Abstract The manifestations of 'open' are permeating the society enabled by the rise of participatory culture and improved communication technologies. In her research, Tanja Aitamurto examines the impact of openness on traditionally closed processes such as journalism, policy-making and design. Aitamurto draws on several case studies, in which collective intelligence is harnessed through crowdsourcing, open innovation and co-creation. Her work is based on data from 150 in-depth interviews and about 8,000 data points recorded by netnography. Aitamurto's research is situated in social sciences, informed by organization studies and management science and engineering. She finds that the 'open' challenges the incumbent power structures when participatory mechanisms become a means to practice social control.
Tanja Aitamurto is a visiting researcher at the Program on Liberation Technology at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford. In her PhD project she examines how collective intelligence, whether harvested by crowdsourcing, co-creation or open innovation, impacts incumbent processes in journalism, public policy making and design process. Her work has been published in several academic publications, such as the New Media and Society. Related to her studies, she advises the Government and the Parliament of Finland about Open Government principles, for example about how open data and crowdsourcing can serve democratic processes.
Aitamurto has previously studied at the Center for Design Research and at the Innovation Journalism Program at Stanford. She is a PhD Student at the Center for Journalism, Media and Communication Research at Tampere University in Finland, and she holds a Master’s Degree in Public Policy, and a Master of Arts in Humanities. Prior to returning to academia, she made a career in journalism in Finland specializing in foreign affairs, doing reporting in countries such as Afghanistan, Angola and Uganda. She has also taught journalism at the University of Zambia, in Lusaka, and worked at the Namibia Press Agency, Windhoek. More about Tanja’s work at www.tanjaaitamurto.com and on Twitter @tanjaaita.
Wallenberg Theater
Tanja Aitamurto
Visiting Researcher, Program on Liberation Technology, CDDRL
Speaker
Stanford University
Marking the publication of Lina Khatib's latest book Image Politics in the Middle East: The Role of the Visual in Political Struggle, this seminar focuses on the evolution of political expression in the Middle East over the past decade, highlighting the visual dimension of power struggles between citizens and leaders in Lebanon, Iran, Egypt, Libya, and Syria.
About the speaker:
Lina Khatib is a co-founder and Program Manager of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. She joined Stanford University in 2010 from the University of London where she was an Associate Professor. Her research is firmly interdisciplinary and focuses on the intersections of politics, media, and social factors in relation to the politics of the Middle East. She is also a consultant on Middle East politics and media and has published widely on topics such as new media and Islamism, US public diplomacy towards the Middle East, and political media and conflict in the Arab world, as well as on the political dynamics in Lebanon and Iran. She has an active interest in the link between track two dialogue and democratization policy. She is also a Research Associate at SOAS, University of London, and, from 2010-2012, a Research Fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School.
Lina is a founding co-editor of the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, a multidisciplinary journal concerned with politics, culture and communication in the region, and in 2009 co-edited (with Klaus Dodds) a special issue of the journal on geopolitics, public diplomacy and soft power in the Middle East. She also edited the Journal of Media Practice from 2007-2010. She is one of the core authors of the forthcoming Arab Human Development Report (2012) published by the UNDP.
She has written two books, Filming the Modern Middle East: Politics in the Cinemas of Hollywood and the Arab World (IB Tauris 2006), which is a study of the link between international relations and film, focusing on 25 years of cinematic representation of politics in the region (1980-2005), from the Arab-Israeli conflict to the Gulf War to Islamic fundamentalism, and Lebanese Cinema: Imagining the Civil War and Beyond (IB Tauris 2008). The book takes a socio-political approach to the study of Lebanese cinema over the last thirty years, focusing on the issues of Lebanese national identity, history, sectarian conflict, and memory of the Civil War.
Lina has recently finished writing a book titled Image Politics in the Middle East: The Role of the Visual in Political Struggle for IB Tauris. The book examines the power struggles among states, other political actors, and citizens in the region that are expressed through visuals, and focuses on case studies from Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Libya, and Iran, with a focus on the role of the image as a political tool in the Arab Spring. She has also recently led a multidisciplinary research project on US public diplomacy in the digital age, in collaboration with the University of Oxford and the University of Wolverhampton, the outcome of which will appear in the Middle East Journal in 2012.
