Ed Webb
Profile
Summary
Experience
- Jul 2007 - PresentAssistant Professor / Dickinson CollegeAssistant Professor of Political Science & International Studies, Coordinator of Middle East Studies;
Advisory Board Member, NITLE - 2009 - 2010Advisory Board Member / NITLE
- Sept 2006 - Jun 2007Visiting Instructor / Haverford CollegeTaught International Relations and International Politics of the Middle East
- Sept 1992 - Jun 2000Diplomatic Service officer / FCOPosted in ECD(E) (later EUD(E)), Cairo, and Eastern Department.
Education
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2008 - 2009University of ManitobaCCK08, CCK09 in Connectivism & Connective Knowledge
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2000 - 2007University of PennsylvaniaPhD in Political ScienceActivities: GET-UP/AFT, Graduate Parents at Penn
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1988 - 1992University of CambridgeBA (hons) in Oriental StudiesActivities: Middle East Society, Turkish Society, CULES
- University of PennsylvaniaPh.D in Political Science
- University of PennsylvaniaM.A in Political Science
Additional Information
Updates
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8 hours ago from web | Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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My year of hard-pounding in #Egypt’s political muck http://t.co/t4cikAL0 > @ElBaradei is optimistic, despite everything
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@Der_Maverick if any of these revolutions are to succeed, they must be social, educational, psychological, economic as well as political13 hours ago from web | Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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@Der_Maverick maybe revolutions, like wars, force everyone to learn some geography etc!13 hours ago from web | Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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@heyprofbow does this mean you're going to get more oppressive?17 hours ago from web | Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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@Ikhwanweb any chance someone from your staff would meet me to discuss media in Egypt? I submitted a request via the website also17 hours ago from web | Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer: Port Said deaths send businessmen, politicians and clerics scrambling http://t.co/FStM8t2U
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Radical Muslim Americans Pose Little Threat, Study Says: http://t.co/d5DZScDC
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@_AEK_ note that many of those 8000 are not diplomats - contractors, military, USAID, security, support staff etc. It's stil vast, of course19 hours ago from web | Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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@eldahshan maybe you could refer to it as "The Former Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya" - even longer!34 hours ago from web | Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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Shway Shway, Chipsy Gayy! http://t.co/Qr2inpdh via @wordpressdotcom
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@betajames consider me bothered #badUIisbad36 hours ago from web | Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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I just wished for: 'Egypt, the Arabs, and the World: Reflections at the Turn of the Twenty-first... via @amazon http://t.co/5loUK4wM
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@Der_Maverick among the things that have changed, nobody is taking any of it lying down.36 hours ago from web | Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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@CeciELT hi! I'm a Brit who teaches Middle East politics at a college in Pennsylvania but currently tweeting from Cairo #globalization39 hours ago from web | Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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RT @dandrezner Yes, this RT @monkeycageblog How Libya Did & Did Not Affect the Security Council Vote on Syria http://t.co/E1UMW0Qf > indeed41 hours ago from web | Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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@Ikhwanweb would you be willing to do an interview with me for an academic project? @ me or DM me2 days ago from web | Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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@BenjaminHarwood glad you enjoy it!2 days ago from web | Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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Egyptians cancel meetings with U.S. lawmakers after aid warnings | Reuters http://t.co/efguAEhj
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@giuliaforsythe not so easy to make sense of it from here, either, to be honest (which researchers should be, no?)2 days ago from web | Reply, Retweet, Favorite
Posts
There are so many reasons to be gloomy about the future of the planet and our species, and of the US (where I currently live) in particular. But every so often something comes along to put a big grin on my face and remind me not to give up hope.
"The USS Oak Hill returned to the naval base at Virginia Beach, Va., after almost three months at sea training in Central America. As homecoming approached, the crew and the ship's family readiness group sold $1 raffle tickets to pick the sailor to be first off the ship to deliver the coveted first kiss on the dock. Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta bought 50 tickets and won, the newspaper reports. Navy officials said it was the first time on record that a same-sex couple was chosen to kiss first upon a ship's return, the Associated Press reports.
Here's how The Virginian-Pilot reported the precedent-shattering event of the post "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" era:
Her girlfriend of two years, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell, was waiting when she crossed the brow. They kissed. The crowd cheered. And with that, another vestige of the policy that forced gays to serve in secrecy vanished."
My main hope lies in our ability to learn. We can get better.
I posted the following comment in response to Sarah Carr's excellent and touching blog post about the London Riots. It turned out to be more or less the blogpost I've been incubating for the past 24 hours, so I reproduce it here.
If one's DJ moniker is Dr Funk, one might reasonably consider oneself immune to requests for Rod Stewart, no?
The tree next to our house - I hesitate to call it 'our' tree since
it's been there for decades, seeing many families come and go - the
tree we live next to has exploded into spring fireworks over the past
few days. Amazing.
