The Egyptian Twitter Revolution?

Much has been written about social media’s role in the Arab spring. Few but the most hardline technodeterminists genuinely believe the existence of Twitter, Facebook and the like are solely responsible for the mass uprisings.

However,  a view persists that these tools played a fundamental role. Several news sources, the BBC and Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) among them, proclaimed social media’s impact in Tunisia’s so-called Jasmine revolution.

Let’s look at a couple of facts:

- Twitter activity abou the Jasmine uprising peaked on 15th January 2011 - the day after Ben Ali was deposed and a full three weeks after the protests began. The peak broadly correlates with Western Media’s interest in the Tunisian uprising. Stats here.

- The Sidibouzid hashtag that CPJ flags up as being critical in the revolution was only created on 27th December 2010, ten days after Mohammed Bouazizi set fire to himself and the day the protests reached the capital, Tunis.

Both these facts suggest there was no Twitter revolution in Tunisia. It was utilised primarily as a broadcast medium for westerners to follow events.

But what about Facebook?

This is rather more difficult to assess as Facebook does not make its data public. Tangential evidence suggests Facebook did play a significant part.

In 2008 there was another uprising in Tunisia in the mining town of Gafsa. Causes were similar - lack of employment and frustration at the corrupt regime. With an election pending Ben Ali took no chances, shutting down Facebook and sending in his forces. And the strategy worked. Ben Ali crushed the uprising and went on to win the election.

So what was the key difference?

In 2008 there were 28,000 Facebook users in Tunisia; in 2010 the were 2 million. By shutting down Facebook in 2010 Ben Ali risked politicising a fifth of his population, many of whom may have been apolitical to that point. However, by allowing users to post emotive videos, share links and formulate strategy online he allowed what he sought to avoid; apolitical citizens being politicised.

The sheer volume of Facebook users put Ben Ali in an impossible position. And this may indeed be social media’s strength - its latent potentiality. The vast majority of content being passed around on social media is in no way political but the dense interconnectivity of social media facilitates means messages can and do spread quickly if the offline environment creates the appetite for protest.

David Cameron’s call to ban social media during riots fell into the same trap. Such a move would irritate people who previously had no reason to protest, likely swelling the numbers involved in any uprising. In this sense, social media’s stength may well be in its numbers.

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It is commonly accepted that a basic tenet of democratic society is the ability of its citizens hold those in power to account. Many people’s first engagement with doing so will be the simple act of collecting petitions in the street.

Yet this basic form of democratic engagement is gradually being made illegal. As shopping streets are increasingly owned by private companies, landowners are using the laws of trespass to ban any activity on their property that does not make them a profit.

For example, from 2006 - 2008, People & Planet ran a campaign asking Topshop to guarantee that no forced child labour is used in the production of their garments, following a spate of reports showing that clothes made from cotton picked by child labour in Uzbekistan was being sold in the UK.

Reasonably enough, small groups of students gathered outside Topshops to politely gather petitions from customers. When shops were situated on the high street, this passed without incident. When shops were part of shopping centre complexes, students were forced out, sometimes physically, by private security.

Therefore, the recently released video (above) of a group of campaigners being ejected from Birmingham Bullring shopping centre after just 38 seconds of attempting to collect petitions was unsurprising, but no less shocking. So too the stories circulating the internet of the library assistants outside their workplace being moved on by Westfield heavies, the Jubilee Debt Campaign activists requested to move a street stall 40 centimetres forward and countless others.

However now there is something that can be done about it. The government has announced a Freedom (Great Repeal) Bill in their legislative programme, which, amongst other things, promises to restore the right to campaign.

People & Planet is supporting a petition, hosted by 38degrees.org.uk for the inclusion in the Freedom Bill of a legal right to protest in areas which are freely open to the public but which are privately owned, such as the walkways of shopping centres.

Please do sign the petition and join the campaign for the right to campaign

OUR BASIC HUMAN RIGHT IS FREEDOM, freedom of expression and choice without discrimination. We punish and invade impoverish and Middle Eastern countries who do not obey these rights, yet in a growing number of European world powers have forgotten such rights.  French Muslim women are now forbidden to wear the Burqa with anti-Burqa campaigns reaching Belgium, Italy and Spain. Even here there is talk of such right being abolished for some Muslim women. You would be wrong to think such view in recent days was from the BNP leader Nick Griffen. In fact it came from our coalition government by Conservative MP Phillip Hollobone who expressed support for similar measures in this country.

After all, we have been through has a society, war have after war trying to win equality for those oppressed have we just merely given up to the pressure of standing up to what is right or wrong. Some would state that this due to globalisation that has caused an east and west divide. This has lead to us becoming “Islamophobic” like in societies before when we were all anti-black and anti-Jewish? This is something I highly doubt.  Or maybe it could be considered that due to globalisation there is a crisis of national identity. What does seem likely considering in Britain if you are patriotic you’re stereotyped to be skinhead and a member of the BNP party?

