A close friend once told me, “in life, you sometimes meet people whom you only know for a short while, but then have an impact on you that not even many of those you’ve known your whole life can ever match.”

Alaa Abdel Fattah, Razan Ghazzawi and Ali Abdulemam are such people, the special kind who are so principled and passionate about freedom and dignity, they’re willing to risk their well-being for what they believe.

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting them and getting to know them during the 2nd Arab Bloggers Meeting in 2009 back in Beirut. I especially remember a long heated argument I had with Razan on an issue that we, at the time, strongly disagreed about.

At first, I was annoyed by what I saw as her diatribes, but eventually, after I explored her blog and spent more time with her, I came to respect and like her for her blunt honesty and staunch stance on gender rights and free speech.

Then earlier today I came across the heart-wrenching news that she had been detained in her native Syria, where she blogged against the monstrous Assad regime openly under her real name. I really hope she’s safe.

On top of that, I also found out that Alaa’s detention under the military regime in Egypt got extended, which means he’ll very probably miss the birth of his first child. Another heart-wrenching piece of news.

Both Alaa and Razan were present at the recent 3rd Arab Bloggers Meeting held in Tunisia.

Unfortunately, our friend Ali Abdulemam, the well-known Bahraini online free speech advocate wasn’t with us. He went into hiding after the Bahraini regime unleashed a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters who took to the streets earlier this year.

I don’t know where he is now, but every once in a while I think about him, and how much he must be missing his young children.

Alaa, Razan and Ali.

Tonight, they’re in my thoughts. Tonight, I go to bed with a heavy heart.

Tonight, I remind myself that their sacrifices will one day, tomorrow, next week, next year, next decade… one day, their sacrifices will bear their humble fruits.

Pessimism is a choice, and we must do our best to never succumb to it and to never remain in a defeated state.

Take 17 minutes to watch this short powerful documentary,
The “No” Choice, about Alaa and his activist family.

#FreeAlaa, #FreeRazan, and #RememberAli

When they were free: @RedRazan, @alaa and @abdulemam
in Budapest, 2008. Today they’re in jail or in hiding.

Picture courtesy of @chanadbh.

UPDATE: Good news. Both Alaa and Razan are now free.

To truly begin to understand the significance of the 3rd Arab Bloggers Meeting that just took place in Tunisia, you first have to make yourself familiar with what happened two years ago in December 2009 during the 2nd Arab Bloggers Meeting in Beirut.

Back then, in the words of the late Steve “Abdulfattah” Jobs, we were “the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.”

We were crazy enough to think we could change the world. Crazy enough to think we could change things in our societies, some things, anything. But as crazy as we were, I don’t think any of us imagined in 2009 that we’d be meeting again in the capital of what then used to be one of the most Internet-restricting dictatorships on the planet.

Fast-forward nearly two years later and that’s precisely what happened. We met in Tunisia, and a lot has indeed changed. So much in fact that it took us all by surprise. And you know what? It’s one of the best damn feelings anyone can experience.

It’s one hell of a powerful validation, because we now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that our collective efforts were not in vain. The risks many Arab bloggers and digital activists have taken and in some cases paid a hefty price for were worth it. They played a critical role in mobilizing the masses and in amplifying the events with the assistance of international media, especially Al Jazeera. This is why we’re vowing to continue in whatever shape or form, big or small, direct or indirect.

Critics can say whatever they want. Yes, there are daunting challenges ahead in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Yes, the stories coming out of countries like Bahrain and Syria are heartbreaking. Yes, periphery Arab countries like Mauritania and Sudan haven’t even erupted adequately as they should, and yes not every single hated dictator in the region is going to fall. At least, not anytime soon.

In fact, in some countries, things might have to get “worse” before they get better. The Arab world after all is not a monolith. Anyone with half a brain and some knowledge about the region knows that different Arab countries face different complex circumstances.

Nonetheless, the regional psychological shift from victimhood and apathy to entitlement and self-empowerment is unstoppable. It has ended over 40 years of political stagnation, and it’s here to stay. Especially in the era of the digital age, more freely flowing information and a time of rapidly changing demographics and evolving belief systems. The psychological shift is only bound to grow and continue.

