The idea that the Western powers want freedom and democracy in the Middle East is a joke that’s not lost on the Arabs living there. Adam Shatz, writing in the London Review of Books, outlines brilliantly today’s messy region: One evening in January at a hotel bar in Manhattan, I tried to ingratiate myself with…
Showing all posts tagged Bahrain
Kim Kardashian loves autocratic Bahrain
The “star” recently travelled to Bahrain on a nice junket to promote…milkshakes: Anybody with a brain or eyes knows that Bahrain is a brutal, US-backed dictatorship. Marc Lynch in Foreign Policy writes: Kim Kardashian’s December 1 trip to Bahrain to promote milkshakes brought all the Middle East tweeps to the yard. Her visit attracted both…
My 2012 PEN Free Voices lecture on free speech and why it matters
The following is published today as the lead piece by ABC’s The Drum: The two-hour drive from Islamabad to Peshawar is along a surprisingly smooth road. Mud-brick homes sit amongst lush, green fields. Police checkpoints are set up routinely to stop unwanted visitors. I am asked why I want to see the troubled Pakistani town…
Assange interviews two key Arab revolutionaries
The World Tomorrow is becoming essential weekly viewing (here’s past episodes). The latest edition features… Alaa Abd El-Fattah from Egypt and Nabeel Rajab from Bahrain, two remarkable men who show dedication to free their countries from internal and external (read US) tyranny:
Brutal regimes will always find PR friends
If there is money to be made for defending rogue states (take Burma, Israel or Saudi Arabia), some Western hacks will line up for the job. Pro Publica explains just one: Earlier this month, a group of three young Bahrainis arrived in Washington to talk about reform in the small Persian Gulf nation, which has…
Anyone can make a revolution (but the web won’t be enough)
Last last year I was invited to chair a panel at the Sydney Opera House’s Festival of Dangerous Ideas called, “Anyone Can Make A Revolution”. It was an attempt to understand the reality of the Arab revolutions and the influence (or not) of the internet: In Egypt and Tunisia we have seen ordinary people come…
Name and shame Western firms helping autocrats monitor own citizens
When I wrote The Blogging Revolution in 2007 and 2008, I couldn’t imagine the ever-increasing focus on Western “security” firms working alongside repressive states to censor and spy on their people. I investigated this in the book (and the latest 2011 edition, just published in India, examines the reality during the Arab revolutions). Bloomberg has…
Witness the necessary passing of US power in Mid-East
The New York Times documents the shift in the Arab world at a time when Washington is largely viewed as siding with occupiers (Israel) and brutes (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain etc): A last-ditch American effort to head off a Palestinian bid for membership in the United Nations faltered. President Obamatried to qualify his own call, just…
What is happening with Al-Jazeera?
The former head of the media company is stepping down, amidst allegations he was too close to the US as revealed by Wikileaks, but he denies this: The wider question, asked in Foreign Policy, is will the station retain its (mostly) aggressive style of insightful journalism?” In recent weeks, the details of conversations between U.S.…
Anyone can make a revolution (or can they?)
The upcoming Festival of Dangerous Ideas is taking place at the Sydney Opera House in October. Feel threatened. I’m involved in the following event on 2 October at 6pm: In Egypt and Tunisia we have seen ordinary people come together to claim democracy and human rights in the face of oppressive regimes, with Twitter and…