This post is due by Tuesday, March 18 @ midnight for full credit.
Email late posts to rwilliamsATchamplain.edu for partial credit.
Read the assigned chapters above, and then:
1. Provide 3 SPECIFIC observations about the Arab Spring you learned from EACH chapter of our book, using 2-3 sentences combining the book and your own IYOW analysis.
2. Finally, ask ONE specific question you have of the Arab Spring after completing our reading.
Bread Oil and Jobs.
ReplyDelete1.Protest in North Africa had economic roots. This happened as in the case of Tunisia. Citizens wanted better services.
2.UAE and Saudi Arabia prepared for uncertainties from the revolutions. They placed structures to quell any uprising. This entailed institutional reforms.
3.The uprising led to the formulation of privatization policies in Arabs nations. A good case was in morocco and UAE. It was aimed to attract investments.
The media revolution
1.Media revolution helped empower civil society’s movements. This formed the bedrock of democracy. More information reached the interest groups.
2.Arrival of satellite television broke the taboos in most Arab nations. This was realized in Yemen, Egypt and Syria. Citizens could have diversified information sources.
3.Creation of a Facebook page by political activists brought change. It helped in transforming strikes for better working conditions and remuneration in Egypt in 2008. This was a move to mobile workers.
Question
•Do you think privatization policies are good idea for Morocco and UAE? Why
Chapter 2
ReplyDelete1. Between 2006 and 2009 Tunisia and Egypt received more foreign investment than they did in the 15 years between 1990 and 2005. Except this money wasn’t distributed to those who needed it most, instead the money ended up in the hands of the regime, or those closely tied to the regime (27).
2. Young Arabs were unable to reap the benefits of their governments’ job creation because most employers favored older workers or immigrants. In Jordan 63% of the 55,000 available jobs went to foreign workers (36).
3. The tourist industry was seemingly unaffected by all the turmoil happening in the greater Arab World. Tunisia and Egypt were able to boast their low-cost package to European travelers. These countries were able to maintain low tourism costs while housing and other necessities were unaffordable to most of their citizens (40).
Chapter 3
1. “The first Arab Human Development Report of 2002 had found fewer internet users in the Arab world than in sub-Saharan Africa, but that digital divide had narrowed sharply in the decade before the uprising, connecting people in new and unpredictable ways.” New technology enabled a growing population to speak their minds in a way they were previously unable to (53).
2. The use of social media has been overemphasized when talking about the Arab Spring. In Egypt 5.5% of the population used Facebook, and only 1/4th used the Internet. Social media was used successfully to rally the citizens together, but it also reached a narrower audience than word of mouth (54).
3. The wave of action started in 2005 in Lebanon. Mohammed Bouazizi setting himself on fire was the spark that the Arab world needed (58-59).
Question: If the percentage of citizens in the Arab world is so low why was social media so heavily emphasized as the reason for the Arab Spring?
Chapter 2:
ReplyDelete- “Laws are meant to be broken.” In order to get over such things as bribery in these countries there has to be a raise in tax rates and wages in order to allow enough money to make improvements. The problem being there is no incentives for those making the rules to do such a thing.
- Although these Arab countries are working hard to get out of this dictatorship there is a lack of loyalty to the state. In order to avoid corruption there needs to be loyalty in order to form connections such as communities in order to advance toward a participatory type of government. Failure to do so could lead to civil war and a new dictator.
- The word bittiste means a young urban dweller spending too much time leaning against a wall because he has no job and nothing else to do. This is the main reason these people are upset they are tired of leaning against a wall in a society where the youth have the capability of doing work but the society doesn’t have jobs for them. One could only imagine the frustration that comes with this type of problem when we Americans live in a society where if you wanted to you could find a job, maybe not your ideal job but a job nonetheless.
Chapter 3:
- In 2008 a Facebook page set up by Esraa Abdel Fattah took a strike for better working conditions and pay into a political crisis. The strike only becoming partially successful the big win was the realization that social media had a power role in organizing.
- The spread of Facebook and Twitter allows people who would otherwise never interact connect through their common interests. This is primarily why the youth is so attached to these social media websites because there is so much we can do. As well this stuff can be accessed anywhere and the increased amount of smartphones now a days it is too easy to log on and start browsing.
