Remembering Fred Shuttlesworth

In honor of the late Fred Shuttlesworth, civil rights leader, I'm reposting this article I wrote about him in 2005.


CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER SPEAKS ON MLK DAY

BY ANDREW BOSSONE

MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

If it were not for the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, the civil rights movement might not have erupted in Birmingham.

From 1958 to 1963, Shuttlesworth implored Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to bring their work to Birmingham. Shuttlesworth believed if African-Americans could overcome segregation in Birmingham, they could end segregation throughout the South.

Now, more than 40 years after Shuttlesworth persuaded King to join him, Shuttlesworth will honor the late civil rights leader this Sunday at 11:15 a.m. at St. Sabina Catholic Church, 1210 W. 78th Place.

Shuttlesworth, a Baptist minister in Cincinnati, will preside over the service with the Rev. Michael Pfleger, a day before Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

"Martin was for the fight for justice and brotherhood in this country," said Shuttlesworth. "I thought very much of him because he was honest and sincere."

Shuttlesworth and King fought for the common goal to end segregation, but their approaches were sometimes different. Shuttlesworth was known more for his aggressive and antagonistic methods, whereas King for his cautious and deliberate style.

"We were different people," said Shuttlesworth. "I was more of an actionist than him. That's not to say he tolerated it more than I do. He used to say, 'If someone stands on your foot long enough, eventually you want them to get off.' He was just more patient than I was."

To this day, King is the face of civil rights movement. But it was Shuttlesworth who did much of the work in Birmingham.

"Dr. King could speak in more elevated educated ways," said Andrew Manis, Shuttlesworth’s biographer. "But Shuttlesworth was more of a grass roots voice for working class blacks in America, particularly in Alabama."

In the biography, "A Fire you Can’t Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham’s Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth," Manis describes Shuttlesworth as the most unsung hero of the civil rights movement.

"No one surpassed him in courageous efforts to break down Jim Crow in Birmingham," said Manis. "No one put himself in a position to be killed more often than Fred Shuttlesworth."

In September 1957, Shuttlesworth said he tried to enroll his two daughters at the all-white Phillips High School. A week before registering them, a young black man was accosted by klansmen. They castrated him, and sent with him the message that this would happen to those who tried to integrate schools. Shuttlesworth proceeded to register his daughters in spite of this.

On the day he brought his daughters to the school, which was only two blocks away from the Birmingham courthouse, he was met by a group of about 15 men who beat him with baseball bats and bicycle chains.

"Nobody except me and Jesus thought I would live through that," Shuttlesworth said.

Soon after he recovered, he said a policeman escorted him to an event. Although the officer was a full head taller than the preacher, Shuttlesworth recalls him trembling the whole way. When they reached their destination, the police officer removed his hat and said, "Reverend, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I didn't know it would go this far. I know these people. I didn't know they would go this far."

Shuttlesworth did not say a word.

"Reverend, I'll tell you what I would do," continued the officer. "I'd get outta town as quick as I could."

"Officer, you are not me," Shuttlesworth responded. "Tell your clan, if God saved me through all this, I am here for the duration. And the war is just beginning."

Shuttlesworth endured more confrontations with Eugene"Bull" Connor, Birmingham's Public Safety Commissioner, and segregationists than anyone else in Birmingham. On Christmas Day in 1956 his house exploded from dynamite. His church burned to the ground twice.

When Shuttlesworth went to court after being arrested during a protest, the judge told him there was not enough room in the crowded jails for him. Shuttlesworth knew that was a sign they were winning.

"Your honor," Shuttlesworth said. "We have made progress."

Although the King and Shuttlesworth were not close friends, they respected each other as colleagues, and at times referred to the other with great affection. King once called Shuttlesworth the most courageous civil rights fighter in the South.

They stood side by side in that fight in Alabama, and for this reason Shuttlesworth will be coming to St. Sabina on the South Side this weekend.

"He's a living testimony of the movement," said Father Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina. "We miss great opportunities with people from the movement who are still alive."

In past celebrations of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, St. Sabina has brought in other notable members of the civil rights movement, including Ralph Abernathy, Rosa Parks, Betty Shabazz and Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr.

Pfleger said he hopes Shuttlesworth will implore the congregation to continue the fight started in Birmingham almost 50 years ago, and remains today.

Pfleger will not be disappointed.