An Iraqi friend sent me the following. It is very economical. The links tell the story, the quotation provides the commentary/punchline.
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http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110325/NEWS02/103250335/1972
http://newamericamedia.org/2011/03/eight-years-of-occupation-in-iraq-eight-years-of-misery.php
“If you stick a knife nine inches into my back and pull it out three inches, that is not progress. Even if you pull it all the way out, that is not progress. Progress is healing the wound, and America hasn’t even begun to pull out the knife.”
El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X)
Egyptian-based Italian economist analyses the result's of Egypt's referendum on constitutional amendments. Good material for thinking both about Egypt's particular political process at the moment and also direct democracy more generally.
One doesn't have to subscribe to alarming (and probably alarmist) tales of diminishing attention spans to recognize that this sentence, given the medium in which it appears, runs the risk of being just too damn long. In blogging, brevity is usually desirable. It pays to get to the point.
This does not mean that blogs should be dry, inexpressive, unembellished. Twitter and haiku have both shown that brevity can be a spur to creativity, a productive constraint. It is possible to express a great deal in few words. Songwriting, too, imposes limits. Lyrics in most popular genres are comparable in length to short poems rather than short stories. And too often those lyrics say very little. The banal recycled phrases littering the radio dial (an old media metaphor that's just about hanging in there) tell us nothing much. But some songwriters tell us stories worth hearing. Two of the best are Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, particularly when working together as Steely Dan. You don't have to enjoy the music to appreciate the economy with which they can draw you into a world, a situation, an emotional drama in the space of the first line or two. They draw on science fiction, Hollywood (in particular film noir), and a sleazy sensibility. Their characters are seedy, their narrative style terse and ironic. Here are a few song openings that illustrate this skill in getting right into the middle of the action and create a need to know what happens next. Many are from Katy Lied (1975), The Royal Scam (1976) and Gaucho (1980): almost any song from those albums would fit here - great collections of stories. Read and enjoy. If you have particular favorite examples of the great storytelling opening, by great songwriters in any genre, I would welcome examples in the comments.Agents of the law
Luckless pedestrian
I know you're out there
With rage in your eyes and your megaphones
(Don't Take Me Alive - probably my favorite example of the economic scene-setting opening)
When Black Friday comes
I'll stand down by the door
And catch the grey men when they
Dive from the fourteenth floor
(Black Friday - striking imagery, immediately evocative of stock market crashes and financial meltdown but using concrete acts to reflect those abstractions)
Rose darling come to me
Snake Mary's gone to bed
(Rose Darling - so simple, but in 10 words we have: three characters - one with a fascinating name; the implication of illicit sex - made explicit in the next two lines; and an invitation to one of the characters that draws in the listener as well - "come to me")
Katy tried
I was halfway crucified
I was on the other side
Of no tomorrow
You walked in
And my life began again
Just when I'd spent the last piaster
I could borrow
(Dr Wu - again, three characters: here Katy, the person the song is addressed to, and the narrator; note how 'piaster' economically places us in exotic territory for a western audience: the whole song is a kind of bitter-sweet orientalist fantasy)
I remember the thirty-five sweet goodbyes
When you put me on the Wolverine
Up to Annandale
(My Old School - this could end well, this could end badly - this being Becker & Fagen, the latter is a safe bet)
Charlie Freak had but one thing to call his own
Three weight ounce pure golden ring no precious stone
(Charlie Freak - you know this will end badly for poor Charlie)
So in love the preacher's face turned red
Soon everybody knew the thing was dead
He shouts, she bites, they wrangle through the night
(Haitian Divorce - summary of a hot-burning, fast-burning-out romance in three lines; the fourth line puts us into the interminable present of a failed marriage)
Where did the bastard run
Is he still around?
Now you gotta tell me everything you did baby
(Everything You Did - real menace here: will the narrator take revenge?)
We're gonna break out the hats and hooters
When Josie comes home
We're gonna rev up the motor scooters
When Josie comes home to stay
We're gonna park in the street
(Josie - wow, who is this girl? What else are they going to do? Bet it will be fun)
Way back when
In Sixty-seven
I was the dandy
Of Gamma Chi
Sweet things from Boston
So young and willing
Moved down to Scarsdale
Where the hell am I?
(Hey Nineteen - one of many great later Dan songs about aging gracelessly; nostalgia established from the first three words)
6:05
Outside the stadium
Special delivery
For Hoops McCann
(Glamor Profession - drug dealing in Hollywood; straight into the action)
The wind was driving in my face
The smell of prickly pear
[My rival - show me my rival]
The milk truck eased into my space
Somebody screamed somewhere
(My Rival - pure film noir)
Johnny's playroom
Is a bunker filled with sand
(Third World Man - what's Johnny playing at?)