- 61% of Arabs under 30 there were high expectations for these people. Being that there was this new generation that had delayed marriage in favor of college, delayed having a child for a career, and overall better lives than their parents. This is where the activism is present in the youth who know more and are better thinkers than their elders, this is why they know they have to uprise.
Question: How can a Country survive when all the people who are so called brilliant also being called out for leaning against the wall because they have nothing else to do?
Chapter 2
ReplyDelete1. Economics and politics go hand in hand in revolutions, and usually both play key roles.
2. The promise of bread, which can be interpreted as a symbolism for wealth and comfort, pops up in many historical revolutions, and the ones in the Arab world are no exception.
3. While oil-rich nations were able to reap the benefits of western investors, and allowing them to begin in turn investing on agriculture land in poor nations, these said poor nations saw very little economic benefit from this.
Chapter 3
1. Despite the government of multiple Middle-Eastern countries deeming mobile phones illegal, protesters and activists used them widely to film government misdeeds.
2. This wide spread usage of social media sites and mobile technology helped shrink the Arab world, metaphorically. Communications could be made in an instant through these technologies.
3. Since this generation has a vast amount of youth (about 50% of the Arab world is under 25 years old), there are millions who actively use social media and are able to mass communicate revolutionary ideas under the noses of their governments.
1.
ReplyDelete-”Every revolution has its economic root, through they are often inseparable from the politics.” This quote nails the entire point of the Arab Spring. The citizens in Egypt, Tunsia and Syria just wish to be equal treated. The divide between the rich and the poor and caused the citizens to vent and spread their anger onto the streets.
-It is interesting to read that though oil spike helped the oil rich countries, the benefits they were reaping had been hurting the less fortunate ones. And because of this, countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were not affected by the bread shortages and jobless rates that were facing Egypt and Tunisia.
-Then there is the United Emirates and it’s city Dubai. Though they are not oil rich, their wise decision on making Dubia an investment friendly place has allowed them to also not be affected economic downturn.
2.
-The rise of social media allowed the Arab Spring to spread the way that it did. No one could have known just how much of a critical tool social media was to the protests. It allowed them organize, and to trick the government sensors.
-It is still amazes me just how much the totalitarian states vastly underestimated social media's role. By either shutting it down or restricting it, the citizens of their countries were forced to vent their frustrations on the streets. It is the soul reason why Mubarak’s regime had fallen.
-The invention of Al-Jazeera’s was a critical tool. Since there was no way for the governments to control the news site, this allowed them to report on the terrible injustices that countries like Egypt, Syria, and Tunisia were placing on their people.
Question: What was the purpose of shutting down the internet and social media? Didn’t they know that was the only thing sparing them from a complete chaos?
Chapter 2:
ReplyDelete1. I was surprised at how youth unemployment and income equality were no worse in Arab countries than they were in parts of Europe. Arabs were helpless to change their conditions because unlike people in Europe, Arabs could not realistically vote out their governments. Government privatizations benefited the ruling class at the expense of ordinary people who were locked out of job markets (26).
2. “Soft states” are countries dominated by powerful interests that exploit the power of the state or government to serve their own interests rather than the interests of their citizens (30). Oil is such a desired resource for the entire world and this is one way how Arab governments and leaders gain their riches.
3. Income distribution is far more unequal in the United States than in most Arab countries. The key difference in the Arab world is the combination of economic hopelessness with political powerlessness (42). People in Western countries have a sense of hope that things can always get better by expressing their wants to their governments and know that they will not be arrested. Arabs know they cannot believe in such thoughts which have fuelled their frustration.
Chapter 3:
1. A 2010 opinion poll found that 85% of Arabs relied on the television for their news, and a remarkable 78% listed Al-Jazeera as either their first or second choice for international news (50). I almost forgot about the power television can have on people. Opinions are always being voiced on television and I feel like when it comes to the Arab Spring most people talk about using the internet and social media to get their message across because it is more effective.
2. I was caught off guard at how little amount of Facebook users there were right before the revolutions began. In Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring, 17.6% of the population used Facebook (55). This goes to show that the combination of many social media outlets and technologies made the protests successful.
