Tag Archives: Arab Spring
I wish I’d never seen Babak Dashab
As a significant number of Muslims and those with sympathy for their case are boycotting YouTube (and Google as well, in most cases) for two days, I find myself reminiscing about why we should always blur faces in videos and photographs from protests inside Iran and any similar totalitarian regimes where the slightest sign of dissent – real or imagined – has serious, often life-threatening implications.
#WesternSahara’s Overlooked Arab Spring
In the wake of the ongoing unrest across the Arab world, voices from the forgotten Western Sahara conflict claim their role in the so-called Arab Spring. DW talked to a Western Sahara independence activist. Sidi Ahmed Talmidi was one of the nine-member group responsible for the negotiations with the Moroccan government during the events in […]
Real World Revolutionaries: Yassine Ayari – Tunisia
Yassine Ayari is another great activist from Tunisia, like Slim Amamou. What rock stars. I love them for their honesty, enthusiasm, energy and determination. “When I see Western democratic countries having seminars and conferences about the “Arab Spring” and “Democratic Uprisings in in the Middle East” it’s like a conference about virginity, sponsored by Durex. […]
New protests, same old oppression in Tunisia
I am not surprised to see protests being reported today from Tunisia, the Western media’s one-time poster-child for “successful” Arab uprisings. More than 3,000 protesters gathered Saturday outside the headquarters of the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT) in Tunis to demand the fall of the government and denounce several attacks on its premises during […]
The Repeating Pattern of Protest
I was invited to a FaceBook event, a day of solidarity with the people of Greece, who are being steamrollered into pay cuts and other austerity measures by a government they didn’t elect. The response from the people has been dramatic and destructive. The blog post complains that they are suffering in silence. I can’t say I […]