Bad news breaking in 18A
Missy's kitty turn inside out she say
(Two Against Nature - now that's just not right)
It must have been my lucky Thursday
Your dad went on that spree
Before the crew could put out the fires
You hopped a bus for NYC
(Janie Runaway - watch out, Janie! Here's a whole news report about a drunken rampage, a fire, a runaway teenager plus the perspective of the narrator/predator introduced in four lines.)
But might there not be an illusion in even the loftiest interpretation of the word objectivity? For in this sense the word implies a state of mind in the historian in which he contemplates an event so purely, with all its motives and all its consequences, that it has no effect on his subjectivity. It connotes that aesthetic phenomenon, that detachment from personal interest by which a painter, in a stormy landscape threatened by lightning and thunder or on an angry sea, perceives his own inner image; it connotes complete immersion in things. But it is superstitious to suppose that the image which things reveal to a man so attuned reproduces their empirical reality. Or are we to suppose that in these moments things actively sketch, paint, or photograph themselves, so to speak, upon a purely passive mind? This would be a mythology, and a bad mythology at that.
I love this pithy analysis of why it is so hard to explain complex events to general audiences or readerships.
Start at the bottom, as with all twitter feeds: Arclight works in the nuclear industry and has been providing some great technical analysis of the Fukushima disaster.
(Or visualization, if you must)
A great teaching aid for explaining the limits of inference, from the Sources And Methods blog. Thanks to Erik Hanson, who shared this via Google Reader & Buzz - https://profiles.google.com/erikalanhanson#erikalanhanson/aboutAmplify’d from sourcesandmethods.blogspot.com
From Cory Doctorow's Craphound via Erik Hanson's Google Reader items shared on Google Buzz (https://profiles.google.com/erikalanhanson/about). Whole lot of Google going on.
O tempora o moresAmplify’d from imgur.com
To all the amazing women everywhere: thank you.
Image: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images
Tom is often preposterous. Today he may have achieved preposterousness (preposterosity?) of such epic proportions that it disrupts the fabric of space-time. Don't read it with coffee or any other drink close to hand if you value your reading device - spraying often damages electronics.
If you must read it, read this also - http://inanities.org/2011/03/this-is-just-the-start-and-it-never-fucking-ends/ And then if you want a more informed take on how the wave of revolutions came about, read @3arabawy here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/02/egypt-revolution-mubarak-wall-of-fear
'Simplistic' does not mean the same as 'simple.'
'Militaristic' does not mean the same as 'military.'
- Phase 1
- I hear you.
- Now shut up and go home so my thugs can arrest you all one by one.
- Who's your daddy?
- Jeep. Umbrella.
- Still here, eh? What's wrong with you? Did you see the umbrella?
- I know, it must be:
- Al Jazeera
- Yankee imperialism
- Al Qa'ida
- Psychedelic drugs
- Al Jazeera
- British imperialism
- Zionist conspiracies
- Al Jazeera
- Honey, did you remember to refuel the jet after your last trip to Monte Carlo?
- The rest is silence
I don't read the NPR ombudsman's comments the same way Ali does in his first tweet below (read from the bottom up).
But I do think both the awful attack on Ms Logan and the despicable commentary it has provoked from those who wish to blame Islam, Arabs, women, or all three for it should push us to examine carefully the issue of violence against women in ALL societies. To examine it and then take serious action to end it.
"Here--we--are," said Rabbit very slowly and carefully, "all--of--us, and then, suddenly, we wake up one morning, and what do we find? We find a Strange Animal among us. An animal of whom we had never even heard before! An animal who carries her revolutions about with her in her pocket! Suppose I carried my revolutions about with me in my pocket, how many pockets should I want?""Sixteen," said Piglet."Seventeen, isn't it?" said Rabbit. "And one more for a handkerchief--that's eighteen. Eighteen pockets in one suit! I haven't time."
With apologies to A.A. Milne.
It's getting hard to keep up with all these revolts and revolutions, but we must try. Thank goodness for hashtags.
This post dedicated to Mona El Tahawy and Andy Carvin
Posts
Tahrir, 2 Feb 2012, a set on Flickr.
Photos from the 30 year commemoration of the Hama massacre and Ahly protests.
There are so many reasons to be gloomy about the future of the planet and our species, and of the US (where I currently live) in particular. But every so often something comes along to put a big grin on my face and remind me not to give up hope.
"The USS Oak Hill returned to the naval base at Virginia Beach, Va., after almost three months at sea training in Central America. As homecoming approached, the crew and the ship's family readiness group sold $1 raffle tickets to pick the sailor to be first off the ship to deliver the coveted first kiss on the dock. Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta bought 50 tickets and won, the newspaper reports. Navy officials said it was the first time on record that a same-sex couple was chosen to kiss first upon a ship's return, the Associated Press reports.