3. 61% of Arabs are under the age of 30 which was a huge reason for the demand for change (57). This generation is technologically savvy, literate, and better educated than generation before them. Their minds have been introduced to a lot more democratic ideals through technology which gave them the itch to go out and demand what they want.
Question: Was it the sense of democratization that came from using technology and social media outlets the leading cause for Arabs to get out in the streets and voice their complaints?
Chapter 2
ReplyDelete• The amount if unemployment there was during the Arab Spring and Europe. But the difference is, Europeans actually had a voice in most countries and had better opportunities than citizens in the Arab Spring countries.
• It was interesting to see that between 2006-2009 Tunisia and Egypt receive a lot of foreign investment but due to corruption the money never got to the people that needed the most.
• Also seeing how many of the countries were promised “bread”, which for the Arabs means wealth and hope was interesting to see how the little things mean so much for them.
Chapter 3
• Learning about how 85% of Arabs relied on TV for their news was fascinating to learn because sometimes the “news” on TV can be adjusted to capture certain angles to get people going.
• Government had banned the use of mobile phones but activist and people still used them to capture the brutally they lived and as evidence of what was happening during their protest.
• The impact that Al Jazeera had was huge into the Arab Spring movement. This tool gave real news that the government couldn’t remove or had control over. This gave a sense to people all over the world of what was happening in the Arab Spring countries.
Where would the Arab Spring be if Al Jazeera wasn’t created?
Ch2
ReplyDelete1. Unlike the people in other European countries, most of the Arabs were helpless to change their condition. They could not criticize their policies in the media and in many cases, could do very little to emigrate to the Gulf or to the West (26). Thinking about this is such a cultural difference, trying to conceptualize that you have next to no say, and no real way out is something that just feels so off and difficult to grasp.
2. The worsening economies in the Middle East played a very large roll in the revolutions which occurred, after so much economic turmoil the citizens finally had enough, we see how the two, economy and revolutions go hand and hand here.
3. The boom in oil-rich countries had created hundred of thousands of jobs for Egyptians, Syrians, Moroccans, Lebanese or Jordanians, work that the Emirates, Saudis or Qataris were either unwilling, unqualified or insufficiently numerous to do.
Ch3
1. The arrival of satellite TV in the Arabic language took the region by storm, boosting access to information, breaking taboos, bringing the Arab world closer together. This powered a whole new industry of writers, actors, directors, and producers together. A new generation rose with the internet, satellite TV was a large part of the cultural revolution leading up to 2011 (46).
2. When satellite TV arrived in the 1990s this finally gave the people a choice, now they could finally watch programs from other nations offering both a mix to Arabic entertainment and news from other cultures.
3. In 2011 Qaism invited two journalists to his show to discuss whether they felt that citizens should be able to criticize their rulers, this vote came out to 86% in support of being able to criticize the rulers. They then talked about how it has become easier to insult a god or holy figure than it was to insult someone in political power. I find it very ironic that such a religious nation something like this could happen, politicians being placed on a higher level than a holy figure (49-50).
Question
- Would this revolution be any different if religion was not involved in the country as much as it is / what would be different without religion?
Email wouldn't go through.
ReplyDeleteHey! I could have sworn I did this before but I guess I forgot. I got pretty distracted by my other classes. Here's my Chapter 2 and 3 blog post.
Chapter 2.
1.) I thought it was interesting that Dubai doesn't have a very large oil output. Given it's scale and grand buildings I figured it would be the richest of the oil rich cities.
2) I was not surprised to learn that the governments weren't doing much for the lower and middle class citizens in their care.
3) The ruling party of Dubai made smart investments in technology and cars to keep their city profitable.
Chapter 3.
1.)The internet being heavily restricted is one of the worst ways to control your people.
2) Knowing this I was not surprised that the numbers of facebook users in some arab spring countries was as low as 5%
3) It's a good thing that the police didn't see the activists as a threat. This really helped everyone organize over time and eventually led to the facebook revolution.
How much longer would the Arab Spring have taken to occur if the facebook group was never formed? Would it have happened at all?
Fine questions, Arab Spring'ers, and reflections, too.
