the man has hollowed out the Libyan state, eviscerated all opposition in Libyan society, and, in effect, created a political tabula rasa on which a newly free people will now have to scratch out a future.
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Sadly, this poor woman's experience at Cairo University is all too common in Egypt - 0 views
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HANNAH SOMERVILLE talks about how even though there has been a womens movement, women are still being harassed. She talks about her own experience and how she even considered moving apartment to lessen the harassment.
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HANNAH SOMERVILLE talks about how even though there has been a womens movement, women are still being harassed. She talks about her own experience and how she even considered moving apartment to lessen the harassment.
Updated: Iraq Is Coming Apart at the Seams -- Here's Our Essential Reader | Blog | Bill... - 0 views
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Egypt Begins Rebuilding Christian Churches Destroyed Under Muslim Brotherhood - Breitbart - 0 views
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Can Egyptian women start a revolution against sexual violence? | PBS NewsHour - 0 views
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This article/video is from pbs.org, talking about the revolution that happened 5 years ago at Tahrir Square. Women were apart of the revolution, by participating and leading protests. They were able to safely join men to protest, but changed later on. Female protestors were being sexually assaulted. Because of these assaults, laws are now being implemented in Egypt.
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shared by allieggg on 12 Nov 14
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Can Libya Rebuild Itself After 40 Years of Gaddafi? - 0 views
www.newsweek.com/f-after-40-years-gaddafi-68601
Gaddafi libya Arab Nationalism recontruction political tabula rasa Revolution politics middle east
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Jamahiriya, a political system that is run directly by tribesmen without the intermediation of state institutions
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the problem is, of course, that much like in the former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe, virtually everyone at one point or another had to deal with the regime to survive.
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the disastrous Italian legacy in Libya, has been a constant element in Gaddafi’s speeches since he took power
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inspired by Gamal Abdel Nasser, neighboring Egypt’s president, whose ideas of Arab nationalism and of the possibility of restoring glory to the Arab world, would fuel the first decade of Gaddafi’s revolution.
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In a brilliant move that co-opted tribal elders, many of whom were also military commanders, he created the Social Leadership People’s Committee, through which he could simultaneously control the tribes and segments of the country’s military.
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When it turned out that Libya, which was still a decentralized society in 1969, had little appetite for his centralizing political vision and remained largely indifferent to his proposals, the young idealist quickly turned activist.
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Green Book, a set of slim volumes published in the mid-1970s that contain Gaddafi’s political philosophy, a blueprint is offered for a dramatic restructuring of Libya’s economy, politics, and society. In principle, Libya would become an experiment in democracy. In reality, it became a police state where every move of its citizens was carefully watched by a growing number of security apparatuses and revolutionary committees that owed loyalty directly to Gaddafi.
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Having crushed all opposition by the mid-1970s, the regime systematically snuffed out any group that could potentially oppose it—any activity that could be construed as political opposition was punishable by death, which is one reason why a post-Gaddafi Libya, unlike a post-Mubarak Egypt, can have no ready-made opposition in a position to fill the vacuum.
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The tribes—the Warfalla, the Awlad Busayf, the Magharha, the Zuwaya, the Barasa, and the smallest of them all, the Gadafa, to which he belonged—offered a natural form of political affiliation, a tribal ethos that could be tapped into for support. And perhaps, in the aftermath of Gaddafi, they could serve as a nucleus around which to build a new political system.
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Gaddafi feared they might coalesce into groups opposing his rule. So, during the first two decades after the 1969 coup, he tried to erase their influence, arguing that they were an archaic element in a modern society.
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comprehensive reconstruction of everything civic, political, legal, and moral that makes up a society and its government.
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After systematically destroying local society, after using the tribes to cancel each other out, after aborting methodically the emergence of a younger generation that could take over Libya’s political life—all compounded by the general incoherence of the country’s administrative and bureaucratic institutions—Gaddafi will have left a new Libya with severe and longstanding challenges.
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while the regime still had the coercive power to put down any uprisings that took place in the 1990s, it became clear to Gaddafi’s closest advisers that the potential for unrest had reached unprecedented levels.
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way out was to come to an agreement with the West that would end the sanctions, allow Libya to refurbish an aging oil infrastructure, and provide a safety valve by permitting Libyans to travel abroad once more.
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intent to renounce weapons of mass destruction in December 2003—after a long process of behind-the-scenes diplomacy initially spearheaded by Britain
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“The Revolution Everlasting” was one of the enduring slogans of his Libya, inscribed everywhere from bridges to water bottles.
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country was split in half, with eastern Cyrenaica and its main city Benghazi effectively independent—a demonstration of the kind of people’s power Gaddafi had always advocated. Reality, in effect, outgrew the caricature.