Here's how The Virginian-Pilot reported the precedent-shattering event of the post "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" era:
Her girlfriend of two years, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell, was waiting when she crossed the brow. They kissed. The crowd cheered. And with that, another vestige of the policy that forced gays to serve in secrecy vanished."
My main hope lies in our ability to learn. We can get better.
An ironic note I forgot to include in my original post. The major sponsor of simulcasts from the Met is Bloomberg.
I'm not on opera-goer or even much of an opera-lover. But I'd go a long way to hear anything Philip Glass does. So I was very fortunate yesterday to be able to enjoy a live HD simulcast from the Metropolitan Opera of NYC via a cinema in Harrisburg of his great opera about the South African years of Mohandas Gandhi, Satyagraha.
It's a minimalist opera in Sanskrit. It's probably not what people are automatically reaching for when they look for protest songs for Occupy Wall St. But I think it has its place in the music of 2011, a year of global popular protest movements. As my friend and colleague Amy Wlodarski has pointed out, #Occupy is a diverse movement with a diverse soundtrack. But Gandhi's strategy of non-violent protest, putting bodies in public space to defend beliefs and values, has marked all this year's remarkable uprisings. Truth force, the act of witnessing, the end and the means entwined - it's in the streets, and it was there in beautiful, spectacular power in the Met's production.
Opera is spectacle above all, and must be witnessed, so I'm not going to try to describe what I saw and heard. Rather I'd like to draw readers' attention to some of the meaning of the waves of Sanskrit that washed over audiences in NYC and around the world:
Between theory and practice, some talk as they were two — making a separation and a difference between them. Yet wise men know that both can be gained in applying oneself whole heartedly to one. For the high estate attained by men of contemplative theory, that same state achieve the men of action. So act as the ancient of days old, performing works as spiritual exercise.
With senses freed, the wise man should act,
longing to bring about the welfare and coherence
of the world. Therefore, perform unceasingly
the works that must be done, for the
man detached who labors on to the highest
must win through. This is how the saints attained
success. Moreover, you should embrace
action for the upholding, the welfare of your
own kind. Whatever the noblest does, that too
will others do: the standard that he sets all the
world will follow.
In what for others is night, therein is the manAnd Gandhi's final prayer, alone on the stage, with Dr Martin Luther King foreshadowed behind him, ends thus:
of self-restraint wide awake, separate from passion
and hate, self-possessed and drawing near
to calm serenity. This is the athlete of the spirit,
whose ground remains unmoved, whole soul
stands firmly on it. This is the fixed, still state
which sustains even at the time of death the athletes
of the spirit, who even then set forth, some
to return, some never to return. Outstanding is
he whose soul views in the selfsame way comrades
and enemies, loving all alike.
I come into being age after age and take aThe whole libretto is worth reading, and is not long.
visible shape and move a man with men for the
protection of good, thrusting the evil back and
setting virtue on her seat again.
I don't know that we're going to see flash mobs springing up around the world to sing excerpts from the Bhagavad Gita in solidarity with the poor and oppressed. But wouldn't it be a better, saner world, if that were to happen?
Photo courtesy of @bruces flickr stream
As Mazen points out, the system favours strong parties, which in the long run might be a good thing. In the short run it will disadvantage most of the revolutionaries and help the Muslim Brotherhood most of all. Note also his prediction of increasing polarization between Islamist and secular camps. The constitutional debates will be fierce. This is likely to push the Brotherhood and Salafists to cooperate, even though they have real and important differences. On the other hand, all predictions must come with heavy caveats - divisions within camps could be as important as those between.
I lived at the top of Crystal Palace park for a year and a half when I moved back to London from Cairo at the end of the 1990s. Couldn’t afford to live closer in, so commuted from there to work in the centre. Commuting was one of the reasons I quit my (safe, government) job 18 months later and moved to the US. Croydon was soul-destroying then, but not as grungy and run-down as you describe it here.
On my last few visits to Austerity Britain(TM) I have been struck by both increasingly visible poverty and increasing electronic surveillance, particularly in urban areas. Public spaces are tense, fearful, surveilled. You can’t pull out a camera at a station. But their cameras are watching you from several angles. It’s not healthy at all. Orwellian, alienated.
Some on Twitter etc have been evoking the start of the Thatcher era. It strikes me that what Thatcher started, her successors have been working to complete. She proclaimed that ‘there is no such thing as society’ and then did all she could to make that true. Community, solidarity, egalitarianism – all dying or dead, for the most part. I suspect if you could ask the rioters what they’re doing, they would give some variation on a nihilist theme. Why destroy? Because they can. We have trained our young people to be acquisitive, atomized, unempathetic.