Others clearly state that it is just a human mechanism to target a small minority in society when things go wrong like Hitler did with the Jews. As in France there are only 2,000 women who actually wear the Burqa.  One can suggest that this is highly plausible because Islam is an easy card play like the Jewish faith was in the 1930s.  This can be further emphasised by the black mugging in Britain during the 1970’s and 1980’s because of a recession there was inner city unrest and strikes, the mugging problem was amplified by the government even though it was only small scale. This distracted the British public of wider social issues as many called for tougher immigration security. This may sound familiar and credible as many argue that this is exactly what is happening in France currently.   They have already seen inner city unrest and large scale riots and with the French government preparing further harsh pension cuts, it can be seen as winning political strategy to bring about anti-Burqa laws. Also it is curious to note that the Burqa ban in Belgium is the only thing the Belgium government can decided on since it has been unable to form a government or even deal with the financial crisis.

In France like many other European countries Muslim women are the poorest in society with many deluding themselves to believe this is the result of the Burqa, However, many women who wear the Burqa wear it by choice and feel liberated. In Egypt there is an increasing number of female intellectuals’ who are choosing to wear the Burqa.  Personally, I have not tried it but should the French government be helping these women instead of taking away their freedom of choice away.

There is always going to be mixed feeling towards the Burqa but as a diverse society should we be more excepting or should there be a limit on choice and freedom.

In today’s society we have merely become a generation that believes that females should stay young forever with consent bombardment by both broadcasting and print media for anti-ageing creams, lotions and tips. Some-one whom hasn’t conformed to such obsession is Julie Andrews.

Julie Andrews is well known for her lead roles as Maria in the Sound of Music and Mary Poppins. Julie Andrews has certainly climbed every mountain; an on screen legend and a key inspiration for me and many others whom have been fans for decades. Like many other stars of the era she has merely become a larger and life representation of an array of different contemporary clinches. For some she is a symbol of old fashioned goody-goody showbiz, for others she represents a lost generation of virtue and kindness, then again for quite a few she is a much-loved gay icon. For me she is a glamorous, glorious and graceful lady whom made me love musicals.

She has now become a representation of something altogether less glamorous and glorious with the media tarnish her long anticipated comeback; an evening with Julie Andrews. The Sunday Telegraph called it a “theatrically tragic spectacle”. The Guardian found it “creaky” and “cheesy”, dismissing the second half as “dismayingly indulgent”. Meanwhile, London’s Evening Standard conceded the veteran diva’s “hunger to perform was certainly admirable, but the musical rations were nowhere near satisfying”. The Daily Mirror quipped “How do you solve a problem like getting your money back after a Julie Andrews concert?”

In all fairness, what else could they expect? Julie Andrews never concealed her on going voice problems that was damaged by an operation 13 years to remove a polyp from her vocal cords and was carefully entitled as an ‘An Evening with Julie Andrews’ and that’s what they got.

One can suggest that this is merely the society we live in today a world of fantasy. Ageing women in the media spot light are expected to stay young forever with perfect hair shiny, smooth skins and trim figures such as Terri Hatcher. Whereas male mature stars like Bob Dylan, Bruce Forsyth and Meatloaf are allowed to forget words, wheeze, moan and mime through performances but women stars like Julie Andrews are expected to remain clear-voiced as they were 50 years ago.

The years of the real old glamorous showbiz were we would applaud real; ageing women and talented actress with the likes of Julie Andrews, Audrey Hepburn, and Kate Winslet have been destroyed. We are now a spectacular society that likes to see fake naked girls win Oscars.

Our friends in the US from United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) have begun a new campaign demanding the infamous worker right abuser Nike ‘Just Pay It’. Nike currently owe 1,800 workers $2.2 million in severance payments and without jobs these workers are in need of food and money. Associated Press also report that owners of the factory pocketed payments to the Honduras’s national health care system, costing workers their health insurance.

However the student fightback in the US has already had a small but significant success with the Worker Rights Consortium affiliated University of Wisconsin ending contracts with Nike in solidarity with workers. This makes the university the first in history to stand up to Nike and make a clear demand that human rights are respected, an action which USAS hope will echo throughout the sector and encourage other universities to cut.

This small victory highlights the importance of the Worker Rights Consortium and the power a affiliated university can have in protecting human rights within its supply chain. Find out more about the Worker Rights Consortium and how you can get your university to affiliate.

The Worker Rights Consortium have also recently created a UK specific Q&A document to help answer any questions

The upcoming election to many is a premade decision: the Tories are going to come in because people are sick of Labour – which is all rather odd when you think that we’re going through a recession and usually that means a greater need for social security (and hence a shift to the left). Then again, it’s not like Labour are much to the left considering the passing of the Digital Economy Bill and the National Insurance hikes. Add that to the simple fact that the Liberal Democrats don’t really know which side of the spectrum they’re standing at (yes on green issues, no on immigration issues, etc) – and you’ve got yourself in massive conundrum. Or at least so in a country where winning an election is all about first-past-the-post and thus silences the smaller parties.