ReplyDeleteLet's connect the dots in class,
Dr. W
Ch 2
ReplyDelete(1) It seems that in any great revolution bread is the first thing to alert or inspire individuals. “Every revolution has its economic roots, though they are often inseparable from politics.” The similarities to Lenin’s promises during the Russian revolution also had to do with giving people back land, bread, and peace.
(2) From what I can tell it is not just the abusive regime we have to blame for the problems leading up to the Arab Spring. It is just as much if not more the responsibilities of the foreign markets that chose to continue this stingy business that repressed citizens and lined their pockets. “Larger foreign firms seeking to enter new markets naturally look for powerful local partners with the financial clout and political connections to drive sales and cut through red tape.
(3) It makes sense that the youth would be the ones to lead this revolution. Considering they seemed to be the most effected with the lack of available jobs and could see their government doing nothing to help correct the issue. This left them with the only option to do something and rise up. “The overall jobless rate varies from around 10 percent to 20 per cent across the region, depending on whose figures you believe, but for those between 15 and 30 years of age, it is far higher”.
Ch 3
(1) The media has been said to have been the most lucrative part of the Arab Spring. Not only was it the best way to share exactly what was being done in the countries that were suffering from regime abuse and a perfect anti propaganda tool. It was also a great way to organize, it allowed for coordinated peaceful stands against the oppressive issues in each country.
(2) It is interesting to learn about how Assad had come to power, I don’t know why but I expected it to be more of a tactical move. However, this doesn’t seem to be the case, it seemed to me to be more of a somewhat accident. Whether this was a manipulated accident I can’t be sure.
(3) The worst choice that this regime made was taking away the social media. Even though it was helping to inspire individuals to find out more the regime did the worst thing by shutting it down all together. This made people leave their homes, in turn creating a much larger movement.
Chapter 2
ReplyDelete1.) “The majority, with nowhere to go, watched with growing frustration as the gap between rich and poor widened and as government privatizations appeared to benefit the ruling elites at the expense of ordinary people who were locked out of job markets and sometimes unable even to pay for a wedding” – (page 26) – this sounds somewhat similar to what is happening in the US. The gap between the 1% and the 99% keeps increasing and those who struggle can’t seem to catch a break. The difference is the mindset we have. The only difference is, that with the United States, we look at it as us doing it to ourselves and in the Arab Spring countries, the government had a large role to play in the whole gap, which isn’t untrue.
2.) Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashed Al Maktoum, led something of a witch –hunt against corruption in government-owned developers and financial firms in the wake of the property market collapse in 2009.” This was in response to a high-level corruption scandal dealing with the Economic and Social Development Fund, “where senior mangers were siphoning millions in illegal commissions.” (page 28-29) – I found this rather interesting because here we have a ruler, the sheikh, who is fighting against corruption. Perhaps because it might have been affecting him.
3.) The example of an opaque and inefficianet system they gave sounds a lot like what is probably going on, or was probably going on in places like Egypt, Yemen, and Tunisia. “more or less everyone is forced to commit a crime because the laws are ‘there to be broken’. If you aren’t breaking them, so the reasoning goes, then someone else is. (page 31) (example on page 30)
Chapter 3
1.) It was interesting to read that “Al-Jazeera was the only foreign television station with a correspondent based in the country. – This is interesting because no other news agency, corporation, and the like would cover it
2.) On page 53, the book goes into how it 2008, Facebook was used to create a political crisis regarding better pay and conditions for a job. This was somewhat monumental, since it showed “young Egyptian activists of the powerful role that new media technologies could play, not just in disseminating their message, but in organizing action and forming instant networks that rallied thousands of people around a single cause.” – Hence the 2011 uprisings and Wael Ghonim.
3.) Again, the youth, an astounding 61 percent of Arabs who were under 30, and put off life for schooling, benefited greatly to this boom in recent years.” – page 57
Would the 2011 revolution and the impact that Wael Ghonim had, have been as effective had the 2008 event with the woman using Facebook not taken place?