The smugness of Egyptian commentators may be unattractive or misplaced. The Egyptian state and its security agents are far, far worse than anything Britain has ever come up with. But I think Thatcher would have been laughed at for proclaiming that there is no such thing as society in Egypt. #jan25 was in part Egyptian society asserting itself against a predatory state. What we see in the UK at the moment is large-scale predation within society itself. I just hope that the clean-up crews, Turkish ‘popular committees,’ and other assertions of positive social solidarity prevail and signal the start of a different kind of rebalancing in the UK – the rebirth of real society (not Cameron’s goofy Big Society malarkey).
Oxfam's useful map of food stress points (http://www.oxfam.org/en/grow/food-price-volatility-map) shows very few such points in the Middle East & North Africa. This is quite striking, given the role of food costs in protests across the region over the past several decades, including this year. Is the absence due to Oxfam's methodology, due to the comparatively greater desperation of situations elsewhere, or some other factor?
There's nothing like the desert.
This gif appeared on a post on the always interesting Dangerous Minds blog, without attribution (so far - a couple of us asked in the comments section). The post is about a fake eHarmony video by someone pretending to really, really, really love cats. It's amusing enough, I guess, as fake videos go. But the gif is just perfect.
I know there is no antidote, really - nationalism is too useful for state elites everywhere to keep the rest of us in line. But still, there ought to be one. This might help a bit.
Comments welcome.
One of my favorite things in the world is a 'thank you' note from a student. The one I got today came with a very fancy box of Guylian chocolate, which is absolutely very welcome. But the note is what I get to keep, and the satisfaction it represents of having been useful to someone.
Such notes almost always come from those students whom it is no burden to teach and mentor, of course. The pleasure is in doing the job. The note is the pleasant, lingering aftertaste. http://bit.ly/jLRZuH
For academics, this is a better time of year to make resolutions than the end of December, since that falls in the middle of the working year. So now that my last grades are submitted, and I can turn to the projects left uncompleted during the school year and the new ones for the summer and beyond, I'll be devoting some attention to re-assessing priorities, habits etc.
Resolution 1: get back to using Amplify more. It's all about the conversation, after all. http://bit.ly/mGVuwJ
A Yemeni friend emailed me the following. I relay it with no further comment:
This happened while Yemenis and the whole world was waiting for them to head toward the presidential palace to reach a historical political solution for the revolution that have started over a 100 days ago in Yemen. Millions of people ( Men & WOMEN) have been out in the streets demanding the president to step-down after a 33 years of an authoritarian regime ( Ex Friday May,15th http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_bLpdznHoQ) lead Yemen to be one of the poorest countries in the world with more than 40 % of the population living on less than 2.00 dollars a day. That is while the wealth of the president and his regimes exceeds billions of dollars; stolen from the resources of Yemen. Yemenis have been in the streets totally peacefully and have a proven an attitude that we are not exaggerating if we think we deserve the Nobel prize for peace; 68 million weapons are in the hands of the people and NOT a single bullet was shot by the people; running very peaceful revolution. While more than 184 protesters were killed and thousands of injuries in different attacks by the security forces and regime snippers. In one Friday alone, more than 52 were killed and over 500 were injured when a security snippers( wearing civic clothes) opened fire at protesters after they finished their Friday prayer in Change Square in Sanaa.
What happened Yesterday was the following:
As we strongly condemn such a behavior that put the life of international diplomats in danger, we ask you for your support in gaining our freedom and right to have a democratic peaceful Yemen. We have been suffering and witnessing the death of our family members, friends and colleagues in our PEACEFUL path toward freedom and there is NO WAY we are stepping one move backward.
Saleh Yesterday made a speech that can literally be considered a declaration of war among the Yemeni people and we are expecting things to get more violent in the next few days, but we are committed to remain a peaceful revolution. We will continue our struggle toward a democratic country inspired by the global values and the peaceful struggles toward freedoms. But we need a lot of international support. The international aid that is still flowing to the country is umbilical cord to Saleh's regime and using military assistance to oppress civil protesters. Yemen's situation is complicated and Saleh is leading the country toward a chaos that if the international community doesn't do an immediate strong action to stop it will be less controllable in the future. And we are worry the situation will reach a point as Martin Luther King also described once " "The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence."
More importantly, and again as Martin Luther King said once " A threat to justice anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere", we believe it is the same in Yemen. We call on all those who believe in life, one with dignity, to support Yemeni people in their struggle. Injustice in Yemen, serves NO ONE in the world but those who have extremist ideas.
We totally understand the western concern of Al-qaeda spread in Yemen if Saleh leaves, but we can assure you 100 % that we are NOT knocking Saleh down to replace him with Anwar Al-awlaki or a like. The success of this revolution will be one of the best strategy to fight Al-qaeda in Yemen. It will enhance the peaceful processes of engaging in political life and will make the responsibility of any government, the responsibility of all Yemenis. Saleh's wars against Al-qaeda for the last 10 years were never about who will in charge of Yemen. Instead, it was more about who will be in charge of Al-qaeda.Only him and them have this much violence agenda in their mind. And we even have hundreds of evidences that he was NO serious in this war; except to get more money, legitimacy and military aid. People are the real allies, not dictators. Dictators come and go and only people remain.