"My hope is that the younger people will come to not just celebrate," said Shuttlesworth. "But will make it a consecration to the celebrations of King's life."

Official declaration of Occupy Wall Street

Official Statement from Occupy Wall Street - this statement was voted on and approved by the general assembly of protesters at Liberty Square: Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

Nakba Day, May 15, 2011. Maroun al-Ras, the border of Lebanon-Palestine

‪يوم النكبة ‬ مارون الراس، ‪ حدود لبنان-فلسطين from Andrew Bossone on Vimeo.

Jan28 Part IV

We decided to head toward Tahrir Square again to see if the crowd could break through to it. It looked like the police were again holding ground at Qasr El Nil bridge. We were tired and getting hungry. I suggested we look for a restaurant, buy as many sandwiches as we could afford to hand out to protesters, and call it a day. Then we ran into a friend, Bakry. He asked if we had seen his girlfriend and a group of friends. He looked worn out. Tear gas had earlier rendered him unconscious. Some people took him in, and nursed him back to health with some sandwiches and tea. I asked him to tell me what happened on camera. He said he didn’t want to do anything for the media at the moment. Tired and dejected, he sat on the middle of the road. A stranger asked if he was ok. He was angry and fed up with his country. I asked him if in his dream he ever imagined it would be like this. He said, no he didn’t.

We told him our plan about the sandwiches and he asked if we were hungry. We said yes, we were. He pulled out cheese sandwiches from his pocket. I devoured one. He seemed to have energy all of a sudden, as if helping someone else gave him strength. We walked to the bridge. It was open and now covered with water from cannons of the riot police trucks. We walked to the end and the police pushed us back again with tear gas. Bakry was keen not to lose us. He grabbed my hand and Simon’s hand and we went back toward the police again. This went on several times, until we came very close to Tahrir Square. I sat down on the ground. I pointed the camera at my watch to note the time. A tear gas canister landed a few feet next to me without me even realizing it. I jumped up and ran back. People around me were coughing. I couldn’t see.

We stood on the bridge, feet wet from stepping in puddles. Simon and I were ready to give up. Bakry insisted we move on and try one last time. It was dark. We walked into Tahrir Square, Liberation Square, to the sound of rhythmic banging on the metal poles holding up the handrails of the sidewalk. The police had been pushed to the other side. It looked like a war zone. A large fire burned and I saw the most amount of smoke of the whole day. People were walking into it.

I climbed up on a stone block with a metal grate above the underground metro line. I turned to a guy beside me, and told him that they had taken Tahrir Square. It was over. He said it wasn’t over, many other cities had to follow. But what they would do next, he said, he didn’t know.

It was over for me. I had reached Tahrir, or liberation, so to speak.

I walked back toward the car after about six hours in the protests, wondering if my friend Nermine was waiting. I managed to find a taxi by the grace of God. I landed back where I started, in front of Mustafa Mahmoud Mosque. I walked toward the street where Nermine’s car was. A friend of a friend stopped me to chat. I asked him how he felt. He was happy and amazed. Originally he didn’t want to join the “Facebook revolution,” but changed his mind after seeing a video on Youtube of an Egyptian who stood in front of a riot police truck that was firing from its water cannon.

I arrived at Nermine’s car just as she left. She had found a ride with a friend after waiting for an hour for me. It was dark and the streets were becoming unsafe without any police. I ran after the car, shouting her name, but it was too late. She left the key to her car with a boweb, or doorman, named Awwad and instructed him to give me my bag. I sat on the stoop next to them. I had nowhere to sleep. The only friend I knew with a place was on the other side of the city. After seeing the chaos in Tahrir Square, I knew I couldn’t make it to his apartment safely, even if I could walk for at least an hour to get there. I somehow had the feeling earlier that Nermine wouldn’t be there, and that I would end up where the bowebs were sleeping. Indeed, with typical Egyptian hospitality, they offered me a place to stay.

We descended into the garage and they made me a cup of tea. Within five minutes they called me their brother. We talked about what was happening. They insisted the protest was largely economic. They were tired of no work, lousy pay and a bunch of corrupt politicians and businessmen who robbed the country. Awwad told me of a friend who studied formal Arabic and could only find a job as a boweb. We chatted for some time, but they understood I was tired, so they set me up in a small room off to the side. I was prepared to sleep in the beds where we were drinking tea, but they insisted I sleep in the room because it was protected from the draft coming in from the garage entrance. The room was only a bed with metal walls around it–no floor. It smelled of insecticide, which was unpleasant, but relieving because I wouldn’t have to deal with cockroaches. They put my bag with me to protect from thieves. I was exhausted, but the day’s events swirled in my head. I slept on and off, at points hearing banging sounds from the street from what could have been gunshots. I wasn’t sure. I learned then that liberation does not come in a day.

