6uTGAYrQa7ybkoS6uGy6O6PeTAT4fy8_i1XReX_iEWLYwXAbhrH5ULvD850CMAAaymrh9QbhGwDUvokkuFKZZCCx-wxscxeehvuEGDzdRfgs5YwPWsNI/s400/2007+pic+of+bus+with+owner+Sami+Hamdan%252C+62_april2007.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Bus owner Sami Hamdan, in front of the bus in 2007. (c) AP</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></o:p></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O</span></o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">n that day I was 15. I lived in Moslem Ras el-Nabeh, West Beirut, close to the frontline opposite Christian Sodeco. My school was the Grand Lycee in nearby Christian Ashrafieh, 10 minutes by bicycle. When the shooting started between Ain el-Rummeneh and Moslen Chiah “our” area suddenly filled with guys totting Kalashnikov machine guns. They took control of the streets and spoke about defeating the pro-Western Phalanges and liberating Palestine. In “their” areas guys carried similar arms and vowed to liberate Lebanon from Palestinians and communists. These Cold War years seem like centuries ago.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I remember burned out public buses, stoned militiamen firing for no reason in the air and a sniper from the other side who from his angle could only hit the Western side of Omar Ben Khattab road where my family home was located. We received 61mm mortar shells, then 120mm mortar shells, then Grad and Katyusha missiles; the other side got similar ones, too. The sound of silence after an explosion was terrifying. The screaming of frightened neighbors or the wounded in streets guaranteed sleepless nights. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I narrowly escaped being kidnapped by the Phalange while cycling to school during a ceasefire in June 1975. From far away I saw them close to the school entrance, took a side road back to Ras El-Nabeh and did not see the school till 1990. This is when I realized that the words “Moslem Shia” in my ID could mean death. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So many pictures are still engraved in my memory, like the unknown gunmen I saw executing five men, probably Christians, in Bshara el-Khoury road in 1976. Just around the corner, the burned out corpses of kidnapped Christians were neatly lined under the bridge near Berbir Hospital. The other side dumped the copses of kidnapped Moslems under other bridges. Since then, I just do not like bridges.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Off course, the war did not start out of the blue with the bus massacre 31 years ago on the 13<sup>th</sup> of April. The civil war has its roots in a sectarian system formulated by the French mandate power in the 1920s, in the screaming inequalities between rich and poor, in Palestinians being robbed of their homeland and in the inability of Lebanese to unite, refuse foreign interference and solve their problems with non-violent means.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So insanity lasted almost 15 years and officially ended in October 1990. The result: About 150,000 people killed, many more injured and maimed, one million internally displaced and many more in emigration. Beirut’s city center was destroyed, the infrastructure shattered, forests burnt, the coastline dotted with open waste dumps. But phoenix superficially rose from the ashes and the country was quickly rebuilt. Economically, that is. Beirut became the Arab city to live in. Mega cool, sexy and just fun. That is if you forget the mass poverty in many areas, especially in North Lebanon.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="apple-style-span"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Divisions, divisions and more divisions<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span">21 years after the end of the civil war – one whole generation later – Lebanon is as divided as in 1975. The main fault lines: </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span">_ Sunni Moslems blame the Shia Hezbollah militia for killing former Sunni Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005 with an international UN tribunal to issue indictments soon. Expect a Sunni-Shia confrontation in one way or another. </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span">_ Christian Maronites are more divided then ever between pro- and anti-Hezbollah. Syria’s and Iran’s dictatorial regimes arm Hezbollah, a state in the state of Lebanon, to pressure Israel and the West. </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span"></span>_ Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati, Hezbollah`s and Syria's choice, is unable to form a cabinet. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The country is in a mess and could blow up any minute.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Despite a general atmosphere of gloom and doom Lebanese youth groups launched early 2011 an anti-sectarianism movement, inspired by uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and other Arab states. It started well with more and more people participating in sit-ins and demonstrations, but the movement got bogged down because of internal divisions and a lack of strategy. The Shia Amal movement tried to hijack the movement and supported abolishing the sectarian system, reviving a deep-rooted Christian Maronite angst. The Phalange <span class="apple-style-span">accused Amal of seeking to establish the rule of the demographically largest religious communities (Sunni and Shia) over Christians. Back to square one, 13<sup>th</sup> April 1975</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_LTHjsPIxzqBerFw0szwrpiirRAJuntWexpHRLC52Mjt0flhkpFdaZuFJOvd94sLEsptTvC6679AddSFortqIpu5y1svayP7QbIwA986nIRxfpO4AIWlDgpIQnGunD-r0Di2Hh3teFU8/s1600/anti-sectarianism+demo+10april2011_6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_LTHjsPIxzqBerFw0szwrpiirRAJuntWexpHRLC52Mjt0flhkpFdaZuFJOvd94sLEsptTvC6679AddSFortqIpu5y1svayP7QbIwA986nIRxfpO4AIWlDgpIQnGunD-r0Di2Hh3teFU8/s400/anti-sectarianism+demo+10april2011_6.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Anti-sectarianism demonstration, Beirut, 10 April 2011</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="apple-style-span"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Taef Accord, superficial peace with no reconciliation<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lebanon did not recover from the civil war because the 1989 Taef accord, which ended the all-out shooting a year later, did not end the mistrust among the communities and political factions. It just made cosmetic changes to a sectarian system that guaranteed warlords from all sides a well-defined piece of the big pie called Lebanon. The Christians then lost some privileges and had to share the pie 50-50 with Moslems, instead of 60-40. In principle not much changed: Institutions were kept weak, corruption grew, Palestinians were still armed in their camps because they trusted no one and almost all Lebanese politicians kept relying on foreign backers in Riyadh and Washington or in Damascus and Tehran.