Democracy

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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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.

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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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.

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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.

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

Kodus to Fareed Zain for this groundbreaking effort. It’s not going to have a big impact, but it is certainly an encouraging start that deserves praise. Thanks for your work Fareed!

Listen to the audio interview here.

When I was busy keeping track of the last US presidential race, I was baffled by the apathetic attitude displayed by some of my American friends towards their country’s future. One of them is a US Marine I went to school with, who fought in Iraq. I’ll never forget what he told me.

Me: So, dude, who are you voting for? Obama or McCain?

Friend: Man, I ain’t voting for nobody. F*ck that shit!

Me: Erm, why?

Friend: Man, they’re all full of shit anyway!

Me: So you’re willing to risk your life and fight for your country, but you’re not bothered to vote? Enlighten me please!

Friend: Like I said, they’re all full of shit anyway. What difference will it make?

If I had a magic crystal ball back then, I would have replied, “for a start, health care!” I should have added “withdrawing from Iraq” and a bunch of other foreign policy things that impact the world.

But that was America, and now that it’s Sudan’s turn, I am beginning to relate to my friend’s attitude. It’s funny really, because I didn’t expect myself to wind up here, especially after blogging so much about Sudan from 2006 to 2008.

I won’t vote in the Sudanese elections.

I won’t vote because:

1. I missed the voter registration date and hardly regretted it since I’ve never really believed in the predicted “change-bringing” effects of the expected elections. Hence, I can’t vote anyway even if I change my mind and wanted to.

2. Positive alternatives to Al-Bashir with an actual chance of winning are nil.

3. Assuming I registered, given that Al-Bashir is going to win any way, I would rather abstain from voting than vote for him.

4. Regardless of the “confidence” in the election process expressed by the US envoy to Sudan, the elections aren’t going to be fair or transparent.

5. Even if I’m wrong and the election process achieves some decent level of transparency and fairness, it still takes lots of money for parties and candidates to win, something that Al-Bashir and his NCP have a lot of, while the opposition is relatively broke, with the exception of the SPLM which is too corrupt and divided to even run itself properly anyway.

6. Quite frankly, I just don’t care about the political process anymore at the moment. It’s hopeless. I’ve been so disconnected and apathetic towards what’s happening, I no longer feel its relevance. Given the current circumstances, Sudan is a country in waiting with too many question marks ahead.

Now, I don’t want to put down the hopes of Sudanese who have passionately rallied their fellow citizens to vote and get involved in the election process. I admire them for that, but electing a new Sudanese president is a losing battle, which is why I find it hilarious when well-meaning but naive Westerners like Simon Tisdall express such a rosy view.

Don’t get me wrong, the elections as a milestone for Sudan are a very great thing! However, the election process itself as a means of electing a new government is a joke. So why do the US envoy to Sudan and Jimmy Carter seem to express a rather optimistic, albeit cautious views about the event? Well, to answer that, one first needs to notice that the US administration took a position contrary to that of the opposition parties in Sudan.

While many in the opposition wanted the elections to be postponed, the US pressed that they should continue on time, regardless of boycotts and threats of more boycotts by the opposition. This is because America views the historic event within the bigger and more important context in which it is happening: the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which has milestones and a timeline designed to lead to the Southern Sudan referendum in January 2011.

Therefore, this shouldn’t surprise anyone.

April 10, 2010 (JUBA) – The US Special Envoy to Sudan, Scott Gration, has welcomed the decision confirmed by the leadership of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) that it will participate in the elections in Northern Sudan states, saying it was important for the prioritized upcoming referendum in the South.

… Gration, who seemed to express satisfaction with the SPLM’s strategic political priorities, said his office was ready to assist in the contentious issues between the two peace-partners [NCP and SPLM] so that referendum on independence of Southern Sudan would be conducted as scheduled for January 2011.

Oh well, I wonder what it would have been like if John Garang was still around. Too bad he isn’t. And too bad Sudan doesn’t seem to have the strong necessary leadership in the opposition that’s capable of running a well-organized political party, let alone an entire fragile country that can disintegrate into another Somalia if it isn’t held together firmly.

Meanwhile, let the games begin! It’s time for those much-awaited and talked about elections! I will be keeping track of the news every now and then. And when 2011 has come and gone, let me know. I might get back to my former days of high engagement and interest.

Sudanese in the house, drop your comments and links to your blog posts below, if you have any please. A Global Voices round up is in the works.

I would love to hear your point of view.

Yalla, salam.