Jan28 Part III

Large plumes of tear gas billowed in the distance as I walked toward the square in front of the gates to the opera. Exactly one year earlier I had passed through those gates wearing a suit and tie, thrilled to watch the Cairo symphony perform. This day I wore cargo pants and a green military jacket, believing for the first time in five years that Egyptians were taking their destiny into their own hands.

As I looked around nothing made sense. Riot police had blocked the Qasr El Neel Bridge, or the Palace of the Nile Bridge, with a line between the iconic statues of lions atop the pillars of bridge’s entrance. On one side of the square protestors were pleading with police officers to stop what was going on. The officers ignored them and spoke on their walkie-talkies. At one point a young man pulled away another man screaming at an officer because he knew such efforts were futile.

The crowd was swelling in the square. I looked up to the base of the statue of Ibrahim Pasha, one of Egypt’s great military leaders of the 19^th century. My friend, the Paris Match correspondent Alfred de Montesquiou, was taking notes on the scene. We talked about the enormous restraint Egyptians were showing, that if this day had occurred in other countries, the crowds would have acted with mob-mentality violence. He said he was amazed that after a fight broke out between a single police officer and a group of protesters, the group had carried the injured officer over to his fellow policeman for medical care.

We jumped down off the base of the camera when we saw several men rushing through the crowd carrying a body toward an ambulance. When we reached the ambulance a man was inside yelling. Many people gathered at its door and the as the driver was trying to reverse the vehicle. When it left, a man was standing with his white shirt steeped in blood. He began crying. Someone he knew, a woman, had died. Men embraced him in consolation.

Another group carried a man into the back of car and drove off. A tall, muscular young man in a white tank-top had a long slice down his arm. A medical practitioner examined his arm and told him he would be ok, and then attended to a man on the ground. A few men shouted to make room. When the space opened up I went in front of his feet to film what was happening. He rolled over on his side. His shirt was above his waist and I saw several round holes of blood on his back. He had been shot with a shotgun from behind–shot while running away.

The bridge had opened up, so I moved onto it. When I got about three-quarters of the way across it, men started Asr prayers around 3pm. The bridge went almost completely quiet. When they finished, they stood up and started moving. The police immediately fired tear gas into the crowd. Everyone headed back. In the scariest moment of the day we were pushing forward with our heads down. I was afraid if I fell, I would be trampled.

I got off the bridge and saw someone who had been hit with too much teargas. It was Simon Hanna, a producer for Reuters. I told him not to rub his eyes because it would make it worse. He had witnessed the previous days protests and the effects of the tear gas were making him lethargic. I looked across the street and saw another journalist, Ashraf Khalil. I called out his name and met him. We hugged, and as usual he had a big smile on his face. He told me his wife was freaking out that he was there, but that he needed to report. Ashraf is tough journalist who covered the Iraq War. He was not about to miss this. We spoke briefly; he had to keep moving. I then ran into Alfred, who wanted to head back to his hotel to file a story. The battery of his camera had died and he lost the photographer. He wanted to continue reporting, but he decided the story was too important to hold. I walked back to Midan Doqqi and we parted ways.

There I found the most incredible sights. A group of people sat in a circle on the street while singing national anthems and a Shiekh Imam (a revolutionary singer of the previous generation) song together. The square was packed. In its middle people were standing in rows as if they stood on risers in a choir, and they too were singing, and chanting "Aeesh, horreya, karama insaanaya," or "Bread (life), freedom, human dignity." I walked over to a wall on top of the bridge above the street that runs perpendicular to Tahrir Street. A man below me was making the peace sign with his fingers. Beyond him, and beyond my eyesight, thousands of people were walking toward us. As they passed to my left people on the sidewalk clapped and cheered them. I found Simon and stuck a microphone in his face and asked him if the protesters could make a run at Tahrir Square. “There’s a seemingly endless stream of protestors,” he said as he pointed in the distance. “There are tens of thousands, up to a hundred thousand–if not more–continuing to march up Kobri Qasr El Nil toward Midan Tahrir where they were stopped before, but with these numbers, I think there will be no stopping them at the moment.” I asked if he was calling it a revolution. He answered, “I think there’s no stopping it now. If not today, if not tomorrow, it’s this week. His days are numbered. Previously they were calling this to be Mubarak’s last day.”

