This phase of the revolution will require clarity from those who understand that the future of Egypt depends on the conscious and organized action of the people to avoid open warfare. The agents of militarism are ready to use the excuse of violence and security to hijack the will of the people.
Source: Foreign Policy in Focus
Amid ongoing battles over the shape of political systems in the Arab world, intense sexual violence against women in those countries, and protest movements by women fighting for their rights, advancing the causes of Arab women is of utmost importance. Yet international human rights advocates often confront the struggles of women in Arab countries far too simplistically.
In the work of international agencies, policy makers, activists, and the media, two approaches predominate. The first is “culture-blaming,” in which Arab culture or the Islamic religion is seen as the cause of women’s oppression. The second defines women’s rights in terms of individual political rights. This approach pursues women’s equality under the law, stressing constitutional rights and participation in official politics.
Source:TomDispatch.com
Finally, journalists have started criticizing in earnest the leviathans of Silicon Valley, notably Google, now the world’s third-largest company in market value. The new round of discussion began even before the revelations that the tech giants were routinely sharing our data with the National Security Agency, or maybe merging with it. Simultaneously another set of journalists, apparently unaware that the weather has changed, is still sneering at San Francisco, my hometown, for not lying down and loving Silicon Valley’s looming presence.
Peace activist Cindy Sheehan stopped in Chicago to speak out in support of Bradley Manning. Sheehan started her cross-country bicycling tour in California on April 4, nine years to the day her son Casey was killed in Iraq.
On April 21, the BBC obtained disturbing video footage shot in Burma. It confirmed extreme reports of what has been taking place in that country, even as it is being touted by the US and European governments as a success story pertaining to political reforms and democracy.
Source: TomDispatch.com
In heavy fog on the night of October 7, 1936, the SS Ohioan ran aground three miles south and west of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, and by noon on October 8th, I was among a crowd of spectators come to pay its respects to the no small terror of the sea. I was two years old, hoisted on the shoulders of my father, for whom the view to windward was neither openly nor latently sublime. The stranded vessel, an 8,046-ton freighter laden with a cargo valued at $450,000, was owned by the family steamship company of which my father one day was to become the president, and he would have been counting costs instead of looking to the consolations of philosophy. No lives had been lost — Coast Guard boats had rescued the captain and the crew — but the first assessments of the damaged hull pegged the hopes of salvage in the vicinity of few and none.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019