Before joining the academic field, Lina worked in broadcast journalism in Lebanon. She is a frequent commentator on the Middle East in the media with appearances on Al-Jazeera (Arabic and English), CNN, BBC, Sky News and other media outlets across the globe
CISAC Conference Room
Lina Khatib
Program Manager for the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy
Speaker
CDDRL
CDDRL
Encina Hall, C139
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
0
adi.greif@yale.edu
Greif_HS.jpg
Adi Greif is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Yale University and a pre-doc at CDDRL from 2013-2015. Her dissertation, "The Long-Term Impact of Colonization on Gender", investigates why gender equality varies by former colonizer (French or British) in the Middle East and globally. It uses cross-national statistics, a regression discontinuity across the former colonial border in Cameroon, and interviews from Egypt and Jordan. Her research abroad was supported by a Macmillan Dissertation Fellowship.
Adi's research interests are colonialism, international alliances, state formation and comparative gender policies with focus on the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. She has lived in Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco, and visited Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey. Adi holds an M.A. in Political Science from (Yale University) and a B.A with honors in Political Science and a minor in Math (Stanford University). Before coming to Yale, she worked at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. through the Tom Ford Fellowship in Philanthropy.
Ramesh Srinivasan, Associate Professor at UCLA in Design and Media/Information Studies, studies and participates in projects focused on how new media technologies impact political revolutions, economic development and poverty reduction, and the future of cultural heritage. He has worked with bloggers, pragmatically studying their strengths and limitations, who were involved in recent revolutions in Egypt and Kyrgyzstan, as discussed in a recent NPR interview. He has also collaborated with non-literate tribal populations in India to study how literacy emerges through uses of technology, and traditional Native American communities to study how non-Western understandings of the world can introduce new ways of looking at the future of the internet. His work has impacted contemporary understandings of media studies, anthropology and sociology, design, and economic and political development studies.
The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University is pleased to announce the 2013 class of undergraduate senior honors students.
Honors students will spend four quarters participating in research seminars to refine their proposed thesis topic, while working in consultation with a CDDRL faculty advisor to supervise their project. In September, the group will travel to Washington, D.C. for honors college where they will visit leading government and development organizations to witness policymaking in practice and consult with key decision-makers.
Please join CDDRL in congratulating the 2013 Senior Honors students and welcoming them to the Center.
Below are profiles of the nine honors students highlighting their academic interests, why they applied to CDDRL, and some fun facts.
Keith Calix
Keith Calix
Major: International Relations
Hometown: Astoria, NY
Thesis topic: What is the relationship between the coloured experience and youth involvement in gangsterism in Cape Town, South Africa?
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? Schools are one of the principal generators, justifiers and vehicles of radicalized thoughts, actions and identities. The challenge in a post-apartheid South Africa continues to be whether and how the roles, rules, social character and functioning of schools can reform to challenge the retrograde aspects of such formation and stimulate new forms of acknowledgement, social practice and acceptance. Ultimately, I hope my research will provide insight about how education reform can be used as a tool to promote democracy and improve human rights conditions.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? In many ways my personal and academic experiences have led me from a more general interest in education development to a more specific interest in post-apartheid education reform as a form of retrospective justice, the institutional, social and economic barriers to education reform, and understanding education reform as a means of promoting democracy and respect for human rights. Pursuing this in the work in the CDDRL community alongside talented and experienced faculty and students from a wide array of disciplines, interests, and experiences will ultimately enhance my understanding of development and one day, I can hopefully use these insights and experiences as a practitioner.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: Human rights lawyer/fieldwork in education development.
What are your summer research plans: During the summer I will be working on my thesis in Cape Town, South Africa.
Fun fact about yourself: I’ve recently appeared on Italian television for an interview, bungee jumped from the world’s highest commercial bridge, and rode an ostrich.
Vincent Chen
Vincent Chen
Major: Earth Systems & Economics
Hometown: Taipei, Taiwan
Thesis topic: How democratic and autocratic systems affect the formation and efficacy of their environmental policies.
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? As the importance of climate and energy issues continue to rise in the global political agenda, both developed and developing nations are in dire need to identify individually tailored policy routes for sustainable development. With a wide array of political systems across countries, my research aims to shed light on the difference of environmental policy creation between democratic and autocratic governments and hopefully provide real world applications for policy makers in charting the most appropriate development route. In particular, I hope to provide insights for developing democracies to leapfrog the environmental impacts associated with democratization and avoid mistakes mature democracies have committed in the past.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? My studies in environmental science ultimately manifested the important role social sciences play in solving our environmental challenges. In the center of this challenge lies the tricky balance between development and environmental stewardship. The CDDRL program serves as a great opportunity for me to explore the complex relationship between these concepts.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: Although I am interested in opportunities that span public, private and social sectors, I will definitely be working on issues pertaining to our environment.
