Linkspam, Egypt Etc.
Feb. 3rd, 2011 08:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ajnabiehSo you may possibly have heard there is a revolution going on in Egypt?
Yeah, this has not made writing my literature review section of my dissertation any easier. Sometimes, the world is just more interesting that my work.
I spent all of yesterday going through my open tabs that I had saved "to blog about." I closed a lot of them because they're out of date. That still left me with the following ten links...and then I don't post this, and my to-link pile grows...I'm just going to throw this up here and see what happens.
Women of the Egyptian Revolution. I first saw this on Facebook, but now it's made it to Sawt al-Niswa (The Voice of Women), a feminist website affiliated with Nasawiya, a feminist group in Lebanon.
Tunisie : l'héroïsme ordinaire des femmes from Le Monde. This is a slideshow with an audiotrack that autoplays upon going to the website, so kill your sound if you don't want to hear it. My listening French has gotten rusty, so it's a smidge faster than I can fully follow on a single listen, and there isn't a transcript, but it begins by talking about how Tunisian women are different from others in the region: near-equal rates of girls and boys in school, as well as Tunisia's excellent personal status law, which is probably the most pro-woman legal code in the region. (It still has tons of problems, like every legal code ever; but it's progressive for the region, by a lot.) It then goes on to talk about how women joined in the streets to support democracy, liberty, and dignity.
Collected position papers of women in Egypt, Tunisia (and the uprising countries to follow). Posted on Nasawiya; English and Arabic texts by feminists and feminist groups. The two Arabic texts are, first, a column by Nawal ElSaadawi, and, second, a bayan (pamphlet) from the Association Tunisienne des femmes democrates. I'll try to work on an English translation for that one, but I'm away from my dictionaries at the moment, so no promises--but it's called "Statement in Support of Social Justice."
Kufiyas in the Egyptian Intifada - Ted Swedenberg comments on the way the kufiya, a Palestinian (and occasionally Jordanian) garment, is making an appearance in Egypt. Key quote: "What do they signify? Solidarity with Palestinians? The influence of Western hipster fashion? A resurgence of secular pan-Arab identity, that several observers have noted? I think it's all three, and probably others that I can't think of right now."
The Poetry of Revolt.. A lovely essay thatkass linked me to, talking about the way poetry is made during revolutionary moments, and what functions it serves.
The Colorless Revolution. Notes written by an American (I think) political science graduate student who was in Cairo when things started going down; these are hir notes written while still in the country, posted now that ze's out of it and has access to the internet. Insightful commentary. I'm also thinking of it because I know folks in a similar position; I hadn't heard from either when I read this, and it was, oddly, a relief, even though this isn't someone I know (I think). (One's evacuated, and the other is staying right now, but is in contact with folks, so we at least know ze's OK.)
President Obama: Here is Your Game Changer. One of about a bazillion similar columns that American political scientists have written about US foreign policy and Egypt. I like this version for sentimental reasons: Ellen Lust was my undergraduate advisor, and Amaney Jamal does really great work in Arab-American studies as well as good work on political behavior in the Middle East.
Gimme Shelter - Prosecuting Hosni Mubarak. One of my biggest questions at the moment is what sort of end game happens: procedurally, once Mubarak is out, who comes to power, and what happens? This is the other side of that: what happens to Mubarak himself?
The Right-Wing Nut's Guide to Egypt. Gawker has an amazing compendium of things said by right-wing folks about Egypt. It is infuriating. Also, if my students wrote half of those sentences they would get squiggly lines under them and notations like "This sentence is unclear, and I have trouble following it."
The "Anderson Cooper Effect" on American TV Reporting from Cairo. A surprisingly hopeful article about what it means that mainstream American TV news has sent people to Cairo: the violence against protesters yesterday was read, not incorrectly, as state violence, not rioting. There is something to be said that first-hand experience, even from folks without much experience in the specifics of the place or the context of it, can't be denied.
And I'm putting this above the cut, because I think (?) I have readers involved in fakenews fandom: Does anybody know where I can get screencaps of Christiane Aman-purr from last night's Colbert? Because I need that icon like yesterday. (For those who don't watch it: he had a cat try to predict the outcome of the Egyptian revolution, a la that octupus that predicted the World Cup. It went like you would think asking a cat to do something on national TV went.)