“There’s no end in sight for these people. And they’re gonna get what they want. They have to; it’s too much now. It’s gone too far.”

As he said this, the crowd was chanting, “The people want the downfall of the system.”

Jan28 Part II

The police on the bridge next to Doqqi Square had fallen back. Protesters had climbed on top of their abandoned police trucks waving their hands for everyone to continue. One man with long grey and black hair on top of a truck held an Egyptian flag above and behind his head. He must have for the first time understood what it meant to be free, stomping on top of a riot police truck, clasping the flag of his motherland victoriously.

I marched ahead on Tahrir Street, or Liberation Street, beside the Opera House complex. The buildings of the Opera, like the name of the street I was walking on, had a symbolic meaning. I was once told they stand at the site of the old Shepherd Hotel, which was burned down by Egyptian revolutionaries against their colonial British occupiers.

I felt desperately alone after losing my companion for the day, Nermine. I felt ashamed that I had left her in a cloud of tear gas. I hoped to find her ahead, imagining that she pressed on without me. To get over my loneliness I started interviewing people. I saw a man urging another protester not to attack the police who were standing on the sidewalk watching. I asked him what he said to the other man. He said that they are brothers. He told the man the protesters are respectable people. They do not hit anyone or break anything.”

As I walked away another man got in front of the camera and showed me an empty tear gas canister and said the police were hitting them with that. I asked him where the tear gas came from. I told him it says Jamestown, Pennsylvania; it’s from America. I thought to myself that it this is my home state and I realized later that my middle name is James. Another man put a canister in front of the camera and read what it said, “Made in U.S.A.”

I continued walking and found two men holding a sign that said, “Esqot Mubarak” or “Topple Mubarak.” I asked why they came to the protest. They said 30 years with Mubarak was enough. They wanted neither him nor his son Gamal in power anymore, nor his National Party. I asked that them if Egypt changed, if rest of the world could change. They said, “Masr om el donya,” a famous expression that means, “Egypt is the mother of the world.” They said that all of the protests of the world would come from Egypt. Up ahead, a famous actor, Khaled El Sawy, was walking with a crowd beside him. They shouted, “We want gas! We want gas!” to mean that they were ready to face the tear gas. When they gave El Sawy a minute to speak, he said that Hosny Mubarak and the National Party must leave.

Jan28

I can't believe it was two months ago that I was in the airport in Cairo on my way back to Beirut. I wrote about my experience upon my return. Here's what happened:

Friday mornings in Cairo–before salaat el gomaa, or Friday prayers–have the few hours of relative quiet in a city of at least 20 million people. On Friday, January 28 the quiet of the streets felt like the calm before a storm.

A former colleague, Nermine, picked me up at the airport and brought me to her home before we left for the protests. Her brothers met us in the street. They wore scarves to protect themselves from tear gas. I also brought towels after reading online about techniques to stay safe in a protest.

Nermine served me sandwiches. I wasn’t hungry, but it is considered rude in Egypt for a guest to turn away food. I also had a long day ahead and could use the extra strength. Al Jazeera was on the tv. The host was taking phone calls from Egyptians who complained of poor wages and corruption and said it was time–after 30 years–for President Hosni Mubarak to step down. Suddenly the video cut. The Egyptian government had blocked the channel. We switched to Al Jazeera Mobasher, which was broadcasting instructions on how to change the satellite coordinates to watch the channel.

Nermine’s mother was nervous. Her hand formed a tight fist and even her toes curled up onto her sandals. Yet somehow she still had a kind look on her face when she looked my way.

We drove to Mohandesin, on the Giza side of the Nile River in Greater Cairo. When we got out I told Nermine that if anything happened we should meet back at her car. The government cut off mobile phones service, so we had no way to get in touch if we separated.

We walked to Mustafa Mahmoud Mosque, one of the most crowded mosques for Friday prayers. Before we reached the square in front of it, I asked Nermine to stop. I told her we were about to face something big and we should say a few prayers before going ahead.