What are your summer research plans: I will be spending my summer in Washington, DC with the climate and energy team of the United Nations Foundation, as well as conducting interviews for my research back home in Taiwan.
Fun fact about yourself: Spent five weeks on a uninhabited island the size of four square miles in the middle of the Pacific Ocean during my sophomore summer.
Holly Fetter
Holly Fetter
Major: Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (B.A.), Sociology (M.A.)
Hometown: Dallas, TX
Thesis topic: The influence of U.S. funding on the development of China's civil society
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? Organizations and individuals from the U.S. are eager to support democracy, development, and the rule of law in foreign countries. Through my research on the U.S. presence in China, I hope to understand how we can do this work more ethically and effectively. How can we avoid imposing our values and priorities onto a nation's bourgeoning civil society? How can we promote indigenous modes of fundraising and management training, thus avoiding any potential expressions of neo-imperialism?
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? I wanted a challenge, and I knew that writing an honors thesis in a foreign discipline would be a rewarding intellectual experience. The apparent support from faculty as well as the connections to experts on my topic were also enticing. And I'm looking forward to the big D.C. trip.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: I'd like to practice community lawyering in the U.S.
What are your summer research plans: I'll be in Beijing, China, interviewing folks at NGOs and grant-giving organizations, reading lots of books and articles, and eating good food.
Fun fact about yourself: I like to write and cause a ruckus, so I started a blog for Stanford activists called STATIC. You should check it out!
Imani Franklin
Imani Franklin
Major: International Relations
Hometown: Atlanta, GA
Thesis topic: How Western beauty standards impact the preference for lighter skin in the developing world, with case-studies of India, Nigeria, and Thailand
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? This question matters for global development, in part, because it is an issue of public health. Researchers have long associated high rates of eating disorders and other mental health issues among American women with their continuous exposure to Western media’s narrow image of beauty. Given the unprecedented globalization of this image of beauty throughout much of the developing world, are non-Western women experiencing similar psychological health problems? From findings on skin bleaching cream in Tanzania to the rise of bulimia in Fiji in the late 1990s, a growing body of research attributes harmful body-altering practices to increased exposure to American consumerist media. I want to assess whether this causal link stands under empirical scrutiny, and whether this relationship shifts in different regional contexts of the world.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? I am drawn to CDDRL’s honors program because of the intimate scholarly community of peers and mentors it provides. I believe this program will empower me to think more critically and scientifically about how one social issue impacts another.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: In the future, I hope to work with international policy to improve human rights protections in the Middle East and North Africa.
What are your summer research plans: I am currently studying Arabic in Jordan and will conduct primary research for my honors thesis in Amman.
Fun fact about yourself: In my free time, I enjoy learning the dance moves from High School Musical movies and attempting to make peach cobbler from scratch.
Mariah Halperin
Mariah Halperin
Major: History
Hometown: San Francisco, CA
Thesis topic: The development of democracy in Turkey under the Justice and Development Party (AKP)
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? Turkey has taken a unique path to democracy, beginning with Ataturk, yet many scholars worldwide have presented Turkey as a model for the rest of the Islamic world. The AKP, the party in power for the last decade, has in many ways changed the path Turkey had been on previously. With these changes and the recent uprisings in the Middle East, my thesis will hopefully speak to the viability of other countries following Turkey's example.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? The CDDRL undergraduate honors program is an amazing opportunity to deepen my studies of a topic that interests me so much. Working with a small group of dedicated, like-minded students will be a great way get feedback to develop and strengthen my thesis. Additionally, the outstanding faculty (and staff!) of the CDDRL are so supportive and eager to help students pursue their interests in any way they can.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: Either diplomacy or journalism in Turkey and the Middle East.
What are your summer research plans: I will be in Turkey for over two months this summer, conducting interviews with a wide range of people who can lend their perspective on my topic.
Fun fact about yourself: I am an extreme San Francisco Giants baseball fan.
Thomas Alan Hendee
Thomas Alan Hendee
Major: Human Biology
Hometown: Sao Paulo, Brazil / Grand Rapids, Michigan
Thesis topic: I will be looking at the social determinants of health in Brazilian informal settlements and how they affect child health.