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Add to this the fact that some main points of the <a href="http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/cae/servlet/contentblob/342238/publicationFile/3388/091021-AbkommenVonTaif.pdf">Taef accord</a> were never implemented. All militias were disarmed expect Hezbollah which fought Israeli occupation in the South, but kept its arms after the Israeli withdrawal in May 2000 – in line with the regional interests of Syria and Iran. Syrian troops did not withdraw as stipulated in the accord, but were forced out after mass demonstrations in 2005. The Taef accord said, “Abolishing political secterianism is a fundamental national objective. To achieve it, it is required that efforts be made in accordance with a phased plan”. This was never seriously tackled by the political class.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The worst part of the Lebanese history is that parliament, controlled by the warlords, passed in 1991 an amnesty for crimes committed during the war. This "amnesia law" is one major cause for the many wars and internal disturbances Lebanon has been going through since 1990. Lebanon never had a true national reconciliation process. Beside one brave former top-level militiaman, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3_Sbr8rp2E">Assaad Chaftari</a> from the Christian Lebanese Forces, no militia leader genuinely apologized for his crimes. No one asked the victims and their families for forgiveness. No one said where missing people are buried.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Allow me to name the warlords who are today still in powerful positions: Nabih Berri (Shia/Amal), Walid Jumblatt (Druze/Progressive Socialist Party), Amine Gemayel (Maronite/Phalange), Samir Geagea (Maronite/Lebanese Forces), Michel Aoun (Maronite/former Army commander). Hesbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who came to power after the civil war, followed their path by igniting a senseless war with Israel in 2006 (some 1,300 dead Lebanese). In May 2008 he sent his gunmen to storm West Beirut and the Chuf mountains (100-200 killed). Today, Hezbollah arms are used to threaten Shia opposing Hezbollah and all other sects.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="apple-style-span"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">National reconciliation as a prelude for real peace<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span">How can the Lebanese prevent another April 13 with devastating consequences? How can this divided nation unite for a true peace process? I believe that political steps must be taken to set up a truth finding process leading to a true national reconciliation. </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhopLDbGEn4rqlwm_VmbPE34WKQbtDA6nwH3QM6Ea3TY9_F6klWZxqX1h5NvcE_DU4522asAVgoa_XkQH7hYgNkRVDQfVAHN64MzogbGlstZiNiAvEik3yxX-qkRA0lhXNTs9N2IDP-4/s1600/al+muqawimoun+bus+to+prevent+war_april2011.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhopLDbGEn4rqlwm_VmbPE34WKQbtDA6nwH3QM6Ea3TY9_F6klWZxqX1h5NvcE_DU4522asAVgoa_XkQH7hYgNkRVDQfVAHN64MzogbGlstZiNiAvEik3yxX-qkRA0lhXNTs9N2IDP-4/s400/al+muqawimoun+bus+to+prevent+war_april2011.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The group al-Muqawimoun warning with </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">a banner, "The bus (war) is waiting around the corner".</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span">The International Center for Transitional Justice (<a href="http://www.ictj.org/en/index.html">ICTJ</a>) believes that e</span>ffective transitional justice must include several measures complementing one another. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Without any truth-telling or reparation efforts, for example, punishing a small number of perpetrators can be viewed as a form of political revenge. Truth-telling, in isolation from efforts to punish abusers and to make institutional reforms, can be viewed as nothing more than words. Reparations that are not linked to prosecutions or truth-telling may be perceived as ‘blood money’ – an attempt to buy the silence or acquiescence of victims. Similarly, reforming institutions without any attempt to satisfy victims' legitimate expectations of justice, truth and reparation, is not only ineffective from the standpoint of accountability, but unlikely to succeed in its own terms”.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 5.75pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-line-height-alt: 9.2pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Transitional justice should be designed to strengthen democracy and peace – the key goals for societies picking up the pieces after periods of mass abuse,” ICTJ notes. “These goals are more likely to be reached with active consultation of, and participation by, victims groups and the public... A holistic approach implies taking into account the full range of factors that may have contributed to abuse”.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 5.75pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-line-height-alt: 9.2pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But what are the conditions we need in Lebanon to set up a national reconciliation process? How can we get the former warlords to admit, apologize and at least retire from politics once and for all? Do we have to wait until the Syrian regime collapses under the current pressure from a pro-democracy movement all over the country? This would definitely not amuse Hezbollah as it would lose its political and military hinterland – and then feel threatened. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 5.75pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-line-height-alt: 9.2pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 5.75pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-line-height-alt: 9.2pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think the solution may be in an anti-sectarianism movement that is well organized and which has a clear strategy. This movement should be able to alleviate fears in each sect and mobilize all the Lebanese for a truly democratic society where religion and state are separated. A dream, I know. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One great slogan could be “A-sha3eb yourid isqat zu3ama al-taefiyeh”, in English, “The people want to topple the sectarian leaders!”</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 5.75pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-line-height-alt: 9.2pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjFybuMA03KoOO8v567wpIX-EtfK8XxbEOkhphS_T8IgiNS32mdA3hbBtNKTG7sVmpHKF6hscQEagwThNLYtiqI9Yg4mbVxtfY-y8wj1fD88HzsHYoelboaA-hry8iFHuL5n-CVTpOS7E/s1600/the+bus+at+Umam_april2011_4%2528C%2529+Soha+menassa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjFybuMA03KoOO8v567wpIX-EtfK8XxbEOkhphS_T8IgiNS32mdA3hbBtNKTG7sVmpHKF6hscQEagwThNLYtiqI9Yg4mbVxtfY-y8wj1fD88HzsHYoelboaA-hry8iFHuL5n-CVTpOS7E/s400/the+bus+at+Umam_april2011_4%2528C%2529+Soha+menassa.