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used a set of divide-and-rule policies that not only kept his opponents sundered from each other, but had also completely enfeebled any social or political institution in the country.
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Beyond Gaddafi, there exists only a great political emptiness, a void that Libya somehow will need to fill.
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the creation of a modern state where Libyans become true citizens, with all the rights and duties this entails.
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Regimes can use oil revenues strategically to provide patronage that effectively keeps them in power.
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This article from News Week basically paints a picture of Libyan history and how Gaddafi's reign devastated the state economically, socially, and politically. Author Dirk Vandewalle uses the phrase "a political tabula rasa" which in Latin means a blank slate, to describe the fate of Libya after Gaddafi's rule and convey the extent to which the country has to literally reconstruct every component that makes up a society and its government. He highlights major events that led to the downfall of both the Gaddafi regime and the Libyan state as a whole such as Arab nationalism, Jamahiriya, the Green Book, security apparatuses snuffing all opposition, terrorist incidents, isolation and international sanctions, the Lockerbie bombing, weapons of mass destruction, human right violations, divide and rule policies, and his use of oil revenue to fuel his insurgency. Vandewalle concludes the article with uncertain ideas thoughts towards Libya's future and the way the state is going to literally rebuild themselves from this "blank slate" that Gaddafi left behind.
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The Pope's next diplomatic miracle? Middle East peace... - 1 views
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Schooling in a crisis: the case of Syrian refugees in Turkey - ODI HPN - 0 views
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The Syrian civil war has created one of the largest and most intense episodes of human suffering of the early twenty-first century.
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Turkeys efforts to meet the needs of refugees have been spearheaded by the Afet ve Acil Durum Yonetimi Baskanligi
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majority of refugees are women and, especially, children; of the 200,000 refugees in Turkish camps, about 60% are children.
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t was left to him to find tents, wooden flooring, carpets and paving bricks, desks, chairs, drawing boards, teaching aids and, of course, textbooks
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he pre-school director in Islahiye Camp used empty office and storage space in the warehouse to house five rooms full of loud young children
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curricula are not recognised or sanctioned by the Turkish education authorities, and so licenced Turkish teachers cannot be assigned to them.
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Indeed, one source of tension between Syrian parents and the Turkish authorities has been the Syrian demand for special classes for advanced students whose preparations for university entrance exams were interrupted by the war.
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Syrian parents also tend to insist that their daughters wear headscarves (hijab) in public and in schools, while it is illegal for Turkish teenage girls to cover their hair at school.
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Tensions over the separation of the sexes, curriculum and language of instruction are compounded by the politics of Syrians refugee status
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y contrast, the Turkish government chose not to officially recognise the Syrians as refugees as defined by UNHCR, and did not ask UNHCR to register the newcomers as refugees.
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Even guests can outstay their welcome, and with no end in sight to the civil war and no prospect of a return of Syrians to Syria, Turks are beginning to question how long they can sustain their assistance. I
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une 2013 AFAD began accepting offers of financial and other aid from outside agencies, including UNHCR and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
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The schools developed in Syrian refugee camps in Turkey provide valuable models for establishing schools for rapidly growing refugee populations.
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The next critical challenge for Syrian education in Turkey is what to do with the growing number of Syrian teenagers who need to finish their high-school studies at accredited schools in order to compete for places at universities in Turkey or elsewhere.
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This was probably the most interesting article I have read about education in the MIddle East. It is from the "Humanitarian practice Network". This article is about Turkey and the Syrian refugees, who are not documented as refugees, and the growing desire for improvements to education. Right now, the education which is in place for Syrians is adequate for a temporary stay of preserving knowledge. It is not designed to be used long term, to advance students, or to prep them for universities. This article looks at those issues and tensions which are happening currently in Turkey
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How The Donald of Dubai Used Outrageous Marketing To Score A $3 Billion Real Estate For... - 0 views
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New billionaire Hussain Sajwani has transformed the desert skyline with luxury apartments and lavish mansions using outrageous marketing strategies (Free lamborghini, anyone?). He's weathered the 2008 crash and his business partner Donald Trump's politics--so what will he do if oil prices continue to plummet?
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'Cyber-activism': Kenya, Egypt not in same league - 0 views
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On the prism of democracy, Kenya and Egypt are light-years apart, but cyber-activists and sections of Kenya's political class are drawing false parallels between the two and nudging for protests in Kenya.Kenya's cyber-space reveals fragments of the country's activists and political class are pondering using social media to emulate the Egyptian-style protest perhaps to coincide with the third anniversary of the 2008 post-election mayhem.