sufi
lala
excellent piece ollie, deftly perceptive and beautifully written, too short tho!
& i'd like to hear some more of your thoughts on how neatly the girl from acton links hizbollah to jpmorgan....
the revolution will be televised
- Thread starter routes
- Start date
& i'd like to hear some more of your thoughts on how neatly the girl from acton links hizbollah to jpmorgan....
sufi
lala
& i want to know more about al-jazeera's role in the new arab revolt - the early optimistic misrepresentation of libya as a done deal, the lack of coverage of bahrain, morocco, & the monarchies... and the network's effect on the momentum of the uprisings, as per the title of this thread...
what do you reckon/recommend?
what do you reckon/recommend?
craner
Beast of Burden
Thanks, Ed!
There was an article about al-Jazeera in the Telegraph magazine a couple of weeks ago, with Ghida Fakhry looking painfully pretty on the cover -- she and her colleagues sounding very hubristic, which is fair enough. I watch the English language version of al-Jazeera all the time, and there's no doubt it fanned the flames in Tunisia and Egypt. Qatar is the canniest of the lot -- there's nobody willing to reveal the dirty secrets or rock the boat!
There was an article about al-Jazeera in the Telegraph magazine a couple of weeks ago, with Ghida Fakhry looking painfully pretty on the cover -- she and her colleagues sounding very hubristic, which is fair enough. I watch the English language version of al-Jazeera all the time, and there's no doubt it fanned the flames in Tunisia and Egypt. Qatar is the canniest of the lot -- there's nobody willing to reveal the dirty secrets or rock the boat!
Yes, Al-Jazeera fanning the flames of revolt is the right phrase, but they certainly didn't start the fire. From the latest NLR:
The reach of Al-Jazeera, the arrival of Facebook or Twitter have facilitated but could not have founded a new spirit of insurgency. The single spark that started the prairie fire suggests the answer. Everything began with the death in despair of a pauperized vegetable vendor, in a small provincial town in the hinterland of Tunisia. Beneath the commotion now shaking the Arab world have been volcanic social pressures: polarization of incomes, rising food prices, lack of dwellings, massive unemployment of educated—and uneducated—youth, amid a demographic pyramid without parallel in the world. In few other regions is the underlying crisis of society so acute, nor the lack of any credible model of development, capable of integrating new generations, so plain.
Full article here:
http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2883
Thanks!
The reach of Al-Jazeera, the arrival of Facebook or Twitter have facilitated but could not have founded a new spirit of insurgency. The single spark that started the prairie fire suggests the answer. Everything began with the death in despair of a pauperized vegetable vendor, in a small provincial town in the hinterland of Tunisia. Beneath the commotion now shaking the Arab world have been volcanic social pressures: polarization of incomes, rising food prices, lack of dwellings, massive unemployment of educated—and uneducated—youth, amid a demographic pyramid without parallel in the world. In few other regions is the underlying crisis of society so acute, nor the lack of any credible model of development, capable of integrating new generations, so plain.
Full article here:
http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2883
Thanks!
sufi
lala
Free downloadable revolutionary stencil booklet
http://ganzeer.com/PDFbooks/stencil_booklet1.pdf
by ganzeer via http://www.arabawy.org/
http://ganzeer.com/PDFbooks/stencil_booklet1.pdf
by ganzeer via http://www.arabawy.org/
Sectionfive
bandwagon house
Sectionfive
bandwagon house
Crowds watching the Mubarak trial
Sectionfive
bandwagon house
craner
Beast of Burden
I spent an evening in the company of Moussa Ibrahim in 2004 and he was an intelligent, refined, open-minded man, interested and versed in the pluralistic, tolerant traditions of Islam and its ties with Judaism and Christianity. He had a grotty wife, though -- an angry, snotty, pale German convert to Islam who insisted on aggravating my gentle friend Sean Shapiro about Israel when he was simply trying to enjoy his discussion about Sufism with Moussa. (It was an exchange semi-fictionalised here.)
Having not heard about or seen Moussa since then, we were pretty amazed to when he turned up on TV in March, fronting the regime. We're sort of hoping he gets out of this mess in one piece, despite everything. We assume he is being paid an awful lot of money to do this job.
Having not heard about or seen Moussa since then, we were pretty amazed to when he turned up on TV in March, fronting the regime. We're sort of hoping he gets out of this mess in one piece, despite everything. We assume he is being paid an awful lot of money to do this job.
Sectionfive
bandwagon house
Sectionfive
bandwagon house
Next of kin phone numbers. Tahrir
hucks
Your Message Here
Port Said (Guardian report here -anyone know anything about it? Clearly it isn't a football stadium tragedy of the likes of Hllsborouigh, Hysel, or Abidjan.
There's a Qatari sports journalist (@gharbawi) on Twitter calling it a massacre carried out by trained killers.
Edit: He's Qatari based, cos he's the Al-Jazeera football correspondent, to a pretty reliable source
There's a Qatari sports journalist (@gharbawi) on Twitter calling it a massacre carried out by trained killers.
Edit: He's Qatari based, cos he's the Al-Jazeera football correspondent, to a pretty reliable source
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Sectionfive
bandwagon house
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
May I pimp this here? Great article in The India Times by a mate of mine on how Assad's policies have led to Syria being stranded in "this purgatory between revolution and civil war".