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The bus at "Hangar", April 2011. (c) Soha Menassa</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 5.75pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-line-height-alt: 9.2pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 5.75pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-line-height-alt: 9.2pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Back to the small bus that brings back so many bad memories. Memory and memorialisation play a crucial role in a national reconciliation process. <a href="http://www.umam-dr.org/">Umam Research and Development</a>, a Lebanese NGO in Beirut’s southern suburbs, is currently working on a database of people that went missing during the civil war. Its staff recently <a href="https://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=41213&id=100000860783546">rescued the bus</a> from disappearance and hauled it into the “<a href="http://www.umam-dr.org/hangarStory.php?hangarLocation=story">Hangar</a>”, Umam’s exhibition hall, where it is now the center piece of an exhibition. Go see it. We should never forget this </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">bus.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 5.75pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-line-height-alt: 9.2pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 20px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 5.75pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-line-height-alt: 9.2pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 20px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"><a href="http://www.fouadhamdan.org/">Fouad Hamdan</a> is an independent Arab pro-democracy activist who established and headed Greenpeace Lebanon in 1994-1999 and was the founding executive director of the Arab Human Rights Fund in 2008-2010. </span></i></span></span></div></div>Fouad Hamdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16250340871594600594noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1922141959062330613.post-71188187495270772432011-03-16T12:21:00.003+02:002011-04-30T14:26:36.218+03:00Why Arabs and Japanese media report about horror differently -- Time for an Arab Media Code of Ethics as winds of freedom blowing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">The images of Japanese towns eradicated by the tsunami on March 18 are horrific. The ones of bloody street protests and of fighting in Libya, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen and other Arab countries moving towards democracy are shocking, too. When following events simultaneously, in disaster-struck Japan and in troubled Arab countries, one cannot but notice that both societies have different styles in reporting about calamities and human suffering.</span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">TV reports literally beam you in front and above the waves that destroyed cities and killed thousands in Japan. The images that stick are of cars and houses being washed away and of large areas littered with all sorts of vehicles and debris. Near total destruction you see in doomsday films like “War of the Worlds” and “Armageddon” – or in black-and-white documentaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that were flattened by US atomic bombs in 1945. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">In none of the tsunami footage broadcasted by Japanese and foreign TV stations, and in none of the following reports by foreign teams on the ground did I see corpses, except rare scenes of rescue workers carrying victims on stretchers. These victims are covered and hardly visible, no wounds, no blood. Dramatic tsunami footage always stops the second waves eating homes and landscapes get close to people in cars trying to escape death. You just do not see people close-ups of badly wounded, dead or dying.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">In contrast, images from Libya and Yemen, where dictators hang to power and order policemen and soldiers to shoot, are different. I see bullet wounds, mutilated bodies and pools of blood on streets. Hospital staffs have no problem allowing cameramen to violate the privacy of patients. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">In Japan, there is respect for the dignity of victims and their grieving relatives. Why show mud-covered bodies when the devastation on the ground is horrific enough to make your heart bleed? Why zoom in on mutilated bodies? Imagine gruesome details if you wish. The images of razed cities are tragic enough. No need for maxi horror.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">The Japanese media follow an ethical code not enshrined in law as this would violate the right for free expression in a democratic system. Foreign correspondents in Japan respect this code, even al-Jazeera TV. Switch to the world’s most famous TV station and to many other Arab TVs and wonder why this code is respected when it comes to Japan. But the moment they report from the Gaza-Israel frontline or from Libya “blood flows to the knees” (Arabic saying). <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">This trend started sometime in the 1980s when two events happened at the same time. First, private TV stations mushroomed and more camera teams were sent to troubled areas, all competing for the attention of coach potato consumers. The more gruesome, the more viewers are glued to screens, so the logic of media managers. Second, autocratic regimes allowed TV stations to show in detail how Israeli soldiers kill Palestinians and Lebanese. The aim has been to divert popular frustration and anger on Israel. I will not elaborate on tasteless advertisements between tragedies in the Gaza Strip or in southern Lebanon. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Arab newspapers were under pressure, especially after photos on websites and amateur films on YouTube crossed any remaining ethical line by showing what even Al-Jazeera TV did not. Many followed suit and printed pictures that would never find their way in Japanese or European media. Sadly, most Arab media and amateur internet journalists do not ask themselves what impact showing horror has on the sanity of viewers and readers, especially children. Is this good for the Palestinian cause? Does this encourage more violence? Does this make violence banal? Does it increase fear, and does fear lead to more violence? