Social Networking Spurs Activism Against Repression 303
The New York Times Magazine is running a story about the rise in political activism in Egypt through sites like Facebook, which allow citizens to gather and share ideas in ways they otherwise aren't allowed. A state-of-emergency law has been active in Egypt since 1981, which, among other things, "allows the government to ban political organizations and makes it illegal for more than five people to gather without a license from the government." As affordable internet access has spread throughout the country, the government is having a much harder time keeping wraps on the ideas of dissidents. Blocking access to the sites isn't a good solution for the government, because many non-dissidents use it for mundane communications. As Harvard's Ethan Zuckerman puts it, "...doing so would alert a large group of people who they can't afford to radicalize."
Not all repression is bad repression (Score:3, Interesting)
To the extent that the ban of the Muslim Brotherhood (a theocratic group pushing for stricter religious rule) in Egypt is effective, I say "Bravo!". When people complain about political, religious, or other repression from a government, it's generally a good idea to find out what kind of group exactly is being repressed.
Re:That gets a lot done (Score:3, Interesting)
Better Translation:
The people living there, if given the freedom to decide their own fate, will almost certainly call for more violence between Israelis and Muslims, leading to decades of war, in which tens of thousands of innocent people will die. Hence, they should be deprived of such rights, just as I would be, if I openly supported the murder of innocents.
You ought to learn a thing or two about that part of the world before saying that everyone should have the right to freedom of speech and expression. If the Egyptian government collapses, things between Israel and Gaza will get really bad, really fast. Sometimes it's more important to save the lives of thousands of people, rather than let thousands of other people yell hate speech.
For repression proper look elsewhere (Score:4, Interesting)
The worst internet censorship I saw (haven't been to all the countries in the area, mind) was actually in Tunisia where bogus MSIE error pages would be thrown back at me. In firefox. Not too long after the WSIS conference in fact, to ladle the irony on. Even sites like BoingBoing was blocked, but then I can kind of understand that :) Consider also, if facebook and social networking internet-style was so effective at fostering political opposition, there's be more successful grass-roots opposition in for example Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Jordan, etc.
There's been some arrests of bloggers in Egypt, but if you watch the Egyptian blogging community it's pretty clear they can get away with far more than many other countries. Wasn't there legislation being written in Italy that bloggers were to be held up against the same laws as journos?
In any case, with internet penetration being what it is in Egypt, even a very successful digital opposition campaign will only have limited effect on a national aggregate. I wonder if the traditional coffee shop networks or SMS for that matter (if you really want something technological to tout) as a vehicle for collective social action isn't orders of magnitude more effective.
Not to rant too hard (the blogging community there sprang from the LUG I helped set up, so I got to observe in a sense), but as an experiment in citizen media the Egyptian blogging community has at the very least outdone traditional media in one respect: sensationalising. I'd be careful where I dish out my kudos, Mr. New York Times. :)
Re:Not all repression is bad repression (Score:5, Interesting)
Well I think people who are pro-abortion should be banned from running for office too! a genocides worth of children are killed every year thanks to them!!!
(I'm pro choice but this is as valid as your argument)
And people who think it's alright to murder other humans by running electricity though them after nothing more than a handful of others have decided that they've probably done something bad! People who support those things shouldn't be allowed run for office either!
And those communists! They want to take away my property! they shouldn't be allowed run for office either!
Re:Not all repression is bad repression (Score:3, Interesting)
anyone intending to create religious rule should be disqualified from being elected.
Good idea.
And while we're at it, let's ban anyone intending to restrict gay marriage. Or should we ban anyone intending to promote gay marriage?
And we should ban people who support torture, or the death penalty.
And maybe people who support raising taxes on the poor. After all, the poor need that money -- it would be torture to tax them...
I've got it! How about we ban people who want to destroy our core rights? Rights like freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, freedom of the press...
Sorry, you're disqualified from being elected. Depending on which of your posts I'm reading, perhaps you're disqualified from speaking, too.
Re:Not all repression is bad repression (Score:3, Interesting)
It's closer than you'd think - we're talking about parties that say "We will institute Sharia if elected". I suggest you read about the Muslim Brotherhood.