And the way I see it, we, optimistic netizens and digital activists have to feed it with more fuel along with education on entrepreneurship, human rights and what democracy and good governance entail. Because every optimistic, aware and self-empowered citizen is one less person suffering from victimhood/apathy syndrome, and hence an additional thorn in the side of dictatorial regimes whose survival at best relies on keeping the masses hopeless and ignorant, and at worst, massacring them with tanks and aerial bombardments. Dealing with the former is a battle we can win, but dealing with the latter is proving to be a nightmare in Syria. Still, that’s only more reason to continue and increase needed efforts, not decrease them.

Those are my feelings and the general feelings of fellow comrades, old ones as well as new ones whom I was happy to meet and become friends with in Tunisia. Friends who are diverse in terms of ideologies and political stances, but heartily united by an impassioned impulse to speak up and tell our stories freely. United by a belief in democratic values and dreams of a better Arab world. One in which citizens are free and treated with dignity and respect. (And certainly one in which Palestinians aren’t denied entry visas to Arab countries in such appalling discriminatory manners).

I could go into numerous details about some of what happened behind the scenes during the meeting in Tunisia, but I won’t, because many others have already, and because I don’t think the details are as relevant as the psychological shift. It is the underlying factor that caused these historic events, and which the 3rd Arab Bloggers Meeting will inevitably contribute to strengthening.

As for me personally and what I experienced, in short, I now feel more empowered than ever. I’ve got more clarity. I’ve got more focus. I’ve got perspective. I also realize that Sudanese netizens have a lot to catch up on and do. The good news is, it’s never too late. The great news is, there’s now finally a lot of potential and promising online activity in forums, Facebook and Twitter.

Someone just has to encourage self-organized curation of that important agitation on an open online platform created by Sudanese for Sudanese and also for the international media. Enter VoicesofSudan.com, to be launched soon before the end of 2011.

I now have the support, strategy, and network to make it happen step-by-step gradually, but surely. #AB11 gave me the missing ingredients. It has been a valuable experience, as I’m sure it has been to my fellow comrades too.

And over the next year, you’re going to witness my conscious transformation from a sociopolitical blogger into a writer, activist, and digital entrepreneur. Yup, 2012 is going to be fun.

What about you? What are you going to do?

“Think different.” (Do different).

“Here’s to the Crazy Ones!“

Peace and love,

Amir - Grateful #AB11 Participant.

Some background…

When I began blogging in 2006, it was primarily and initially because of my frustration towards the Western media’s coverage of Darfur and Sudan. I wanted to do something rather than just bitch and whine.

I saw how the Egyptian and Iraqi blogospheres were influential and how they became a powerful voice for the voiceless, and I was quite jealous. Where were the Sudanese bloggers? Where was our blogosphere? It was nowhere to be found, and so I became a blogger. I blogged, I blogged and I blogged, and it was a lonely exercise.

Next, I tried to persuade online friends in Sudanese forums to join me in blogging and sharing their thoughts more publicly. I didn’t care about what they were going to say. I just wanted them to say something, anything, and it worked. By August 2007, things had changed, and there was a small but active Sudanese blogosphere speaking for itself.

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Two days ago I had the privilege of being featured on the Al Jazeera English show, The Stream, where I got the chance to critique the simplistic and biased media narrative on Sudan, something I’ve been blogging about right here for the last five years, especially in the early days in 2006 and 2007 as some of you old-time readers know.

Here’s my main appearance posted below, and here on this page is the full episode that was broadcast.

It was a short segment so I didn’t have the time to elaborate as much as I’d have liked, and I also had to specifically focus on the media narrative. More importantly, now that I’ve watched myself, I’m afraid that in trying to be civil on TV, I might have come across as too soft on the Khartoum regime because I didn’t highlight the extent of the violent atrocities it has committed and indeed continues to commit against various marginalized groups in the country.

Luckily, I have this blog where I can elaborate as much as I’d like and state things more clearly.

The following is a list of links to resources which will give you a nuanced understanding of important background information and critical factors that affect the ongoing horrendous violence that’s unfolding.

• This is the NY Times article I referred to in my appearance, and it contains a criticism of Save Darfur and the rather unhelpful narrative it’s been pushing, along with the Enough Project. It’s an absolute must-read, and so is the Sudan-part of this Slate article.
• In April 2006, the Washington Post published an excellent article challenging numerous misconceptions that have been spread about Darfur by media outlets and pushed by the Save Darfur Coalition. The article is called 5 Truths About Darfur, and it’s a must-read.
• In 2007 I wrote a blog post that’s still relevant today called Darfur: The Reality, the Agenda & the Proposed Solution, which I’m sure many of you will find eye-opening.
• To understand the recent history of Sudan-US relations, check out Official Pariah Sudan Valuable to America’s War on Terrorism, and this article which underscores the tensions between Republicans and Democrats in pursuing a coherent and effective Sudan strategy.
• On the issue of ethnicity and religion being factors, you may want to read my article at Comment is free in The Guardian, called Ending Sudan’s Identity Crisis to get a much better sense of the complex situation.
• Finally here’s an argument for why economic sanctions on Sudan, which negatively affect us the people more than anyone else, should be lifted, and why Sudan should be removed from its now-unfair designation in the US State Department’s list of terrorism-sponsoring countries.