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">University of Michigan professor L. Rowell Huesmann argues that 50 years of evidence show “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that exposure to media violence causes children to behave more aggressively and affects them as adults years later</i>”. Jonathan Freedman of the University of Toronto claims that “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the scientific evidence simply does not show that watching violence either produces violence in people, or desensitizes them to it</i>”. Se there is no consensus among </span><a href="http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/violence/effects_media_violence.cfm"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">experts</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> on the question whether exposure to media violence increases levels of aggression and violence in youth. I believe Mr. Huesmann.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Back to the Arab media: I am against laws trying to stifle internet and conventional media. Politicians should not fiddle with the principle of freedom of expression; this is an untouchable universal human right. However, Arab associations of journalists and publishers have a responsibility to formulate and adhere to a modern media code of ethics. We do not need to show violence and pain in detail. We do not need shocking images from the occupied Palestinian territories to be convinced that Israeli troops are committing crimes against humanity. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Japan`s “</span><a href="http://www.eyeonethics.org/journalist-code-of-ethics-in-asia/the-canon-of-journalism-japan/"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Cannon of Journalism</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">”, adopted in 2001, reads, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Respect for Human Rights: Member newspapers should pay utmost respect to the dignity of human beings, put a high value on individuals’ honour and give serious consideration to their right to privacy</i>”. The respect of human rights is a headline; you cannot be clearer. In contrast, the outdated “</span><a href="http://www.eyeonethics.org/journalist-code-of-ethics-in-asia/arab-code-of-ethics/"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Arab Code of Ethics</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">”, adopted by the Federation of Arab Journalists in Baghdad in 1972, is weak on that subject when it reads, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Journalists adhere to respect the right of individuals to privacy and dignity</i>”.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">The </span><a href="http://www.rjionline.org/mas/code-of-ethics/islamic-media-charter"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Islamic Media Charter</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">, adopted by the International Islamic Mass Media Conference in Jakarta in 2000, promotes “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Islamic values and ethical principles</i>”. It says, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Islamic media men should censor all material which is either broadcast or published in order to protect the Ummah from influences which are harmful to Islamic character</i>”.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">In Nazareth, the Palestinian Media Center I’lam in 2008 published “The </span><a href="http://www.ilam-center.org/pics/091107135349Ilam-MediaCharter-English.pdf"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Media Charter</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> – Code of Ethics for Palestinians in Israel”. Under the headlines “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Objectivity and human rights</i>” it says that “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in their coverage, journalists must rely on general, universal values and on human rights.” It adds, “Objectivity, as a supreme professional value, is consistent with human rights, human freedom, human dignity and other such values</i>.” This document is quite good, but it does not explicitly elaborate on media violence.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">In the light of the current pro-democracy wave in the Arab region, time has come for Arab journalists to rethink how they report about violence and natural disasters. They should formulate a new Arab Media Code of Ethics enshrining freedom of expression and respecting dignity and privacy of people. Strictly religious media outlets should have the rights to promote their beliefs as they wish. All other private and state-owned outlets should be open to all political opinions and religious beliefs in a fair way. On media violence, time has come to stop desensitizing and traumatizing Arab societies.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Fouad Hamdan is an independent Arab pro-democracy activist who established and headed Greenpeace Lebanon in 1994-1999 and was the founding executive director of the Arab Human Rights Fund in 2008-2010. He was a journalist at the German Press Agency from 1987-1992.</span></i></div></div>Fouad Hamdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16250340871594600594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1922141959062330613.post-66521452838558924242011-03-02T11:58:00.009+02:002011-04-30T14:27:57.300+03:00Strategy for Youth groups and NGOs to end sectarianism in Lebanon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A suggestion to</span></b><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> end sectarianism in Lebanon (1st version written </span></b><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">for a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=127771777296094">meeting held in Beirut on March 6</a>) </span></b><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik7bTIVjjVbEYj2xCbzMAt7_X2Fs4eDwQKguRbRlHShdcVP1r18tXDK95aQzoeLcNyhFzF1KDnWfF0-koLHWQaE6wSnjxIQ2-W0VcnqpiSb2bRBIZdgXtDEuFLCmIjmUymgzPc6LCOhnY/s1600/16feb2011_2+demonstrate+aginst+secterianism_leba+parliament_beirut.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik7bTIVjjVbEYj2xCbzMAt7_X2Fs4eDwQKguRbRlHShdcVP1r18tXDK95aQzoeLcNyhFzF1KDnWfF0-koLHWQaE6wSnjxIQ2-W0VcnqpiSb2bRBIZdgXtDEuFLCmIjmUymgzPc6LCOhnY/s400/16feb2011_2+demonstrate+aginst+secterianism_leba+parliament_beirut.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The first demo against sectarianism, in front of Parliament in Beirut, 16.3.2011</span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first demonstration of about 2,000 people in Beirut on 27th Feb 2011 calling for an end of sectarianism in Lebanon was wonderful news. Lebanon seems to be awakening from a phase of political cynicism and the belief that nothing will ever change. The demo showed that the potential to unite around one essential demand can bring Lebanese from all walks of life and from all sects together. They want to build a truly democratic Lebanon. They want to end the rule of incompetent family dynasties, corrupt businessmen and criminals of war.