I had spent the previous four evenings deep in prayer and meditation before going to bed in Beirut. Tears ran down my face much of the time. The tonglen meditation practice I conducted involves taking upon the suffering of others and sending them love. I felt overwhelmed, literally believing I was receiving the suffering of Egyptians. I can recall only a handful of times in my life when I have begged God for help with all my heart. These nights were the first time that those pleas were for someone else.

The scene was calm in front of Mustafa Mahmoud, although people shuffled about with a certain amount of nervous energy as lines of riot police surrounded the area at a distance. The regular crowd of the faithful filled the mosque and prayed in several rows into the street. Behind them in the garden, many people sat and watched, a few prayed. In between, some journalists were taking pictures and conducting interviews. I ran into a few colleagues: Alfred de Montesquiou, the correspondent for Paris Match magazine, and Simon Hanna, a producer for Reuters who had the day off.

At the end of prayers, they turned their heads to the right and to the left to wish peace to their brothers. After a pause of only a few moments they stood up and started chanting, “Eshaab, ureed, isqot in-nizam,” or “The people want the downfall of the system.” Spoken in formal fosha Arabic, the Egyptians had clearly taken the slogan from Tunisians, who used the same words to as they toppled their regime.

The crowd swelled as they reached the main thoroughfare, Gamaet id-dowal el Arabia Street, or the League of Arab Nations Street. I ran into a friend, Nagwa, who works as a fixer for journalists. We hugged and she flashed a big smile as she said, “We’re really doing it!” I told her I would see her on the side of victory.

The police barricaded the street to divert us onto Batal Ahmed Aziz Street. When the crowd had all moved onto the street, the policed formed a line and marched behind us. Nermine went back to talk to one of the officers, but he said he wouldn’t speak with anyone. We ran ahead to join the crowd. I was eager not to stay in the back of the protest. I read the fringes of a protest are dangerous places where police may attack. It didn’t matter, though, because more and more people joined the march from side streets. Standing from a high vantage point, the stream of heads went as far as my eye could see in both directions. As we passed buildings people waved from their balconies, mostly older couples, women and children. One of the chants from the protest included “Enzel! Enzel!” or “Come down! Come down!” In other words, join the march.

I gave Nermine the microphone of my video camera. I was filming everything. She gave a passionate speech about changing the government and respecting the basic rights of people. She began joining in the chants for the first time. She asked me why I wasn’t chanting. Part of me felt a journalistic duty not to join in the slogans, although I knew whose side I was on. Another part of me felt that I had no right to chant. It’s not my revolution. Although I have taken Egypt is an adopted homeland–former colleagues even gave me a plate that says Ibn el-Neel, or Son of the Nile–I’m not Egyptian. I wanted to feel that I was a witness, so that I could never take credit for what happened. The real credit belongs to the Egyptians themselves. I was inspired by their courage, peacefulness and unity. I was particularly impressed with women, who began new chants when the peoples’ voice lowered, and urged them forward when they became sluggish.

As we walked along Nermine spoke with one of the riot police, asking him why he didn’t put down his arms and join us. A higher-ranking man told her to stop talking to them. The protesters were chanting to them, asking why they were on the sidelines when they receive such meager salaries. When we reached the end of Batal Ahmed Aziz Street, we turned left onto Tahrir, or Liberation, Street. The very end of this street is Midan Tahrir, or Liberation Square, the main site of protests in Cairo during the previous days. Well before that point the police had set a barricade at Midan El-Doqqi, at the bridge next to the base of the Sheraton Hotel.

People started shouting “Gas!” to indicate tear gas was in the air. We could see plumes of it in the distance, but it has a tendency to disburse, so you might feel the effects of it without seeing the smoke around you. People lifted surgical masks and towels to their faces. A strange buzzing/humming sound was ringing in the air. I never figured out where it came from, but I will never forget that eerie tone.

A police truck in the square was on fire. I heard that it started driving over people until they disabled and burned it. More people were moving from the front lines coughing and squeezing their eyelids tightly. We neared the front of the crowd, about a hundred meters in front of the police barricade, when the tear gas started burning my eyes and nose. Every time the gas overwhelmed people, a crowd came to their rescue by splashing cola and water in their faces, sticking onions up to their noses and spraying vinegar on their scarves.

The police were continuously firing canisters of gas in the air. I warned Nermine that the best way to deal with tear gas is to run away. She asked me why and I told it’s simply too powerful. She was incredibly brave, eventually naïvely so. As people turned back from the gas, she shouted –as many others did throughout the day–words like “Off!” “Ma-ergash!” and “Yalla!” or “Stop!” “Don’t go back!” and “Let’s go!”