If you dig into just those articles above, you’ll begin to understand the danger in the confrontational approach pushed by organizations like Save Darfur and Enough Project. They might be well-meaning, but politically, their strategy has been damaging and polarizing, leaving little room for positive engagement and normalization of relations with the United States.

And if they, Nicholas Kristof and George Clooney disagree with me, then I’d be happy to engage with them in a friendly debate and discussion.

To their credit, I believe that we all share the same goal of a peaceful Sudan in which all heinous atrocities would stop, and the Khartoum government would beheld accountable for its brutal actions. However, we clearly have very different strategies we’d like to see implemented to get there.

Simply put, Sudan is a fragile country, and if the aforementioned advocates have their way, we could witness the making of another Somalia. And it won’t be pretty.

It’s now been a few days since I arrived back home from Oslo, Norway, where I attended and spoke at the Oslo Freedom Forum alongside Libyan blogger, Ghazi Gheblawi, Tunisian digital activist, Lina Ben Mhenni and the courageous Bahraini human rights activist, Maryam al-Khawaja.

The four of us were on a panel called “Dawn of a New Arab World” which was introduced by Wael Ghonim and moderated by Philippa Thomas from BBC.

Here’s my full speech

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Now as you can perhaps recall, I’ve been to numerous conferences throughout the past few years (yay the perks of being a blogger), some of which I’ve written about like the CSIS-organized conference that happened in Washington DC in 2007, and the transformative Second Arab Bloggers Summit that happened in Beirut in late 2009. Each was unique in its own way, and the Oslo Freedom Forum is no exception.

Amongst the speakers and attendees were former presidents, Nobel Peace Prize winners, renowned human rights and democracy activists and many inspiring personalities.

Simply put, it was quite a profound experience with a number of memorable highlights, all of which I’ll tell you about soon in a few days when I update this post… updated, erm… after a month, thanks to my unexpectedly busy schedule, which is still packed and busy. Sooo… rather than write a long post, I’m going to ask you to check out this round up of the event nicely written by Jay Nordlinger.

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On a final note, I’d like to highlight the speech that moved nearly everyone at the Oslo Freedom Forum to tears. It’s by none other than the amazing Palestinian doctor, Izzeldin Abuelaish, and it’s called “Transcending Hate”.

Dr. Abuelaish grew up in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip and has practiced extensively in both Israel and Gaza, including one of Israel’s main hospitals. In 2009, during Israel’s 22-day attack on Gaza, the Israeli Defense Force shelled Dr. Abuelaish’s home, taking the lives of his three daughters and niece.  Instead of letting hate overcome him, Dr. Abuelaish’s message is one of courage in the face of tragedy

Observe how he weaves his speech with phrases and sentences inspired by Koranic verses. I bow to him in respect and adoration.

Stepping from behind the curtain
after five years of anonymous blogging

My name is Ahmad. Amir Ahmad, known to you for the last five years as Drima, and I am the blogger behind The Sudanese Thinker.

Yes, that’s me in the picture below addressing the UN General Assembly back in 2006 when I was 19 on the importance of human rights and protecting freedom of conscience.

Oh yeah, for real, and then Kofi Annan thanked me afterwards.

Right.

Why I decided to reveal myself recently on Twitter and now here is something I have numerous personal reasons for and that I cannot explain adequately in a simple short blog post. Let’s just say the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, and the changes sweeping the region now have inspired me and forced me to come to a simple conclusion.

Screw anonymity.

Initially, blogging anonymously was a convenient comfort, but eventually it became increasingly suffocating, and I decided to break free. So here I am.

And now let me get to the triple announcement.

1. Announcing My Upcoming Book

Islam: A Love Story – How Fundamentalism Stole My Mind, Broke My Heart, and Blogging Freed My Mystic Soul

About two years ago, I mentioned that I began working on a book, and many of you have been asking me about it since then. Today I’m glad to finally unveil the details. Learn more here and don’t forget to read the raw unedited prologue and tell me what you think.