</span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In leaflets, the organizers demanded a “secular, civil, democratic, socially just and equal state”. Music! More demos followed, including a large one with some 10,000 people in Beirut. Sit-ins were organized in Saida (the first tents in Lebanon), Beirut, Tyre, Tripoli and in the valley Beqaa. This shows that there is a clear potential for a radical change.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOt1uCQglvFQwdc4bTe2m0Q42HwXqT3NQ3LfDu2X71fDMvR8YY8qv5_ButyJIA_otp5Rbfo9X02b6m7ujefkDDtgwiOQLGWJmo_zsUuQE34Z4v88oat57OBOcB0rqHvtrc_Bx850EPzXA/s1600/demo+6march2011_10000people_beirut.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOt1uCQglvFQwdc4bTe2m0Q42HwXqT3NQ3LfDu2X71fDMvR8YY8qv5_ButyJIA_otp5Rbfo9X02b6m7ujefkDDtgwiOQLGWJmo_zsUuQE34Z4v88oat57OBOcB0rqHvtrc_Bx850EPzXA/s400/demo+6march2011_10000people_beirut.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Demo in Beirut on March 6. some 10,000 people were on the streets.</span></div></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We all agree that the Lebanese sectarian system fails to provide peace and stability, social justice and a bight future for our children. We know that this anachronistic system allows regional powers like Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia to interfere via their local cronies and degrade Lebanon to their fighting ground. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Almost all our current politicians – the above mentioned incompetent family dynasties, corrupt businessmen and criminals of war – are responsible for plundering the state, keeping institutions inefficient and corrupt, for impoverishing the people and for pushing the country into regular cycles of violence and war. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No, our problems and tragedies are not planned in Tel Aviv, Washington, Damascus, Tehran or Riyadh. They are home-made. Lebanese need to take their destiny in their hands. We need to take responsibility.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The end of the sectarian system is off course our core demand. But what is our strategy to make that edifice crumble. What main section of the foundations must be pulled down so that the rest collapses as a result?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The current election law!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Lebanon needs a modern and fair electio</b>n law that gives secular parties and independent candidates a fair chance of getting into parliament. The current parliament must scrap the current elections law that monopolizes power into the hands of the current rulers and pass a law allowing proportional representation.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Secular parties and independents should be able to field candidates all over Lebanon to convince people vote for their policies to reform institutions and solve the many problems we suffer from – unfair taxation system, poor health care unless you are wealthy, weak public schools, deteriorating environment, chaotic transport system, energy cuts, anything but independent judiciary, etc.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The demand for a modern and fair election law would be the rallying point for all – even for many March 8 and 14 supporters. Yes, I truly believe that a large majority of the Lebanese would support this demand. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Intifada against sectarianism<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let more follow the example of the youth who on March 1 erected <a href="http://assafir.com/Article.aspx?EditionId=1786&articleId=140&ChannelId=41953&Author=%D9%85%D8%AD%D9%85%D8%AF">a tent in Saida’s Martyr Square</a> and said they will not leave until the sectarian system is down.</span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<div class="MsoPlainText"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilDp1dXxJhAoPsarPhtk1Eo-BNRKG4tEh3w_qRJyW3Y9fXBAeCt5rXcwqqcMAwAlw2HoTIyoHuSC7LoqUD5Z_6_-BKuJhxVNz5x0MY6inKgMJ7uMXNCeTiaTDOKetgBPjr7wQmSGyB5Fk/s1600/saida+sit+in+against+sectarianism_start+1march2011.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilDp1dXxJhAoPsarPhtk1Eo-BNRKG4tEh3w_qRJyW3Y9fXBAeCt5rXcwqqcMAwAlw2HoTIyoHuSC7LoqUD5Z_6_-BKuJhxVNz5x0MY6inKgMJ7uMXNCeTiaTDOKetgBPjr7wQmSGyB5Fk/s400/saida+sit+in+against+sectarianism_start+1march2011.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">First sit-in in Lebanon to end sectarianism. Saida, Martyr Square, 1.3.2011</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let us support and join them in Saida and other towns. Let us have sit-ins and tents in every town and vilage and ignite a non-violent intifada. So </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">get your tents and sleeping bags and take action. Or at least spend a few hours per day with the ones on the ground. Donate food, whatever material they need, money. </span></div></div><div class="MsoPlainText"></div><br />
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</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Suggested rules of the game:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ All protests are peaceful and non-violent (the mother of all rules).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ We are inclusive: People who support March 14 or March 8 parties, religious people, priests and sheikhs are more than welcome to participate and unite in the call to end sectarianism, separate religion from state and to demand a modern and fair election law. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ Please, no party flags and no religious symbols.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPoyZBoF9KMaUhitKS3NEfyahG9OpVXRJSzXhckuqjF7_VjoKwxHVMBrbC0go9wvzK83pz9pUQkuisKBOLPVcstlXw7mqWNIl0tRKRuYTDhcfb4Bi67D08aOPO46KxmnSiUesemMio9YI/s1600/176872_580893074732_127103129_32185235_926317_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPoyZBoF9KMaUhitKS3NEfyahG9OpVXRJSzXhckuqjF7_VjoKwxHVMBrbC0go9wvzK83pz9pUQkuisKBOLPVcstlXw7mqWNIl0tRKRuYTDhcfb4Bi67D08aOPO46KxmnSiUesemMio9YI/s400/176872_580893074732_127103129_32185235_926317_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Demo in Beirut on March 6, 2011. </span> </div><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Focus on the following demands:</span></b></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ End sectarianism<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ Parliament must pass a modern and fair elections law now <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ MPs vote to hold parliamentary elections in maximum 6 months <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ Then parliament dissolves itself as it does not truly represent the people!