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? By 2050, seventy-percent of the world will be living in cities, and the World Bank estimates that 32.7% of urban dwellers in developing regions will be living in slums. These informal urban settlements pose a significant problem for economic development, governance, and public health.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? This program will allow me to spend my last year engrossed in a topic of interest, and put my Brazilian heritage and Portuguese language skills to academic use by adding to the dialogue of a field that I hope to enter. I look forward to being surrounded by a group of peers from whom I can learn, and at the same time have the chance to be mentored by some of Stanford’s most renowned faculty.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: I am still debating if medical school is a part of my future; however, I am confident that I will be involved with some kind of internationally focused health work.
What are your summer research plans: I will be doing a tremendous amount of reading in order to get a better understanding of what has already been said; furthermore, I plan to perform as many Skype interviews as possible with involved individuals in Brazil.
Fun fact about yourself: In the summer of 2011, I spent one-week on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) participating in an ecotourism consulting job.
Lina Hidalgo
Lina Hidalgo
Major: Political Science
Hometown: Bogotá, Colombia
Thesis topic: What allowed citizen resistance to turn against the state in Egypt in 2011, but not in China.
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? I hope that my project will offer some hints as to why citizens faced with economic and social grievances fail to challenge - through their protests - the state structure that perpetrates those grievances. This can provide a lens through which to study other developing societies that fail to rise against oppression.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? I have been able to see development challenges firsthand growing up and am honored to have the opportunity to learn from experts in the Center about the ideas and approaches taken to tackle these issues.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: I hope to learn more about development challenges globally by working in the Middle East or Asia, and eventually help implement better development policy worldwide through an international organizations, government work, or activism.
What are your summer research plans: I will be in China interviewing factory workers about their perceptions of inequality and speak with scholars about the broader issues I plan to address in my thesis. I will then travel to Egypt to interview political party leaders about how they saw long-standing grievances translated into the political sphere.
Fun fact about yourself: I've broken my two front teeth.
Kabir Sawhney
Kabir Sawhney
Major: Management Science and Engineering
Hometown: Morristown, NJ
Thesis topic: The effect of regime type on a country’s propensity to default on its sovereign debt obligations.
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? The link between a country’s regime type and its sovereign debt is crucial to further understanding the differences in the choices democracies and autocracies make in regards to their sovereign debt. Debt itself is important, because sovereign debt crises can have many negative consequences, including setting economic development back many years in some countries.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? I took Professor Diamond and Professor Stoner-Weiss’ class in my sophomore year, and I really loved the course content and wanted to engage more with these topics. For my honors thesis, I really wanted to have an interdisciplinary experience, combining my interests in democracy and development with my academic focus in finance and financial markets, and the CDDRL program was a great place to do that.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: I’d like to work in financial markets; my long-term career goal is to one day run my own hedge fund with a mix of investment strategies.
What are your summer research plans: Since my thesis doesn’t require any field work, I’ll be working on refining my quantitative analysis and gathering relevant data from databases and other sources, to be able to carry out my analysis in earnest starting in fall quarter.
Fun fact about yourself: Cooking is one of my favorite hobbies! I like making all sorts of different kinds of foods, but my favorites have to be Thai, Indian and Chinese.
Anna Schickele
Anna Schickele
Major: Public Policy and Economics
Hometown: Davis, CA
Thesis topic: Determinants of farmer participation in agricultural development projects in rural Peru.
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? If non-governmental organizations are to implement successful development projects, they must figure out how to effectively engage would-be participants.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? I'm attracted to the academic community. Though writing a thesis is a solitary activity, I hope the other students and I will support each other and form friendships as we go through the process together.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: I'd like to find a way to perfect my Spanish, improve my French, and maybe learn Arabic.
What are your summer research plans: I'll be in Peru at the end of August. If all goes well, I plan to make a second trip in December.
Fun fact about yourself: I've eaten alpaca, camel, guinea pig, and snails.
This book originated in a conference on "Liberation Technology in Authoritarian Regimes" held at Stanford University in Oct. 2010.
The revolutions sweeping the Middle East provide dramatic evidence of the role that technology plays in mobilizing citizen protest and upending seemingly invulnerable authoritarian regimes. A grainy cell phone video of a Tunisian street vendor’s self-immolation helped spark the massive protests that toppled longtime ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and Egypt’s "Facebook revolution" forced the ruling regime out of power and into exile.