Chapter 2
ReplyDelete1. “… Tunisia and Egypt, which both recived more foreign investment in the three years between 2006 and 2009 than in the 15 year between 1990 and 2005.” However, any positive effects were diluted by regimes that kept the money for themselves and close relatives. (27)
2. “In virtually every country in the region, 15 – to 30-year-olds made up more than half of the unemployed population and represented a dangerous hotbed of resentment.” This is shown by the fact that on 29 percent of Egyptians thought their government maximized the potential of youth in 2010. (36)
3. Tourism stopped growing in the region’s most known areas but it did not collapse. In fact Tunisia and Egypt benefitted for their status as low-cost package destinations that appealed to Europeans. (40)
Chapter 3
1. “The spread of satellite television in the Arabic language took the region by storm in the 1990s, boosting access to information, breaking taboos, bringing the Arab world closer together…” “Since the 1950s, controlling the media in Arab countries had been closely associated with controlling the reins of power.” This control had been broken with the advent of independent media and the internet. (46)
2. “The number of mobile subscriptions in the region quadrupled between 2005 and 2011, and soared more quickly in certain countries. In Syria, it grew by 346 times …” I don’t think that it is a coincidence that mobile subscriptions rose as tensions rose. (52)
3. “ … the rapid rise in internet use, blogs and social media over the preceding five years had already had a democratizing effect on Arab society that authoritarian governments could not roll back.” (54)
Question?
Would it be a good idea to distribute mobile technology to impoverished areas so that they have a way to communicate with their government and the world at large?
Chapter 2:
ReplyDelete• Crime is common in the Arab countries because the security forces do not enforce the law effectively and will overlook crimes when bribed. This ends up breeding more crime because when a few people get away with a crime others will follow. The long term issue with this is that these crimes rarely get reported or investigated because citizens will be reluctant to report others if they themselves have committed crimes since they fear that the government has records of those.
• Unemployment is a significant issue in the Arab world. This is because the youth bulge created a large number of students who graduate from college and begin looking for jobs. This is problematic because jobs are not being created at great enough rates to accommodate all these graduates.
• There is evidence that the rich-poor gap was widening in many Arab countries. This was partially due to the rising food and fuel prices that hurt the already bad economic situation of the poor because a large chunk of their budget was already used by food and fuel.
Chapter 3:
• The news channel Al-Jazeera is the most popular news station in the Arab world because it does not censor its broadcasts will openly air interviews of people with political views that oppose the current government.
• In the period between 2005 and 2011 the number of internet and cell phone users increased dramatically in most Arab countries. Syria with one of the largest growth rate in the number of mobile phone subscriptions had the number of subscriptions rise by 346 times. This increased the rate that information could be disseminated among friends and family.
• Prior to the Arab uprisings in 2011, Lebanese activists used similar non-violent protest methods to push the Syrian army out. However, once they had succeeded in removing the Syrian army, the country fell into infighting and after two years Syria was able to gain political influence over Lebanon without its army.
Question: If the governments in the Arab countries could have controlled satellite TV reception would that have blocked Al-Jazeera and other similar news stations?
Chapter 2
ReplyDelete1. Between 2006 and 2009 Tunisia and Egypt received more foreign investment than they did in the 15 years between 1990 and 2005. Except this money wasn’t distributed to those who needed it most, instead the money ended up in the hands of the regime, or those closely tied to the regime.
2. The uprising led to the formulation of privatization policies in Arabs nations. A good case was in morocco and UAE. It was aimed to attract investments.
3. The ruling party of Dubai made smart investments in technology and cars to keep their city profitable.
Chapter 3
1. Creation of a Facebook page by political activists brought change. It helped in transforming strikes for better working conditions and remuneration in Egypt in 2008. This was a move to mobile workers.
2. 61% of Arabs are under the age of 30 which was a huge reason for the demand for change (57). This generation is technologically savvy, literate, and better educated than generation before them. Their minds have been introduced to a lot more democratic ideals through technology which gave them the itch to go out and demand what they want.
3. 61% of Arabs are under the age of 30 which was a huge reason for the demand for change (57). This generation is technologically savvy, literate, and better educated than generation before them. Their minds have been introduced to a lot more democratic ideals through technology which gave them the itch to go out and demand what they want.