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Let us unite behind these demands! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Suggested broad lines for next steps:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ Network with groups all over the country and agree on a strategy and an action plan. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ Formulate a draft election law along the lines of the recommendations made by the Boutros Commission (see annexes 1 and 2)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ Organize workshops and lectures to educate activists about this law<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ Mobilize, plan and prepare<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ Start the peaceful intifada to end sectarianism<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>To read, see and learn how to topple Arab dictators</b><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ From Dictatorship to democracy: A book about how to practically oust dictators though peaceful actions. Download book for free in Arabic, English and French, <a href="http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations98ce.html">http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations98ce.html</a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ How to create a peaceful movement to topple Arab dictators:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Non-violent revolutions must be fun, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-1_-P016Ns">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-1_-P016Ns</a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A personal note/flashback:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From my experience in setting up the Greenpeace office in Lebanon from 1994-1999 I formulated the following analysis: Greenpeace activists managed among other things through non-violent campaigns to shut down polluting waste incinerators, prevent new ones from being set up, return toxics waste to Europe and stop the use of water pipes with Asbestos. But we failed to change the structures that have been destroying Lebanon’s environment. See the state of our coastline and mountains. Have a look at the unchecked urbanism and the failed energy and mobility/transport policies. We and other NGOs on the ground regularly hit the walls of a sectarian system that did not allow crossing a deadly red line. Time has come to pull down these walls Check: <a href="http://www.fouadhamdan.org/cms/upload/pdf/GreenpeaceLebanon_and_democracy_Speech_FouadHamdan_ARABIC_23March1999.PDF">http://www.fouadhamdan.org/cms/upload/pdf/GreenpeaceLebanon_and_democracy_Speech_FouadHamdan_ARABIC_23March1999.PDF</a> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ANNEX 1</span></b></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The current Lebanese Election law, passed in 2008</b>, is an amended version of a 1960 law. It <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- alters the boundaries of voting districts,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- calls for elections to be held on one day, rather than over several days,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- gives expatriates the right to vote in elections in 2013,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- regulates the role of the media publicity in elections and sets a limit on some costs incurred by candidates (despite the importance of this measure, it did little to make campaign financing more transparent),<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- gives candidates equal time to promote their electoral programmes, while a media "silence" will be observed between midnight on the day before polling stations open until the last votes are cast,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- bans opinion polls in the ten days leading up to elections,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- sees to it that transparent ballot boxes are used and fingers are inked<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Several proposed reforms were rejected, including a lowering of the voting age to 18 from 21 and quotas for women in parliament.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Lebanese MPs approved this law in September 2008 and discarded the most crucial reforms recommended by the Boutros Commission (see annexes 1 and 2). <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They failed to adopt the commission's proposal to introduce proportional representation. Instead, the law retained the system as is, while revising the demarcation of electoral districts. The law replaced the 14 electoral districts established with 26 smaller districts that largely coincide with the existing qadas (small administrative district).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This provision was adopted to ensure that the proportion of Christian candidates elected in majority Christian districts is roughly en par with the proportions for other sects. Under the previous electoral law, 38 of 64 Christian seats were in majority Muslim districts, while only 8 of 64 Muslim seats were in majority Christians districts. Under the law, just 17 Christian seats are in Muslim districts. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This increased number of mono-confessional electoral districts has the effect of further strengthening sectarian dynamics, as is it is no longer necessary for candidates to appeal outside of their own confessional constituencies to win election. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rather than reducing the role of sectarianism in politics, the current election law serves to strengthen it.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Annex 2:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A modern and fair Lebanese election law<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In August 2005, the Lebanese government appointed a National Commission for a New Electoral Law, comprised of academics, lawyers, and civil society activists, under the chairmanship of Fouad Boutros. The Boutros Commission released in May 2006 a draft law outlining an array of electoral reforms.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Structural Reforms<o:p></o:p></span></u></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The most sweeping proposal of the Boutros Commission was the introduction of a mixed system of electing the 128-member parliament. Although confessional quotas would remain the same, 51 representatives were to be chosen with a proportional system at the muhafaza (governorate) level, while the other 77 deputies would be selected according to the current majoritarian system at the qada (small administrative district) level.