Again, the purpose of this email is just to apologize to the People of GCC, USA And EU of what happened by Saleh and his regime. This , again, by no way represent us. And the best way to make sure no such irresponsible action happens again, is to support the Yemeni people in their peaceful legitimate demands and desires in having a life; one with dignity.
Prayers for Yemen and Thank You very much for your time.
Yemeni Youth Activists
What to do with an 11 year old on a warm spring evening? a) Teach him to use the lawnmower; b) debate who were the most influential & important figures of the Renaissance; c) both.
Chose c)
(From Amplify: http://bit.ly/e3RS9L)
The tree next to our house - I hesitate to call it 'our' tree since
it's been there for decades, seeing many families come and go - the
tree we live next to has exploded into spring fireworks over the past
few days. Amazing.
Oh, Amplify! Why the change from 'recommend' to 'like'? The former was about the conversation, the latter is about egoization. Don't turn into Facebook. Really. http://bit.ly/dMAXbk
- What is the real impact of the internet on MENA societies? What is the extent of its reach? How can we sort out hype from reality?
- How are governments using the internet? How are they limiting citizens' uses of the internet? What works?
- Most people spend most of their online time engaged in things other than politics - do such activities also matter politically?
- Typology
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- The internet cutoff shows how the details of infrastructure matter. Despite having no large-scale or centralised censorship apparatus, Egypt was still able to shut down its communications in a matter of minutes.
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- “One in three of the world’s Internet users does not have access to an unrestricted Internet,”
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Posts
Tags: Egypt journalists protests
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During a four-hour standoff on Friday, state and local police surrounded a recreational vehicle. Police later shot tear gas into the vehicle, then learned that Robinson was not in it.
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with their vetoes, Moscow and Beijing were saying that they too had interests in the Middle East, which they were determined to protect. The region was no longer an exclusive Western preserve under the hegemony of the United States and its allies.
Russia has decades-old interests in the Middle East, in Syria in particular. As a major customer of Iranian oil, China does not approve of Western sanctions against Tehran. Nor does it take kindly to U.S. attempts to contain its influence in the Asia-Pacific region. There is a hint in the air of a revived Cold War.
The Syrian crisis has, in fact, been a two-stage affair from the very beginning -- internal as well as international.
Parliamentary committee details
Annotations:-
وجاء تشكيل اللجان كالتالى : لجنة الشئون الدستورية والتشريعية : المستشار محمود الخضيرى رئيسا , وصبحى صالح وكيلا , ومحمد العمدة وكيلا , ومحمود السقا أمينا للسر ،
لجنة الصحة : أكرم الشاعر رئيسا ، وحسن البرنس وعلاء الدين البهائى وكيلين ومحمد بسام أمينا للسر، وفاز السيد عسكر بمنصب رئيس اللجنة الدينية وفاز يسرى هانى ومحمد الصغير بمنصب الوكيلين وعلاء الدين عثمان بمنصب أمين السر.
وفاز المهندس صابر عبد الصادق بمنصب رئيس اللجنة المحلية وأحمد عمار وأحمد عجور بمنصب الوكيلين واحمد محروس أمينا للسر.
أما نتائج لجنة الزراعة والرى فأتت بمحمود عبدالله هيبة رئيسا , عبدالمنعم التونسى وكيلا , عبدالرحمن شكرى وكيلا , عبدالناصر السيد أمينا للسر..فيما أتت نتائج لجنة الخطة والموازنة بسعد الحسينى رئيسا وأشرف بدر الدين وكيلا , خالد عبدالمولى وكيلا , مصطفى عبداللطيف أمينا للسر.
وعن نتائج لجنة الشئون الاقتصادية فجاءت كالتالى طارق الدسوقى رئيسا , عباس عبدالعزيز وكيلا , إبراهيم محمد أحمد وكيلا , سامى سلامة أمينا للسر.
وفيما يتعلق بنتائج لجنة التعليم والبحث العلمى فأتت بشعبان أحمد عبدالعليم رئيسا , على عزالدين ثابت وكيلا , أحمد ثابت وكيلا , صابر أجهلان أمينا للسر..فيما جاءت نتائج لجنة الشئون الدينية على النحو التالى السيد عسكر رئيسا ,الدكتور يسرى هانى وكيلا , الدكتور محمد الصغير وكيلا , علاء الدين سعيد أمينا للسر.
وجاءت نتائج لجنة الثقافة والإعلام والسياحة كالتالى محمد عبدالمنعم الصاوى رئيسا , محسن راضى وكيلا , سليمان سالم صالح وكيلا , زين العابدين على أمينا للسر.