While such "liberation technology" has been instrumental in freeing Egypt and Tunisia, other cases—such as China and Iran—demonstrate that it can be deployed just as effectively by authoritarian regimes seeking to control the Internet, stifle protest, and target dissenters. This two-sided dynamic has set off an intense technological race between "netizens" demanding freedom and authoritarians determined to retain their grip on power.
Liberation Technology brings together cutting-edge scholarship from scholars and practitioners at the forefront of this burgeoning field of study. An introductory section defines the debate with a foundational piece on liberation technology and is then followed by essays discussing the popular dichotomy of "liberation" versus "control" with regard to the Internet and the sociopolitical dimensions of such controls. Additional chapters delve into the cases of individual countries: China, Egypt, Iran, and Tunisia.
This book also includes in-depth analysis of specific technologies such as Ushahidi—a platform developed to document human-rights abuses in the wake of Kenya’s 2007 elections—and alkasir—a tool that has been used widely throughout the Middle East to circumvent cyber-censorship.
Liberation Technology will prove an essential resource for all students seeking to understand the intersection of information and communications technology and the global struggle for democracy.
Contributors: Walid Al-Saqaf, Daniel Calingaert, Ronald Deibert, Larry Diamond, Elham Gheytanchi, Philip N. Howard, Muzammil M. Hussain, Rebecca MacKinnon, Patrick Meier, Evgeny Morozov, Xiao Qiang, Rafal Rohozinski, Mehdi Yahyanejad
In less than a week, Egypt has witnessed a reversal of many of the gains it made during the course of the 16-month revolutionary period. The interim military body guiding the transition period since Hosni Mubarak's ouster has consolidated its power by dissolving the Islamist-led parliament, introducing a new charter stripping presidential powers, and hand-picking an assembly to draft a new constitution.
In the midst of this counter-coup by Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), presidential run-off elections took place June 16 and 17. The Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammad Mursi emerged as the winner against Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak's former prime minister, capturing 51.7% of the vote.
A former academic who earned a doctorate in engineering from the University of Southern California, Mursi is a relative newcomer to the Egyptian political scene having served in parliament from 2000-2005. Described as a behind-the-scenes operator, Mursi rose to lead the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party in 2011 positioning himself as a presidential contender. While little is known about Egypt's first democratically elected president, many claim that Mursi was elected less for his personal politics than for his affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Lina Khatib, head of the Arab Reform and Democracy Program at FSI's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, weighs in on the upheaval in Egypt's revolution, the power of the presidency, and the steps the SCAF have taken to cement their rule.
Have the SCAF outsmarted the opposition in their recent grab for power?
Looking back at the 16 months since the start of the Egyptian revolution, it becomes clear that the SCAF were hedging their bets to come up with a political formula that would guarantee the continuation of their political and economic authority. For a while the Muslim Brotherhood was almost in bed with the SCAF, but the equation quickly changed after the parliamentary elections. As the Brotherhood arose as a potentially serious challenger to the SCAF, the military needed an effective strategy to undermine its rising power.
In what way was the Muslim Brotherhood posing a challenge to the SCAF?
The (now-dissolved) parliament was dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, which claimed 46% of the seats. With Mohammad Mursi the president-elect, the Muslim Brotherhood would have presided over two key state institutions - the legislative and executive branches. That would have been too much for the SCAF to bear, particularly as they started perceiving the Brotherhood as a political competitor. Based on this, the SCAF could safely calculate that fresh parliamentary elections — under a revised electoral system — would most likely not lead to a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated parliament.
With no constitution in place how can the presidential powers and limits be defined?
The stalled process of putting together a Constitutional Assembly means that Mohammad Mursi assumes this role without knowing the full authorities of the position. The SCAF have been managing the membership of the Constitutional Assembly and will likely have a significant input into the content of the constitution itself. The sequencing of having a president in place before a constitution is drafted presents the military with the opportunity to design the constitution according to who wins the presidential race. If Ahmed Shafiq had won, it is likely that the new constitution would have given him more privileges than Mursi.
With Mursi the new president of Egypt, does this signal a victory for the Muslim Brotherhood?
The Muslim Brotherhood has been shortsighted in the way it has performed since the start of the Egyptian revolution. Its keenness on ascending to political power often led it to engage in compromises with the SCAF that have now backfired. This also served to lessen its support among the Egyptian people, as well as among its political allies. Although the Brotherhood pushed for the presidential elections to go ahead because it was convinced that Mursi would win, this victory can be viewed as only a partial one as the SCAF are in control of most state institutions.