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The introduction of proportional representation would work to the advantage of secular groups that do not have enough support within any one confessional group to win election. Candidates would be able to appeal outside of their own confessional constituencies to win election, thus reducing the role of sectarianism in politics.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Procedural Reforms<o:p></o:p></span></u></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The most important procedural reform in the Boutros draft law was the introduction of uniform official ballots. Under the current system, voters are allowed to use any piece of paper so long as the names of the candidate they select are clearly legible. This seemingly innocuous innovation is a critical enabler for rampant vote buying and intimidation of constituents.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Political coalitions distribute their own specially tailored ballots to clients and supporters, using different colors, dimensions, and fonts for different voting blocs (e.g. particular villages and families) so that their poll monitors can trace where votes are coming from when ballots are counted. This greatly compromises the secrecy of the vote, makes it easy to ensure that the money invested in buying votes does not go to waste, and strengthens the power of local political bosses by making the "services" they provide to candidates verifiable!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The introduction of a uniform official ballot is critical to the integrity of the electoral process.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The commission recommended counting votes at the qada level, rather than at individual polling stations, because this greatly impeded the ability of party poll monitors to track bought votes. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It also called for setting up an independent electoral commission. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u>The major weakness</u></b> of the recommendations made by the Boutros Commission is that a maximum of 7-10 secular candidates would be able to make it. What is needed is at least the possibility of 60 secular candidates to enter parliament. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The new law must guarantee a true proportional representation.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div>Fouad Hamdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16250340871594600594noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1922141959062330613.post-68859170621549855232011-02-27T15:27:00.002+02:002011-04-02T20:03:00.338+03:00Ending sectarianism in Lebanon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Dear Lebanese at home and abroad,<br />
<br />
On Feb 27, 2011 thousands peacefully demonstrated in Beirut AGAINST sectarianism and corruption and FOR democracy in Lebanon. We are neither March 8 nor March 14. We are Lebanese and we love Lebanon. We believe that religion is a private matter.<br />
<br />
We are citizens that want Lebanon to finally enter the 21st century.<br />
<br />
We are sick and tired with a system that is leading every generation to war.<br />
<br />
Join us in our dream to make Lebanon a modern, secular democracy where all are equal and are governed by people that truly represent us.<br />
<br />
Go to: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_167520066629183&ap=1" rel="nofollow" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_167520066629183&ap=1</a></span></span></div>Fouad Hamdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16250340871594600594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1922141959062330613.post-68675639929847263112011-02-27T13:17:00.001+02:002011-02-27T13:52:06.952+02:00From Dictatorship to Democracy - A practical guide for non-violent activists<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-collapse: separate; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 18px;">To friends and activists in the Arab region I cannot but advise to read and disseminate </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 18px;">Gene Sharp's book, </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 18px;">"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 18px;">From Dictatorship to Democracy (</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 18px;">من الدكتـــاتورية إلى الديمـــقراطية)".</span></span></span></div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-collapse: separate; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">An updated Arabic translation is online. The book teaches how to topple dictatorships with non-violent means.</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-collapse: separate; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Download the book for free:</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-collapse: separate; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 18px;">Arabic: </span><a href="http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD_Arabic-2.pdf">http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD_Arabic-2.pdf</a></span></span></div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-collapse: separate; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 18px;">English, French and other languages: </span><a href="http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations98ce.html">http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations98ce.html</a></span></span></div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-collapse: separate; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 18px;">All from the Albert Einstein Institute </span><a href="http://www.aeinstein.org/">http://www.aeinstein.org/</a></span></span></div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-collapse: separate; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Happy Reading and good luck in campaigning for Arab democracies!</span></span></div></div>Fouad Hamdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16250340871594600594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1922141959062330613.post-41438482170797981222011-02-26T15:16:00.002+02:002011-04-30T14:35:15.611+03:00Year of the Arabs<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Arab dawn of freedom and democracy, Berlin Wall of the Arabs cracking here and collapsing there (21 years later, but down it goes!), no more Arab fear from the oppressors, Arab Facebook revolution, Arab Youth Intifada, Yasmin revolution, Arab democracy Now! These and so many other slogans are dazzling. </span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Can you keep up with the pace of events from Morocco to Iraq and from Yemen to Syria? I sometimes forget a country or dictator when discussing events in the region, or when checking the numerous action groups on Facebook. <i>Ya3ni shu hayda? Nazmuha, ya shabeb!</i> (What is this? Organize it!)</span><br />