Our tradition of debate to settle matters would not work everywhere - when you have a number of deeply religious, radicalised members of a genocidal or theocratic party, there's very little you can say to them to get many of them to change their mind. Their ideas are not usually inconsistent - you're not going to poke holes in them. They're likely to not even listen to debates anyhow - they'll listen to their media and show up on ballot day but otherwise you won't even be able to engage them. They live in a different mental world than you do - different notions of justice, of how people should relate, different norms, and they watch different news. I don't believe my views are weak, because mine are consistent too and if I had followers and were comfortable spoon-feeding them a reality I cooked up, I could. Free speech will not solve the problem of separate mental worlds though when people spend from cradle to grave in their own societies and mental worlds completely disjoint from one's own.
I used to do a lot of debates - generally when you have two sufficiently intelligent debaters with reasonably consistent positions and a debate format that prevents/discourages soundbytes, most debates boil down to differences in values, which is the limit to intelligent discussion. At that point, nobody wins by logic - at best you might sway a few people by aesthetics of your position.
On the comparison to theology, I would not say that it's necessarily better in the practice you mention of disqualifying others - I would hope it's better because of its other content though. I am not suggesting forcing politics to be deeply convergent to avoid disqualification anyhow - a society would generally want to have a pretty decent room for democratic consideration even if it doesn't allow anything. If we look at Iran, we see that their parliament and legal system have space reserved for some non-muslims even in the framework of an Islamic Republic. The Ottoman Empire was in some ways similar.
Re:Not all repression is bad repression (Score:3, Interesting)
Would you approve of an openly pro-NAMBLA campaign in the US?
Approve of what they're selling? No, absolutely not. But I would approve of their right to try.
How about a church sect that uses the Bible to "prove" the superiority of whites over blacks and wants to use cable public access time to preach their message?
There has been a supreme court case about this -- someone tried to get a show canceled on Kansas City Public Access TV. It was called, "Klansas City Kable."
A little closer to what is going on in Egypt would be if new political party came out with an clearly religious platform that included banning all religions that did not include homosexuals. With the message that by not including homosexuals these other religons were "bad for the country and must be eradicated".
Yep. Go ahead. Still just talking -- I absolutely do not agree with the message, but I'll fight to let it be told.
Burn down a few Catholic churches and Islamic mosques as a symbol of the "new order".
And this is the moment when it becomes not OK. Because this is no longer speech, it's actual vandalism, maybe violence.
Anyone actually doing this should be stopped, and punished.
But that does not remove the right of others, who are not actually burning churches and mosques, to continue spreading their message.
Free speech is messy. The alternative is worse -- your "losing the country to the 12th century" would be, largely, a loss of free speech.
And so ... ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Huh? Why not? Why couldn't we put trade embargoes on them?
You might want to note that we didn't invade Germany during WWII because of what he was doing to his own people. We did it because he invaded other countries.
And don't we have trade restrictions with Iran?
The problem with your reasoning is that it quickly results in the USofA being the "policeman of the world" and our country cannot AFFORD that.
I think that you need to read up on some history.
But you never ask the question WHY the majority of voters in Egypt would WANT to elect them.
It doesn't matter if you outlaw one political party. If the majority of the people have the same beliefs as that political party, then they will, eventually, become the government.
Re:That gets a lot done (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, the UN is only a joke in that it is more like a local bar than a local police station: it's job is not military activism, it's job is to facilitate talk. Ideally, crazy people announce some deranged plan of theirs, and the rest of the patrons try to talk them down. It's low cost, and the victories are mostly the lack of anything happening.
Re:That gets a lot done (Score:3, Interesting)
Come on. The idea that outsiders can't study and judge a group is completely ignorant. Often, the outside group is more impartial and makes a better judgment.
I'm sure you have more to your viewpoint than what you wrote but simply dismissing somebody's post as "orientalist rhetoric" doesn't bode well. Where's the nuanced and thoughtful post that I've come to expect at slashdot?
Let's take his first statement. "The problem is that they would use force against minorities, against everyone including themselves."
You claim that that is basic orientalist rhetoric, and I assume by that you mean "wrong". However, the Muslim Brotherhood was founded to promote traditional sharia law. Do you disagree with that, or think it's orientalist to call sharia law an oppressive system for non-Muslim minorities?