- Drima

The news is out. Lubna won’t get flogged after all - a victory for Muslim women who stood behind her and supported her, but is the sentence really worthy of our celebration?

Me thinks probably not.

It’s a bittersweet occasion. No to getting flogged, yes to getting fined.

But that’s not the unfortunate part.

The true misfortune is the fact that this new embarrassing episode in Sudan - one of an ongoing series (Teddy Bear Circus anyone?) - doesn’t seem like it’s going to be the last.

Things like this will continue

As long as you have idiots who misunderstand Islam, abuse it for self-serving political purposes, or dogmatically support its orthodox traditionalist interpretation (which in numerous cases is anti-woman), incidents like this will continue.

(Note: There are things that are supported and backed by Islam which don’t treat women equally and that do indeed deserve critique, for example the amount of inheritance allocated for women within Islamic law. However, most Islamic scholars will agree that Lubna’s arrest was un-Islamic, and was either carried out by idiots who don’t have a proper understanding of Islamic law, or who are using Islam as a political tool to further their own self-serving agendas.)

But anyways, back to what I was saying.

Again, yes, things like this will continue not just in Sudan, but throughout the Muslim world, because most of it suffers from the same serious common illness: a knowledge crisis.

And this latest case, the Teddy Bear Circus, and other similar ones are merely symptoms of this disease, so don’t expect them to go away as long as this disease remains.

The cures?

Mainly free inquiry and free enterprise.

Oh, and lots of work, time and patience, but it’s okay because we’ve got to start somewhere, and it’s people like Lubna who inspire the needed soldiers to march forward with boldness and courage.

Bittersweet indeed, but maybe the sentence is worthy of just a little celebration.

So I guess this post is mine.

 Seriously, do NOT worry!

Dear Campell Brown, thank you so much for stating the obvious.

I woke up early just to watch the damn thing. Hey, I’d be a complete idiot to miss such sweet entertainment.

After the two disastrous interviews Palin did, I was expecting Biden to tear her into pieces. He didn’t, firstly, because she’s a woman and that would be mean, and secondly, because Palin did surprisingly well considering her major screw ups previously. Nonetheless, Biden performed better overall I think, regardless of his stupid inaccurate comments about Lebanon and Gaza.

He offered solid answers and strategies. Plus, he wasn’t reading from his notes as much as Palin was. Sure, Palin was cute, animated and folksy, but her answers came across sounding memorized.

At this point of the race, I’m not bothered with cliche speeches about hope or cute smiles anymore. I’m just dying for some real concrete answers concerning foreign policy, especially towards Sudan, and BAM, Biden finally gave me that.

He’s not for forced intervention in Darfur using US troops anymore. However, he now stands for a more aggressive push aimed at putting all peacekeepers on the ground, and providing more security for the displaced populations.

Sweet.

I’m slightly relieved and now leaning further towards the Obama-Biden ticket, but I still await the remaining debates. Yes, yes, I know, I’m such a meticulous “voter.”

During the McCain-Obama debate, I thought McCain put up a better performance. Nonetheless, I’m appalled at his choice for VP, because it indicates a selfishness to put one’s self ahead of one’s country.

Seriously, who cares if Palin got the conservative base excited, the man is old, and let’s face it, his body might fail him. Does he really think Palin can lead if he goes bye bye?

That’s not to say that I’m in love with Obama like most of the world is. In fact, if I do end up picking him, I’m going to do it holding my nose.

If there is any video you watch online today, it’s this one.

It’s sooo funny, I almost died with laughter. Pure genius! Seriously, whether you’re a Donkey or an Elephant, you gotta admit that this is hilarious as hell.

Yeah, without the prepared and carefully worded speeches, Palin sadly exposed herself as a disaster, but on the bright side, we now at least have this priceless entertainment.

Gosh, I’m still laughing.

WATCH IT!

Can we get a McBama or a pre-Iraq war Collin Powell please?

No?

Oh well, good luck America. And great luck to the rest of us.

Uh, um, chili is not cold, and I went to the supermarket because light travels from the sun when I yawn and then he disagreed since 1987 beyond Tom Cruise until monkey banana.

Gosh, this is so bad, it’s not even funny. Heck over at Pajamas Media you even have people wondering whether Bobby Jindal would have been a better choice.

This is so absurd.

On the other hand, this is funny.

Seriously McCain, given your not-so-young age, the least you could have done is pick a more articulate and qualified candidate for vice presidency, you know, just in case God forbid the situation arises.