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</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The catalyst for distress among all Arab rulers is no doubt Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire on December 17, 2010, in protest of the harassment and humiliation that was inflicted on him by authorities. Anger and rage and violence from that day on spilled over from one Arab state to the other. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yemeni dictator Ali Abdallah Saleh called it an "influenza", Libya's Moammar Gaddafi blames his uprising on al-Qaeda and youth popping "hallucinating pills". Tunisian dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak saw on their streets only criminals and agents of dark powers. The first fled to Saudi Arabia, the other retired in Sinai. Both are in deserts. More dictators to follow their humiliating fates: <i>As-sha3eb yurid az-za3im bis-sa7ra</i> (the people want the leader in the desert)!</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In Syria, dictator Bashar Assad sees on the streets only criminal gangs financed by Lebanese and Saudi politicians. </span><br />
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</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Meanwhile, Arabs demonstrate and fight AGAINST corruption, dictatorship, human rights abuses and FOR social justice and freedom. History unfolding in Tunisia (Premier Mohammed Ghannouchi, a former ally of Ben Ali, resign! <i>Done after weeks of protests</i>), Iraq (serious warning shot to a corrupt and incompetent government), Yemen (time out, dictator!), Bahrain (equality and constitutional monarchy, dear king, or bust!), Egypt (dear army, watch it, you need to protect and not steal the revolution!), Jordan (helloo, king! are you listening?), Libya (final bloody hours for the 'king of African kings').</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Demos and intifadas took place in March 2011 in Saudi Arabia (beware al-Saud dynasty, reform soon or else), are growing in Syria since March (Dictator Assad, take a plane to Tehran), in Palestine in March (unite, hold elections!) and in Lebanon since February (pull down the sectarian system!). Mercury rising in Bahrain, Oman, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Morocco and Algeria</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Dictators still ruling (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and others) or on the verge of collapse (Yemen, Libya) tried many tactics to quell protests. They ignored for a while, then threatened, arrested and tortured, they tear-gassed, used paid thugs or mercenaries to beat and kill. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What they all without exception hurried to do is distribute money to their peoples in the form of higher salaries for state employees, food subsidies and/or scholarships. Top of the pops was King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia with billions of dollars - hoping that massive money quells massive demands for democratic change.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tells you about the mentality prevailing on the top: <i>Shu si3rak, ya habibi? </i>(What is your price, darling?). <i>7aram</i> (Shame), they all are not grasping how humiliating this is and what boomerang effect they are unleashing.</span><br />
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</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's about dignity, stupid (Arab dictator)! </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Thank you, Mohamed Bouazizi! You made Arabs re-discover their pride. You are alive in the heart of every Arab on the streets, blogging, twitting or on Facebook. Dictators cannot patronize, terrorize, oppress or humiliate anymore. And we Arabs do not fear dictators anymore. <i>Khalas. Kifayah</i> (over, enough).</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">2011 is the year of the Arabs and Arab democracy!</span><br />
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<a href="https://fbcdn-photos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/179878_10150096574321430_541221429_6793605_495115_a.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://fbcdn-photos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/179878_10150096574321430_541221429_6793605_495115_a.jpg" /> </span></a><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">One after the other will fall. Inevitable.</span></div></div></div></div>Fouad Hamdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16250340871594600594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1922141959062330613.post-73775364840810860592010-12-22T13:00:00.000+02:002010-12-22T13:00:06.950+02:00Common sense vs. irrational behavior<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">This is my first blog, inspired by Amal Ghandour who wrote a sharp analysis about the current political situation in Lebanon: </span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-US"> Thinking Fits: WikiLeaks, PEW and Hezbollah</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://thinkingfits.blogspot.com/2010/12/wikileaks-pew-and-hezbollah.html" target="_blank">http://thinkingfits.blogspot.<wbr></wbr>com/2010/12/wikileaks-pew-and-<wbr></wbr>hezbollah.html</a></span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">My comment:</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Dear Amal,</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I loved your analysis about the cornered Hezbollah. But your last sentence makes me suspect you wish the Hezb and its masses of supporters in Lebanon are driven by common sense, that they are able to act rationally under duress. <br />
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I fear the chances are very high that they go berserk at some point. Ergo: violent and suicidal. </span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Not only because they are Shia and subconsciously feel they need to follow the path of Hussein. But mainly for the banal reason that violent movements tend to sink slowly and surely in a state of self delusion. </span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">They even start to believe at some point their own propaganda ("Israel killed Harari", "false witnesses and Zionist agents everywhere"). </span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Then they miscalculate, receive a suicidal order (probably from the Faqih in Teheran) and dramatically hit the wall. </span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The sad part is that it would be bloody and very ugly - and not at all as legendary and heroic as Hussein's final hours. </span> </div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Anyhow, I very much hope your analysis is the correct one.</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Fouad </span></div>Fouad Hamdanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16250340871594600594noreply@blogger.com0