It was clear to eventually reach Tahrir Square the demonstrators would have to break through the police line at the bridge. The scene there was chaotic and we were close to the front. Nermine grabbed me and told me to come forward with her. We only moved a few feet at the base of the Sheraton before the gas overwhelmed us. I saw Nermine ahead of me, but I couldn’t continue. I turned back and went around the corner where a few dozen people were coughing and gathering at an ambulance. I got near the ambulance when someone asked me if I could breathe and needed the oxygen mask. I said I was ok and went back looking for Nermine. I couldn’t find her. Eventually I believed she had moved ahead because by this time crowds were starting to rush across the bridge. I would not find her for the rest of her day, but her bravery and words rang in the back of my head at times when I needed to press forward.

More to come...

Social Media's Influence on Revolution

Social Media's Influence on Revolution

Alexandria, Egypt--Social media's influence on revolution is a hot issue in the press and also among young people.

When Egypt's interim Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq recently stepped down from his post, the announcement came out not on television or in a press conference, but on Facebook.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces -- now ruling Egypt -- made the announcement on its official Facebook page, which has more than 700,000 followers.

At the recent Arab Youth Conference at the Library of Alexandria, technology's role in Egypt's revolution certainly was not lost on the crowd....

Arab Youth Flex Freedom Muscles at Egyptian Gathering

Here's a blog post I wrote for NatGeo News Watch about the post-revolution Arab Youth Summit at the Library of Alexandria.

"Library of Alexandria Hosts Youth Summit for Post-Revolution Discussion"

Here's an interview I did with Ismail Serageldin, director of the Library of Alexandria, during an Arab Youth conference at the Library in the wake of the Egyptian revolution.

The ends of dynastic rule

The leaders and systems of government in North Africa, the Middle East and the Persian Gulf are changing through popular revolutions. Here's a prediction of the order they will fall:

Presidents, Part One

1. Ben Ali

2. Mubarak

Presidents, Part Two

3. Gaddafi 3. Saleh 3. Bouteflika 3. Bin Said

Kings, Part One

4. Hammad 4. Mohamed VI 4. Abdullah II

Presidents, Part Three

5. Bashir 5. Guelleh 5. Assad

Kings, Part Two

6. Abdullah

Neo-colonialism, Part One

7. Taif-Lebanon

8. Iraq

9. Palestine

Blocking the net in Egypt

The Egyptian government shut down the Internet, mobile communications and satellite television, but it didn't stop the revolution. By that point, on January 28, the revolution had gained too much momentum. Mass protests for the 28th had already been announced to start after صلاة الجمعة. On that day, thousands immediately took to the streets following noon prayers, gathering more and more protestors until their numbers reached scores, if not hundreds, of thousands in Cairo.

Too Late?
But what if the government had shut down communications earlier? Would it have prevented the revolution from reaching critical mass? Would Egyptians have figured out a way around it?
If the Egyptian government had cut off communications earlier, on the first day of major protests– January 25– for example, maybe it could have delayed the revolution, but it would not have stopped it. Seeing the thousands of protesters on the streets was enough to garner more supporters. One must not forget that Egypt witnessed some 3,000 labor protests since 2004, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. January 25 onward has been an extension of those movements.

Unlike their contemporaries in Tunisia or Syria, for example, Egyptians did not face much Internet censorship. Social networking and video websites have been open to the public. Although bloggers have been arrested and abused, their blogs still remained accessible. Despite this, Egyptians would have found a way around censorship. They have certainly faced more difficult barriers from an oppressive government and shameful economic conditions. And when the Internet was shut off, a new way to post on Twitter appeared, such as the Tweet to Speak program of calling in tweets by leaving a message on an international number.
Discussing 'what ifs' is moot–not only because the regime acted differently–but because the government could not have shut off communications. This could have crippled the economy.
The first two days of the revolution, the Egyptian stock market lost billions. It's not sure why the stock market remained open, but if it wasn't to give time for investors with deep ties to the government to pull out their money, then at least it was from the idea that shutting down the stock market–like shutting down communications and banking–is inconceivable in the modern age. Although Egypt's government and sections of the private sector work in a large, antiquated bureaucracy that still rely on fax machines and face to face interaction, cutting off communications could have a crippling effect. It's not coincidental then, that communications cut on a Friday, which is not a business day.
Noam Cohen of the NY Times recently interviewed me about the impact of shutting down technology, particularly the Internet. He wondered if Egyptians' lack of a computer hacking culture was the reason why they could not get around the cuts in the Internet. Firstly, I don't know if Egypt has a hacking community or not, simply because I'm not connected to that world. I don't think it's safe to assume that either it does or does not exist, but I would tend to think that just like everywhere in the world, there probably is some hacker community.