However, all conundrums have a window of opportunity to create the change people actually want to see – and on 6th May, we may begin to see the rise of a much smaller party who we won’t have to campaign against to create the change we want to see. In three major constituencies, the Green Party (which believes in all the things that us People and Planetters campaign for) has an opportunity to become MPs in Westminister: in Brighton, Caroline Lucas; in Lewisham, Darren Johnson; and in Norwich, Adrian Ramsay. These gains are not born out of a political system in crisis, but also because people do not want to waste their vote by voting for parties that do not represent their views.

The time for only voting for either two (or three) major parties is over. As students, none of them represent what we need right now:

• fair and affordable education,
• international justice,
• freedoms of speech/press/expression,
• equality & equity,
• improved national public services,
• increasing employment,
• fairer tax systems,
• cheaper and more reliable public transport, etc.

All of these are policies that the Greens are representing with fairer national and international economics which put people and sustainability before profit. It is sad that our generation sees politics as the epitome of evil and distrusts every politician. Political support is a predominant reason (but not the only one) as to why so many social reforms have occurred in the past, including the right to form unions, the right to vote, and the emancipation of slavery.

We are young, and we are those who can still have hope. We campaign and are members of People & Planet because we care and because we think that change is possible. Let us not lose hope. Let us make a political movement and shout out loud our concerns. The Green Party represents what we are as a generation of those looking for change. Thus I urge you - vote for (and join) the Greens.

Alternatively, have a look at the main election website (which is actually rather cool) .

This post was initially posted on AcaciaThorns (http://www.acaciathorns.net)

Like most eighteen year olds I am waiting for my A-level exam results. There is so much anticipation and worry of waiting for exam results, but the most worrying thing is not if I have done enough, well maybe part of it, but it is the exam grade boundaries because the labour government are trying to cut down on people gaining A/B’s because A-level’s have become ‘too easy’. Tell that to any student “Your grade A or B is not worth as much because it is so easy to get that grade.” Yeah right. How much effort and tears are put into A-levels hoping you get the grade? In any case A-levels are getting more difficult. (more…)

Here is the link of the news: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8551122.stm

Actually it was two adults, who were parents of a South Korean baby!

The parents (father: 41 years old, mother: 25 years old) lost their jobs earlier and were then addicted to an online game on raising a virtual baby, while their real baby was dead by prolonged malnutrition! (more…)

Getting your University signed up to the Workers’ Rights Consortium is a issue that can unite students across campus, from all backgrounds and all groups, as Deborah Bazeley a second year Political Science student, women’s rights activist and women’s association member said at the protest “I have never seen such a diverse range of people come together on one issue in a fight against discrimination”, The Workers’ Rights Consortium is not just about ending sweatshops and child labour  it protects against all forms of discrimination against workers; gender, race, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, nationality, political opinion, or social or ethnic origin and encourages and protects via solidarity, liberation movements.

For example the workers’ rights consortium recently successfully intervened on behalf of 5 women from Bangladesh ,who formed the countries first women led trade union, when they were fired for doing so.

In the weeks preceding the action people and planet members toured around all groups on campus building up momentum, there is no substitute for getting out there and talking, FB events only do so much!

Letters to Vice chancellor where written by all the liberation groups; the women’s association, disabled students association, LGBTQ association, Black and ethnic minorities association, letters were written by human rights groups like the UNA, by religious groups like the Jewish society and Islamic society and by sports groups who are the major consumers of garments on campus.

Tamour Khan who is doing engineering masters at the University of Birmingham and a committee member of Birmingham university Islamic society said “that students are increasingly focusing their efforts in campaigning for a just human rights solution to some of the most destitute and depressing circumstances”.

Getting about, talking to groups, winning them over, letting them win over their membership and then getting them to actively deal with the issue by getting them to write a letter to the university really engages them and their membership. Which transfers to base of support on campus that can is worth 1000 people on a facebook group, it’s an odd thing to have heard students you have never met talking about the protest and getting their friends to support the workers’ rights consortium, but after all  “the strength of a movement is its long tail“.

On Tuesday the 2nd of march representatives from 10 student groups went and delivered letters, as a delegation to the vice chancellor (pictures hopefully up soon), on Wednesday march 3rd a diverse group of students railed naked on campus in support of the Workers’ Rights Consortium, in the evening on march 3rd the guilds president in a meeting with the vice chancellor expressed the students unions support and urged him to sign the university up and delivered him pictures of the naked action.

Already more action is planed; to keep up momentum for campaign, women’s rights activists on campus are preparing a petition of T-shirts to hand him on international women’s day and, after all women make up 90% of sweatshop labour, other groups have more in the pipeline.

keep checkin back, I’m collecting e- copies of the letters written by the student groups to post up on buy right resource page, try and get your groups to write similar letters.

Meanwhile check out the photos of the naked army, who braved the wintery march cold for workers rights.

check out the guys on the right, behind our massive “naked” petition which was signed by students from all the different groups taking part.

It looks like science doesn’t have all the answers, but whoever said it did?

Since the release of private emails between climate scientists at the University of East Anglia, the climate change sceptics have been enjoying a renaissance. Apocalypse-predicting moralists have been covering up inconvenient findings and now the empirical basis of their research, and of the arguments for climate change, have been undermined. (more…)