وبالنسبة للجنة الشئون الصحية , فقد جاءت نتائجها كالتالى الدكتور أكرم الشاعر رئيسا , حسن البرنس وكيلا , عسران البهائى وكيلا , أمين بسام أمينا للسر .. فيما جاءت نتائج لجنة النقل والمواصلات كالتالى صبرى عامر رئيسا , سعيد يوسف الشورى وكيلا , صلاح عبد المعبود وكيلا , حامد الطحان أمينا للسر.
أما نتائج لجنة الشئون العربية فقد أتت بالدكتور محمد السعيد إدريس رئيسا , الدكتور خالد حنفى وكيلا , الدكتور جمال عبدالمحسن وكيلا , سلامة سالم سلمان أمينا للسر.
وجاءت نتائج لجنة الدفاع والأمن القومى على النحو التالى , عباس مخيمر رئيسا , فريد إسماعيل وكيلا , السيد مصطفى حسين وكيلا , ناصر عباس أمينا للسر..فيما أتت نتائج لجنة الاقتراحات والشكاوى بطلعت مرزوق سعد رئيسا , وناصر الحافى وكيلا وهشام حنفى وكيلا , وحمادة عودة أمينا للسر.
أما نتائج لجنة القوى العاملة فجاءت كالتالى صابر أبوالفتوح رئيسا , كمال أبوعيطة وكيلا , وحامد الأزهرى وكيلا , علاء الدين عبداللطيف أمينا للسر .. فيما جاءت أتت نتائج لجنة الصناعة والطاقة بالسيد نجيدة رئيسا , أحمد زكى القطان وكيلا , مصطفى محمد مصطفى وكيلا , حاتم أبوبكر عزام أمينا للسر.
وعن نتائج لجنة الإسكان فقد جاءت على النحو التالى إبراهيم أبوعوف رئيسا , محمد رجب إسماعيل وكيلا , محمد مجدى قرقر وكيلا , محمد حسن عيسى أمينا للسر .
وبالنسبة لنتائج لجنة الشباب , فقد جاءت على النحو التالى أسامة ياسين رئيسا , بيومى إسماعيل وكيلا , أحمد خليل خير الله وكيلا , عادل حامد أمينا للسر .. فيما أتت نتائج لجنة حقوق الإنسان بمحمد أنور عصمت السادات رئيسا , عادل عبدالمقصود عفيفى وكيلا , هانى نورالدين وكيلا , ومحمود محمد على عامر أمينا للسر.
كما تم تشكيل اللجنة العامة لمجلس الشعب بحيث تضم رئيس مجلس الشعب والوكيلين وممثلي الهيئات البرلمانية للأحزاب وخمسة أعضاء منهم واحد من المستقلين، وقد تم اختيار مصطفى بكرى من المستقلين، ووحيد عبد المجيد من الشخصيات العامة، ومرجريت عازر من الوفد، ومحمد البلتاجى من الحرية والعدالة، ويونس عبد الحميد من حزب النور لعضوية اللجنة.
ووافق نواب المجلس على تشكيل أعضاء لجنة القيم برئاسة النائب أشرف ثابت وكيل المجلس ، وتتكون اللجنة من المستشار محمود الخضيرى رئيس اللجنة التشريعية , ورؤساء اللجان الدينية والاقتراحات والشكاوى وحقوق الإنسان , بالإضافة إلى ممثلى الهيئات البرلمانية للأحزاب بالبرلمان.
كما تضم كلا من الأعضاء الدكتور عصام العريان ويونس مخيون ومصطفى بكري والدكتور زياد بهاء الدين ومارجريت عازر وحنان سعد أبوالحسن وفيصل الشيباني وطارق الدسوقي عبدالجليل ومحمد أبوحامد ومحمود علي عامر.
كما وافق نواب مجلس الشعب اليوم على تشكيل أعضاء اللجنة التنفيذية للمؤتمرات الدولية برئاسة الدكتور سعد الكتاتنى رئيس المجلس وعضوية أشرف ثابت وكيل المجلس , ومحمد عبدالعليم داوود وكيل المجلس , والدكتور عصام العريان رئيس لجنة العلاقات الخارجية.
وتضم اللجنة ثمانية من نواب البرلمان وهم : مصطفى حسين خليفة وحازم فاروق منصور والدكتور مصطفى النجار والدكتور محمد السقا والدكتور أحمد محمود دياب والمهندس حازم الدسوقي وماريان ملاك وباسل علي إبراهيم.
Tags: Egypt parliament
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Tags: censorship Jordan publishing books
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Egyptian state media's limited coverage of the dispute is couched in calls for national sovereignty as well as blatant accusations — some activists call them incitement to violence — that the groups were funneling money to forces behind the unrest since Mubarak's ouster.
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Being a Muslim does not automatically grant him the nationality of all the 56 countries that claim allegiance to Islam.
