(via thepoliticalnotebook)
A young photographer, Rémi Ochlik, a Sunday Times journalist, Marie Colvin, and a Syrian citizen journalist, Rami al-Sayed, have been killed in shelling in the city of Homs, Syria, today. A witness told Reuters that a shell hit the house in which Ochlik and Colvin were staying in the city’s Bab Amro district. Al-Sayed was killed in the same shelling.
Ochlik was a young photojournalist, but had covered an incredible amount of the revolutions of the past year, photographing Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and finally Syria. Colvin, an American, was a respected veteran journalist, who has been in the business for decades. She was noted for her reporting for Sri Lanka, where she was injured and since had worn an eyepatch. Just yesterday she reported in a video for the BBC, in which she discussed the horrors of what she was seeing. Al-Sayed was a noted citizen journalist who ran a live stream of the Homs bombardment relied upon by mainstream media outlets. Read activist Shakeeb al-Jabri’s tribute to him.
Photo of Marie Colvin via Getty Images. Photo of Rémi Ochlik via IP3 Press. Photo of Al-Sayed and his daughter Maryam from @NMSyria.
Attacks on Shiites Kill Scores in Afghanistan
“KABUL, Afghanistan — At least 58 people were killed and scores wounded after bombers struck Shiite religious observances on Tuesday in three cities, detonating explosives amid crowds of worshipers in the first such sectarian attacks in a decade of war in Afghanistan.”
The Role of Women in the Arab Spring… and Their Shaky Future in a New Middle East. A New York Times article this morning highlights one of the particularly worrying elements of any revolution and one of the things that needs to be closely watched as the Arab spring unfolds and new governments solidify. Women often lose out after revolutions. No matter how brilliant the greater cause of the revolution and no matter the critical roles women play in bringing about change, a shift in government is usually an opportunity for any progress to be lost and for the women who played important parts to be overlooked.
In Libya’s new rebel government, which continues to increase in size and organisatio, women only hold two of the more than forty positions of power. The Times quoted a discontented Enas Eldrasy, who left the transitional council because she was relegated to busy work, as saying “When the revolution started, women had a big role. “Now, it’s dissolved, it’s disappeared. I don’t know why.” Other women who have involved themselves from early stages, and there are many, also express disappointment. There have been efforts to focus on women, as in a recent conference in Benghazi, but those tend to pursue traditional rather than strategic gender interests, focusing on the womens’ roles as mothers, caretakers and supporters of the rebels, not as leaders, power-holders, or the rebels themselves.
In the newly forming governments of Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, and in the powerful movements, protests and calls for reform that are taking place from one end of the Middle East to the other, the role of women is a tenuous one. This is not because of where these revolutions are taking place or because of the natures of these revolutions and revolutionaries themselves. It’s a disturbing trend seen in revolutions and transitional governance in general. I’d strongly suggest reading some of the more academic discussions of women in revolutionary, transitional and democratising political processes. One good place to start might be with Georgina Waylen’s 1994 article for World Politics.
It doesn’t have to turn out this way, of course. The above photo, of women in Benghazi is from a page on a rebel website honouring the women who have fought and protested. It clearly is not the case that these women have not earned the respect of many revolutionaries. I hope that these revolutions have it in them to break the trends and the barriers, as they have so far proved successful in shattering other opinions and firmly held notions.
What's Happening in Libya Explained
(Source: neighborhoodr-tripoli, via soupsoup)
We Americans spout bromides about freedom. Democracy campaigners in the Middle East have been enduring unimaginable tortures as the price of their struggle — at the hands of dictators who are our allies — yet they persist. In Bahrain, former political prisoners have said that their wives were taken into the jail in front of them. And then the men were told that unless they confessed, their wives would promptly be raped. That, or more conventional tortures, usually elicited temporary confessions, yet for years or decades those activists persisted in struggling for democracy. And we ask if they’re mature enough to handle it?
The common thread of this year’s democracy movement from Tunisia to Iran, from Yemen to Libya, has been undaunted courage. I’ll never forget a double-amputee I met in Tahrir Square in Cairo when Hosni Mubarak’s thugs were attacking with rocks, clubs and Molotov cocktails. This young man rolled his wheelchair to the front lines. And we doubt his understanding of what democracy means?
In Bahrain, I watched a column of men and women march unarmed toward security forces when, a day earlier, the troops had opened fire with live ammunition. Anyone dare say that such people are too immature to handle democracy?
Unfit for Democracy? | Nicholas Kristof, NY Times
This is hands down my favorite op-ed this weekend.
(via pantslessprogressive)
(via soupsoup)
Egyptian army announces border with Libya is open, sets up camp, hospitals at border to tend to the wounded http://j.mp/e5eD3f #Libya#Feb17
Bless you Egypt.
Soup: Is anyone paying attention?
Hundreds have died in the name of democracy, in the name of freedom, today alone.
Hundreds will die tomorrow. The next day. The day after that.
In Yemen, Libya, Bahrain, Iran… in every Middle Eastern country that is uprising. That will uprise.
China. South Korea. In every…