2. The Future of Islam In the Age of New Media: 60 Speakers In 60 Seconds Each for a Total of 60 Insightful Minutes

As some of you know, I’m currently pursuing a Masters in philosophy along with research focused on the impact of new media on contemporary Islamic thought.

As part of that research effort, I’ve been working for the past five months on an online audio seminar which convenes 60 diverse speakers comprised of Islamic scholars, new media experts, academics, journalists and activists each giving their take on The Future of Islam In the Age of New Media.

And today it’s my pleasure to announce this online event to you. Learn more about it and sign up here.

We’ve all seen the power of digital media and how it helped in the recent uprisings that toppled the Tunisian and Egyptian dictators. And while there has been a lot of talk about that subject, there has hardly been any discussion on what I believe to be the more important topic, and that is the impact of new media on the Muslim faith.

Islam permeates all aspects of Muslim life including education and politics. Therefore, any evolution and new trends that emerge within Islam and Islamic thought, even in cyberspace, have the potential to influence important matters beyond Islam itself.

This isn’t theory. It’s factual and it’s already happening.

As Gary R. Bunt, a leading researcher and one of the event’s featured speakers rightly observes and states in his book iMuslims: Rewiring the House of Islam, “The Internet has a profound contemporary impact on how Muslims perceive Islam and how Islamic societies and networks are evolving and shifting in the twenty-first century.”

How and in what ways this is happening is precisely what will be explored and discussed by the event’s 60 speakers.

Having personally undergone a profound transformation in my own religious beliefs and identity–going from fundamentalism through heartbreak and disillusionment, then two years of near atheism, and finally finding peace in Sufism–I know from firsthand experience the impact the Internet can and indeed does have on the faithful.

However, that specific transformation is only one person’s journey, and therefore cannot be decidedly pointed out as representative of the larger emerging trends.

So what are those larger emerging trends then?

Stay tuned for the online audio seminar and hear all 60 perspectives.

3. I’m Speaking at the Oslo Freedom Forum

Oh yeah, true story.

I’ll be speaking on a panel called “Dawn of a New Arab World” along with Libyan blogger, Ghazi Gheblawi, Tunisian digital activist, Lina Ben Mhenni and the courageous Bahraini human rights activist, Maryam al-Khawaja.

The panel will be moderated by Philippa Thomas from BBC, and will be streamed live right here.

Stay tuned for that as well.

More soon.

Peace.

The following is the raw and unedited draft of the prologue from my upcoming book, Islam: A Love Story – How Fundamentalism Stole My Mind, Broke My Heart, and Blogging Freed My Mystic Soul.

He smacked her across the face—a violent thundering slap. The television seemed to reverberate with the impact. It was the climax of the show, and I had just entered the living room uninvited.

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Yes, yes, I know I’ve been awfully quiet. Major events happened recently, and I haven’t blogged about them here (mainly because I’ve been busy tweeting about them instead).

Damn, so where shall I start?

As you can recall, I was mightily pissed off a few months back when Biden refused to acknowledge that Mubarak was a dictator, and the Obama administration reacted to the Egyptian uprising in one hell of a confused and disappointing way.

Eventually, we began noticing the shift in Obama’s US foreign policy towards the region, which went from a rather one-size fits all “yay let’s support these dictators for the sake of stability” to “let’s actively support democracy where we can and avoid doing so in the case of regimes we can’t afford to ditch.”

Things have gotten better in some ways, but not in regards to others.

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That’s how old The Sudanese Thinker became today. There’s a lot I could say and that I want to say, but a mere blog post will never be enough. It will never fully convey, not even close, how drastically different my life would be right now if I never started this blog.

Oh you have no idea. Only a book can tell the story, the same book I began working on two years ago, and which is still a work in progress that I cannot wait to reveal and share with everyone.

But before that happens, something else will in the coming month.

Hint: It’s related to the book and my Masters research.

Stay tuned.

Many people are not aware that Sudan had two popular uprisings. Yes, that’s right, two damn uprisings but unfortunately both ultimately failed to bring democracy to Sudan.

However, even though they failed to democratize the nation, today their specter hangs over the regime in Khartoum.