Chapter 2
ReplyDelete1.) While that wealth allowed Arab oil-exporters to provide for their citizens on a scale that as beyond the reach of governments in Tunis or Rabat, the very same boom was eroding the living standards of families in oil-poor countries around the region. The burden of food, fuel and housing costs piled pressure on household budgets that were already squeezed by unemployment and low incomes, breeding dissatisfaction that would so readily find an outlet in 2011.
2.) One important implication is that loyalty to the organized state is necessarily weak. People learn not to rely on talent or meritocracy to further their careers or business interests, but turn instead to connections within their own communities, whether defended by religion, family or geography, for the provision of jobs, favors and opportunities.
3.) Of the 2.4 million unemployed people in Egypt in 2009, over a third had university level education or better, and in the capital, Cairo, the figure was 54 per cent. An additional 7.2 million people are forecast to enter the job market between 2008 and 2020, and to create jobs for them would require annual GDP growth of at least 7 per cent a year, even before taking into account all the existing jobseekers on the market.
Chapter 3
1.) The spread of satellite television in the Arabic language took the region by storm by in the 1990s, boosting access to information, breaking taboos bringing the Arab world closer together and powering a whole new industry of writers, actors, directors and producers of dramas, comedies, game shows, music videos and newscasts. Combined with rising literacy, falling birth rates and a young generation raised on the internet and coming of age, satellite television was part of a cultural revolution that had taken place across the Arabic-speaking world in the decade leading up to 2011.
2.) Satellite TV and the internet played another role that would prove vital once the protests in Tunisia had begun. Over the previous two decades they had made the Arab world smaller, consolidating the sense of community among a group of people who shared the same language, and many of the same concerns, but lived in a vast area that stretched from the Atlantic Ocean off Morocco to the Indian Ocean off Oman.
3.) On the eve of the Arab Spring, then, a new generation was coming of age. It was a generation that had grown up watching satellite television in Arabic, with a deluge of political opinions and news spin, with television dramas and Arabic music videos, with televangelists and call-in chat shows. It was a generation that was connected by mobile phone, by BlackBerry and by iPad.
Question: What if the Arabic world didn't have access to any social media or internet access? What would of become of the Arab Spring?
Chapter 2
ReplyDelete"Most Arabs were helpless to change their condition". Unlike other countries whose citizens were experiencing economic discontent like Italy or Spain, those in the Arab world could not foresee a future which included an organic shift or change. The avenues of change that those in Europe could look toward for hope like political systems and the media, were instead tools used to perpetuate the same power structures that created such economic woes and oppressive treatment in the first place. (25)
Corrosive to the building of trust in state institutions is the idea of "Soft States". According to economist Gunner Myrdal soft states are those dominated by powerful interests " that exploit the power of the state or government to serve their own interests rather than the interests of their citizens." In these states corruption "become taken for granted" and resentment for those responsible for this corruption turns to envy. Private gain despite mass casualties becomes/ became the end game.(29)
The economic roots of the 2011 revolutions can be best understood as a "series of divides" (41) For example; the extreme divide between the rich and the poor, geographical divides, between expectations and reality.
Ch. 3
The "New Arab Public" as referred to by Marc Lynch is the concept of "The opinion and the other opinion". Once Al Jazeera launched in 1996 this allowed for the first time in the Arab media landscape for Arabs to watch commentators, activists and politicians offer conflicting point of views.
One of the greatest benefits that the social media revolution had on the 2011 uprisings was the momentum it helped to sustain and advance. On the ground labour movements were easily "crushable" and isolated, the internet generated greater awareness and wider support with unidentifiable ring leaders making it much more difficult for the government to combat.
Though social media networking enabled the quick promotion of ideas and events, as well as a platform large enough to connect multiple coalitions; it lacked the necessary cohesion between networks essential for long-lasting progress. Unlike small tight-knit networks , organizing and connecting through social media mediums prevented the establishment of grounded solidarity and cohesion developed by time and face to face interactions. (60)
Question: Is social media democratizing by its nature? What role would social media have played in the 2011 Arab revolutions had the government and older generations utilized it earlier and to the same degree which the youth ringleaders had?
Yalla - way to catch up, colleagues!
ReplyDelete