Have recent events reversed the gains made by the revolution?
The real victory for Mursi would be if he is able to put in place checks and balances on the power of the SCAF, secure the independence of the judiciary, guarantee the rights of minorities, and establish an accountable civil state in Egypt that involves the country’s multiple stakeholders. However, the SCAF have so far blocked the path towards achieving all of those goals, and in the process are attempting to silence the voices of the opposition that were initially empowered by the revolution.
How can reformers re-assert themselves in the current political climate?
Egyptian reformists need a long-term strategy. A key part of this strategy is having a viable leadership and advocacy structure that can stand up to the authority of the SCAF. Even though the SCAF have announced that they would hand over power to the incumbent president, their behavior indicates that they are keen on maintaining their authority behind the scenes, regardless of who sits in the presidential seat.
On May 7, the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) hosted Egyptian activist Ahmed Salah who spoke about the series of events that led up to the Egyptian revolution and the current struggles the country faces in realizing its revolutionary goals. Salah, an alumni of the 2011 Draper Hills Summer Fellowship at CDDRL, has been at the forefront of the revolutionary movement in Egypt. He has been involved in the launch of opposition groups and movements since 2005, including the April 6 Youth Movement and Kifaya (Enough!), both of which played roles in organizing and mobilizing the forces behind the revolution.
Salah returned to Stanford as part of a larger speaking tour across the U.S., to raise awareness and support for the democratic development of Egypt. With the military undermining the goals of the revolution, the constitution-writing process stalled, and a rush towards presidential elections, Salah emphasized the critical moment Egypt faces in its transition towards democracy.
Forced into exiled for his activism, Salah has sought temporary refuge in the U.S. and is dedicating his time to building awareness and advocacy for his cause through the Coalition of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution in Washington D.C. and beyond.
Addressing the CDDRL seminar, Salah recalled the defining moments of the January revolution, “Getting into Tahrir in the morning, the stench of tear gas was so strong, all these burning vehicles and buildings all around - blood - pools of blood in different locations, and protestors were coming in, again.”
Salah was instrumental in co-devising and implementing the plan leading up to the revolution and has been subject to arrest, incarceration, and abuse as a result of his actions. He described being beaten and his nose broken when a gang of thugs surrounded him in Tahrir Square, and another incident when he was targeted by a sniper firing into a crowd of protestors. He escaped with his life but was not as lucky as thousands of other activists.
As the country faces a crucial period of political transition with presidential elections approaching, Salah emphasized the fact that candidates have not had enough time to campaign, leaving voters with an incomplete picture of the competing platforms. He cited examples of direct vote rigging and manipulation in the parliamentary elections and stressed the importance of ensuring a transparent process when electing Egypt's first post-revolutionary president. While Salah recognizes the shortcomings of the transition period, he endeavors to ensure that the goals of the revolution and the activists who made great sacrifices are fully realized in the long-run.
Ahmed Salah, Egyptian activist and 2011 Draper Hills Summer fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law will tell the true story of how the Egyptian Revolution started, with all the challenges and obstacles and how they were overcome. Debunking the more mainstream popular version of the story, Salah will provide an overview of what has been happening ever since, and examine the current and future possibilities for the revolution in Egypt.
Speaker Bio:
Ahmed Salah was co-founder, strategist and foreign affairs representative of the April 6 Youth Movement until the end of 2012, co-devised and implemented the plan that led to the first day of the Egyptian Revolution on January 25, 2011. Salah is one of the co-founders of the Egyptian Movement for Change, Kifaya (Enough!) and was one of its leaders until mid 2008, he also co-founded and lead the first anti-Mubarak youth movement called Youth For Change in 2005 till 2006, and leads the Coalition of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution.
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
Ahmed Salah
Egyptian activist and 2011 Draper Hills Summer Fellow
Speaker
CDDRL
تقدم أول انتخابات بعد سقوط الأنظمة السلطوية فرصة مهمة للجهات الفاعلة على الصعيدين المحلي والدولي لتعزيز العمليات الانتقالية. تبحث هذه الورقة أفضل السبل لدعم الممارسات الديمقراطية في الانتخابات القادمة، بناء على الدروس التي قدمتها تجربتا مصر وتونس.
Keith Calix
Vincent Chen
Holly Fetter
Imani Franklin
Mariah Halperin
Thomas Alan Hendee
Lina Hidalgo
Kabir Sawhney
Anna Schickele