Of all the ageing dictators in north Africa and the Middle East, Mr Bashir certainly knows the most about the potent threats of people power and popular uprisings—he has lived through two of them in Sudan. The first took place in 1964: the so-called “October revolution” ousted newly independent Sudan’s first military dictator, General Aboub. The second occurred in 1985 and toppled another military dictator, Jafar Numeiri, who had come to power in a coup in 1969. It is this uprising that will be preying on Mr Bashir’s mind today.

Indeed, and there’s been a lot of talk about this amongst us Sudanese.

Can we have a third uprising? Especially right now in this regional political climate? Given what we’ve seen in Tunisia and Egypt, I’d never rule out the possibility, but given the psychological state of the Sudanese people, I’m also cautious in my expectations.

But that’s not the important part. The key issue is, if indeed we can have a third popular uprising, what can we do differently this time so that we don’t end up repeating the mistakes of the past? And on a related note, what can Egyptian and Tunisian revolutionaries learn from the mistakes Sudan’s revolutionaries made?

To help answer these questions, I interviewed the Sudanese-born American political analyst, Musa A. Murawih, who is based in Washington DC. In his own words, he is “a formerly active, democracy activist,” and is pretty knowledgeable about Sudanese politics.

More importantly, unlike me, he lived through the 1985 popular revolution so I thought it might be nice if he shared a thing or two, and gave us his brief analysis of the recent changes in the Arab world and the possibility of democratic change occurring in Sudan.

Here’s part 1 of the interview.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I’ll post up the remaining portions of the interview soon.

Meanwhile, leave your response in the comments section. What do you think? Do you agree with Musa’s assessment or not, and why?

Beace my beebull.

Hello friends. I’ve been unusually busy this past month, but I thought I’d quickly share with you three awesome TED Talks on the power of social media and how it helps to facilitate change.

One of them is a talk by Ethan Zuckerman, the co-founder of Global Voices Online. The other two are by Wael Ghonim, and Wadah Khanfar, head of Al Jazeera. Here are they are.

Wadah Khanfar: A historic moment in the Arab world

Ethan Zuckerman: Listening to global voices

Wael Ghonim: Inside the Egyptian revolution

Enjoy, and stay tuned for an audio interview I’ll post soon on the Arab revolutions and Sudan with a knowledgeable Sudanese-born American political analyst based in Washington DC.

In it, he responds to my questions and gives his perspective on why the 1985 peaceful popular revolt in Sudan didn’t sustain its gains, and what Egyptian and Tunisian activists can learn from the mistakes that Sudanese pro-democracy activists made back then.

Dozens of people, many of them university students, were arrested after participating in the protests that started on 30th January. Since then, I’ve spent some time trying to get more reliable information on the detained protesters, and the protests themselves.

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Thousands of Sudanese youth and university students have recently been joining a Facebook event page calling for mass protests starting today, January 30th. And it looks like the protests have indeed begun, and are underway as indicated by the pictures being uploaded right now on the Facebook protest page .

Here are some of them.

And here is a video on Facebook of chanting protesters that just got uploaded. Sudanese youth in Washington DC are also planning a solidarity protest later today in front of the Sudanese Embassy there to demand change.

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Given the fun historic events unfolding now in Egypt, many of us are dying to know more about what’s happening. Now, while Twitter is amazingly awesome, a stream of 140-character messages doesn’t really provide much context, and with Aljazeera’s operation in Egypt sort of  broken, I’ve become increasingly annoyed, so I took matters into my own hands and called my friend in Cairo, the Egyptian blogger, Sandmonkey.

With the internet still mostly down there, it’s been difficult for him and many other Egyptian digital activists to get compelling perspectives and detailed contextualized information out.

Below is the recording of my revealing 20-minute interview with him.

Here’s what you’re going to learn from Sandmonkey’s perspective when you listen to it:

• How protesters feel about the dwindling availability of basic resources and towards the military
• What will probably happen if or when Mubarak steps down
• Why Egyptian digital activists are dismissing the opposition’s committee
• Why talk about the Muslim Brotherhood’s supposed involvement in the protests is greatly exaggerated
• And a number of other things

Click play to stream and listen to the interview.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Please spread awareness about this interview, and share it on Facebook, and Twitter to help others learn more about what’s going on.

Related:

• The Most AMAZING video on the internet #Egypt #jan25
• BREAKING NEWS: The Facebook-Organized Protests Have Begun In Khartoum and Omdurman. Stay Tuned for Updates.
• The Arab World’s (Social Media-Facilitated) Uprising, 9/11, Why “They” Hate You Dear America, and What We Can Do About It