The moment he wants to travel, even from one Muslim country to another, he or she ceases to be a Muslim and becomes an Egyptian or an Iranian. No Islamic country allows a Muslim to enter its territory on the basis of his or her faith only. And this is where the national identity, which provides the traveler with a passport and a visa, becomes more important than the religious identity.
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Sometimes one identity takes precedence over the other. Thus some Muslims living in the West, where they now confront a gradually increasing hostility after 9/11, often get more comfort from their Islamic identity than from their nationality, acquired or native.
Others, particularly Pakistanis, re-discover their regional affiliation too. The first people Pakistanis living in the West often befriend are Indians.
But a Pakistani living in the Gulf finds it more useful to be a Pakistani before a Muslim. Here his Pakistani identity comes before his religious identity. It also comes before his regional identities as a Punjabi or a Pashtun because it provides him strength in dealing with the Arabs who often look down upon him as a Pakistani, whichever province of Pakistan he is from.
However, back in Pakistan his Pakistani identity becomes less important. Now he is more cautious of being a Pashtun, a Punjabi, a Mohajir, a Baloch or a Sindhi. And when he goes to his ancestral district, he has to further divide his identity on ethnic and tribal lines thus becoming a Seraiki speaking Sindhi or a Sindhi speaking Sindhi, a Pashto speaking Baloch or a Balochi speaking Baloch
Tags: Islam identity identities
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In Freedom and Justice, the brightly-colored newspaper published by the Muslim Brotherhood party (“It’s for everyone,” their slogan promises) an enticing report follows the “Army’s search for the third hand in Suez.” According to the paper, entire divisions of the infantry’s third platoon in Suez have been deployed on a special mission to find the “Third Hand,” (i.e. subversive elements, i.e. foreigners). The infantry has even enlisted several of the governorate’s “young, unemployed men” to assist it in “navigating neighborhoods with which they are already familiar.” While the party paper points out that the young civilians will not be given firearms, they will presumably still be allowed to pose with them.
Tags: Egypt newspapers MB ikhwan military riots football soccer
TV still king for campaign news, with Internet following. Twitter and Facebook near the bottom, Pew says http://t.co/0l6wx6qj
Tags: twitter
من بين أهم ما يمكن للثورة منحه للمصريين هو القدرة علي التفكير النقدي المستقل وليس ترديد ما يسمعونه في التوك شو
Tags: twitter
A lady just had a melt down on the train: 'everyone's an automaton, staring at their phone', she said. I nodded and decided to tweet this.
Tags: twitter
Folklorist Alan Lomax collected 5,000 hrs sound, 400,000 ft. of film, & 5,000 photographs--all about to go online! http://t.co/Is3wh0ed
Tags: twitter
Tags: music
Posts
Bloomsbury USA (2005), Paperback, 160 pages
Bantam Books (1967), Paperback
Heinemann Educ. (1981), Paperback, 118 pages
Picador (2008), Paperback, 128 pages
Posts
Bloomsbury USA (2005), Paperback, 160 pages
Bantam Books (1967), Paperback
Picador (2008), Paperback, 128 pages
Modern History Press (2008), Paperback, 212 pages
Posts
… this is what I’ll be doing.
Quite nicely done. Good to see this initiative.
Carboun is an advocacy initiative promoting sustainability and environmental protection in the Middle East. It aims to increase awareness of the importance of environmentally responsive design and development as a major tool in reducing the environmental impact of development on energy and resource use.
To find out more on Carboun see their website or follow them on twitter.
There’s nothing like the desert.
Watching Later With Jools Holland on Tivo, from 2009. The Specials! Carol King! They sound great. They all got old. Which means we got old, too.
A nice cartoon from Carlos Latuff.
This gif appeared on a post on the always interesting Dangerous Minds blog, without attribution (so far - a couple of us asked in the comments section). The post is about a fake eHarmony video by someone pretending to really, really, really love cats. It’s amusing enough, I guess, as fake videos go. But the gif is just perfect.
I know there is no antidote, really - nationalism is too useful for state elites everywhere to keep the rest of us in line. But still, there ought to be one. This might help a bit.
I will develop this further, I think. See also the discussion on @LisaMLane’s blog about citations here: http://lisahistory.net/wordpress/?p=926
Comments welcome.
Posts
Some energy for Sunday in the office
smoove
Whatever happened to Leon Trotsky?
Might have to check out this album from last year
oh, yeah
It's only talk > amazing stick work as always from Tony
Ahhh, yeah! - thanks @nbr for turning me on to this
we work well together, but often we're apart...
You'll find you get what you need
Elektronische Muzik ist viel spaß!
You know it's gonna be...
digging these guys at the moment - sucker for vocal harmonies
my new purple shoes...
Learner, educator, Middle East politics guy.