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...to-purgatory/articleshow/12204825.cms?curpg=1
Whether or not the regime had the ability to make structural changes needed to satisfy an emboldened citizenry remains an open question; what is beyond doubt is that the rotting corruption of the Syrian regime, coupled with mind-boggling ruthlessness in dealings with any opposition, was a recipe for disaster. Since Bashar's ascension in 2000, the Syrians had foiled the Chinese hat-trick of liberalising an economy whilst making no efforts at establishing democracy or tackling corruption of the sort which, with prices skyrocketing out of control - consumer inflation in Syria rose to about 15% in 2008 - made life impossible for average Syrians.
The roots of this economic misery have a lot to do with the Syrian regime's delusions of a completely self-contained economy: tourists would spend nights in the Umayyad capital eating their dinners off state-manufactured plates, being served by government-employed waiters. This might have worked if the Syrians had maintained their previously considerable manufacturing sector; instead, the regime chose to value a rapprochement with its northern neighbour.
A free-trade agreement, concluded in 2009 with Turkey, paved the way for the entry of much cheaper Turkish goods into the Syrian market, sealing the fate of an estimated 25% of Syrians who are now unemployed.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...to-purgatory/articleshow/12204825.cms?curpg=1
Whether or not the regime had the ability to make structural changes needed to satisfy an emboldened citizenry remains an open question; what is beyond doubt is that the rotting corruption of the Syrian regime, coupled with mind-boggling ruthlessness in dealings with any opposition, was a recipe for disaster. Since Bashar's ascension in 2000, the Syrians had foiled the Chinese hat-trick of liberalising an economy whilst making no efforts at establishing democracy or tackling corruption of the sort which, with prices skyrocketing out of control - consumer inflation in Syria rose to about 15% in 2008 - made life impossible for average Syrians.
The roots of this economic misery have a lot to do with the Syrian regime's delusions of a completely self-contained economy: tourists would spend nights in the Umayyad capital eating their dinners off state-manufactured plates, being served by government-employed waiters. This might have worked if the Syrians had maintained their previously considerable manufacturing sector; instead, the regime chose to value a rapprochement with its northern neighbour.
A free-trade agreement, concluded in 2009 with Turkey, paved the way for the entry of much cheaper Turkish goods into the Syrian market, sealing the fate of an estimated 25% of Syrians who are now unemployed.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
piece in the latest New Yorker on the Nour Party + the place of Salafists - who have stepped into a big chunk of the power vacuum to challenge the Brotherhood for Islamist, and thus Egyptian, primacy - in the general fuckery of post-Mubarak Egyptian politics. unfortunately most of it is behind a pay wall but it's basically on the rise of the Salafists (in true populist fashion, based far more on their social service programs than their ideology) and how their not so secret desire to impose strict Sharia fits uncomfortably into a nominal democracy. which is always the charge against Islamists in a democracy but there are lot of quotes from Salafists themselves that provide insight into how they reconcile such an apparent contradiction (well, actually, it comes off like a bait + switch, but that's nothing new either) and the thoroughly creepy way fundamentalists of all types genuinely believe they are improving peoples lives by imposing ancient religious laws on them anyway it's worth a read if you can get your hands on a paper copy.
2 other points of note, both of which should also surprise no one: secular liberals + leftists have, after being such a driving in the revolution, been thoroughly marginalized; the security apparatus of the Mubarak state are still well entrenched and will likely continue being so despite all other factions agreeing (possibly the only thing they agree on) that they are bad. oh yes and as mentioned Egyptian transitory politics are a total clusterfuck. neither a new military state or an Islamist takeover are entirely unlikely. I feel like my repetition of this idea is getting into carthago delenda est territory at this point, but again: to win a revolution is easier than, and don't matter if you can't, win the post-revolution. and the secular left/lib types Westerners like were always going to lose this one. your base can't be a million foreign fucking Twitter followers. social media revolutions are bullshit, especially once all those self-satisfied Westerners move on to the next Kony 2012 and leave you stuck in the shit by yourself. oh yes + Obama + his crew (+ anyone else who's mouth-serviced Arab Spring) left/are leaving those cats seriously in the lurch too. a new beginning indeed.
2 other points of note, both of which should also surprise no one: secular liberals + leftists have, after being such a driving in the revolution, been thoroughly marginalized; the security apparatus of the Mubarak state are still well entrenched and will likely continue being so despite all other factions agreeing (possibly the only thing they agree on) that they are bad. oh yes and as mentioned Egyptian transitory politics are a total clusterfuck. neither a new military state or an Islamist takeover are entirely unlikely. I feel like my repetition of this idea is getting into carthago delenda est territory at this point, but again: to win a revolution is easier than, and don't matter if you can't, win the post-revolution. and the secular left/lib types Westerners like were always going to lose this one. your base can't be a million foreign fucking Twitter followers. social media revolutions are bullshit, especially once all those self-satisfied Westerners move on to the next Kony 2012 and leave you stuck in the shit by yourself. oh yes + Obama + his crew (+ anyone else who's mouth-serviced Arab Spring) left/are leaving those cats seriously in the lurch too. a new beginning indeed.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
oh + hilarious quote from the article
^way to dance nimbly out a potential minefield, dude
^way to dance nimbly out a potential minefield, dude