Yeah, this has not made writing my literature review section of my dissertation any easier. Sometimes, the world is just more interesting that my work.
I spent all of yesterday going through my open tabs that I had saved "to blog about." I closed a lot of them because they're out of date. That still left me with the following ten links...and then I don't post this, and my to-link pile grows...I'm just going to throw this up here and see what happens.
Women of the Egyptian Revolution. I first saw this on Facebook, but now it's made it to Sawt al-Niswa (The Voice of Women), a feminist website affiliated with Nasawiya, a feminist group in Lebanon.
Tunisie : l'héroïsme ordinaire des femmes from Le Monde. This is a slideshow with an audiotrack that autoplays upon going to the website, so kill your sound if you don't want to hear it. My listening French has gotten rusty, so it's a smidge faster than I can fully follow on a single listen, and there isn't a transcript, but it begins by talking about how Tunisian women are different from others in the region: near-equal rates of girls and boys in school, as well as Tunisia's excellent personal status law, which is probably the most pro-woman legal code in the region. (It still has tons of problems, like every legal code ever; but it's progressive for the region, by a lot.) It then goes on to talk about how women joined in the streets to support democracy, liberty, and dignity.
Collected position papers of women in Egypt, Tunisia (and the uprising countries to follow). Posted on Nasawiya; English and Arabic texts by feminists and feminist groups. The two Arabic texts are, first, a column by Nawal ElSaadawi, and, second, a bayan (pamphlet) from the Association Tunisienne des femmes democrates. I'll try to work on an English translation for that one, but I'm away from my dictionaries at the moment, so no promises--but it's called "Statement in Support of Social Justice."
Kufiyas in the Egyptian Intifada - Ted Swedenberg comments on the way the kufiya, a Palestinian (and occasionally Jordanian) garment, is making an appearance in Egypt. Key quote: "What do they signify? Solidarity with Palestinians? The influence of Western hipster fashion? A resurgence of secular pan-Arab identity, that several observers have noted? I think it's all three, and probably others that I can't think of right now."
The Poetry of Revolt.. A lovely essay that
kass linked me to, talking about the way poetry is made during revolutionary moments, and what functions it serves.The Colorless Revolution. Notes written by an American (I think) political science graduate student who was in Cairo when things started going down; these are hir notes written while still in the country, posted now that ze's out of it and has access to the internet. Insightful commentary. I'm also thinking of it because I know folks in a similar position; I hadn't heard from either when I read this, and it was, oddly, a relief, even though this isn't someone I know (I think). (One's evacuated, and the other is staying right now, but is in contact with folks, so we at least know ze's OK.)
President Obama: Here is Your Game Changer. One of about a bazillion similar columns that American political scientists have written about US foreign policy and Egypt. I like this version for sentimental reasons: Ellen Lust was my undergraduate advisor, and Amaney Jamal does really great work in Arab-American studies as well as good work on political behavior in the Middle East.
Gimme Shelter - Prosecuting Hosni Mubarak. One of my biggest questions at the moment is what sort of end game happens: procedurally, once Mubarak is out, who comes to power, and what happens? This is the other side of that: what happens to Mubarak himself?
The Right-Wing Nut's Guide to Egypt. Gawker has an amazing compendium of things said by right-wing folks about Egypt. It is infuriating. Also, if my students wrote half of those sentences they would get squiggly lines under them and notations like "This sentence is unclear, and I have trouble following it."
The "Anderson Cooper Effect" on American TV Reporting from Cairo. A surprisingly hopeful article about what it means that mainstream American TV news has sent people to Cairo: the violence against protesters yesterday was read, not incorrectly, as state violence, not rioting. There is something to be said that first-hand experience, even from folks without much experience in the specifics of the place or the context of it, can't be denied.
And I'm putting this above the cut, because I think (?) I have readers involved in fakenews fandom: Does anybody know where I can get screencaps of Christiane Aman-purr from last night's Colbert? Because I need that icon like yesterday. (For those who don't watch it: he had a cat try to predict the outcome of the Egyptian revolution, a la that octupus that predicted the World Cup. It went like you would think asking a cat to do something on national TV went.)