Secondly, hacking or software would have had little impact on the Internet outage. The issue was a matter of engineering rather than programming. The government likely cut off the by severing the physical connections of the Internet itself. As Cohen's colleagues point out in "Egypt Leaders Found ‘Off’ Switch for Internet," the state-run monopoly on landline telephony, Telecom Egypt (TE), oversees Internet routing through its infrastructure based on Ramses Street. TE distributes the Internet routing to its branches around the country, each known as a "centrale." Therefore, the state needed to only cut off the Internet by flipping the switches on the routers at each centrale. No amount of hacking could have stopped that. And as Cohen's colleagues also point out, the Egyptian state managed to cut off the country to the outside because it controls the underground and undersea cables that run through the country's territory–and connect the world to the Internet.

These points make it all the more relevant to end the state-run monopoly of Telecom Egypt. Not that censorship disappears through private ownership. The Egyptian mobile operators capitulated to government demands to shut off mobiles on January 28. In the USA, AT&T cooperated with the NSA in unwarranted spying on millions of Americans. As such I can't argue that privatization would be the solution to this, but that an end to a monopoly on communications would decrease the chances of controlling citizens' right to free expression.

مظاهرة النقابات المستقلة امام اتحاد العمال

From a friend:

تنظم النقابات المستقلة للضرائب العقارية والفنيين الصحيين والمعاشات والعديد من القوى العمالية تظاهرة ضخمة أمام إتحاد العمال بشارع الجلاء الساعة 11 صباح الأربعاء لإعلان تأييد الحركة العمالية المناضلة لثورة الشعب المصري والمطالبة بمحاكمة رموز الفساد في إتحاد العمال الرسمي الموالي للنظام.

فلنشارك جميعا ونساند هذه التظاهرة العمالية ولنلتف جميعنا حول عمال مصر.

الرجاء إرسال هذه الدعوة الي كل من تعرفه.

Maher's misleading corner

Since Bill Maher unexpectedly cornered Mona Eltahawy on his show I'd like to give my answer to his use of a Pew survey to explain the sentiments of Egyptians:

1) Surveys are a deceptive tool used by journalists and pundits to try to make sweeping generalizations about large groups of people based on misleading questions of a small sample of a population. They are junk science with little basis in truth. Since the members of the audience and viewers of Maher's show are supposed to be educated, he should consider not insulting their intelligence or his guests by claiming such surveys have any relevance to reality.

2) I wouldn't know if Egyptians support stoning adulterers because I've never had a conversation about the topic with one. The few thousands of Egyptians I've met from different classes and religions were interested in other matters in their lives like eating, working, taking care of their families and making jokes. The few people wielding rocks in the last weeks amid hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of peaceful protesters were doing so for protection from the police and state security while rising up for basic human rights and to create a democracy from the people. The Egyptians I know are too dedicated to leading dignified lives and dignified deaths to consider such medieval European ideas.

3) I wonder why a presenter would ask such questions. If it is to give the audience the impression that Egypt is a backwater ruled by barbarians, then he is reducing thousands of years of culture and civilization, discrediting the urbane nature of many Egyptians while ignoring that his own country was founded only two hundred years ago on the genocide of tens of millions of Native Americans, built on the backs of African slaves shipped to the New World as commodities, formed on the basis of economic disparities and still employs capital punishment with support from a large number of citizens. If his purpose is to insinuate that Arabs or Muslims are incompatible with human rights or democracy then maybe he should take a history lesson from a legitimate scholar who aim is not to denounce billions of people and their culture and beliefs. Or even better, maybe he should get up off his lazy white ass, spend a bit of his fat paycheck to meet these people face to face like human beings rather than condescendingly talk about them from the comfort of his elitist television studio.

RIP Sally

My friend Sally Magdy Zahran died in the revolution. Rest in peace, Sally.