Writing YA fiction first about Guantánamo, now Egypt, has taught me that the toughest material can actually make the most compelling stories My second novel for young adults, The Glass Collector, is set in Cairo around the time Obama visited the city in 2009 to make his first presidential speech in the Middle East . I had no idea when I wrote the novel quite how topical it would become. Great timing you might think. Sacred synchronicity, I prefer. My last novel, Guantánamo Boy , tells the story of 15-year-old Khaled, a British Muslim who is abducted while on holiday with his family in Pakistan and rendered to Guantánamo Bay. I chose to tackle these two difficult subjects because I believe that young people hunger and thirst for striking stories that allow them to make sense of the world they live in. Books that deal with controversial issues reflect the outside world but reveal truths that aren’t available in newsworthy statistics and facts. They put questions that are difficult to formulate, and provide answers that are often challenging and demanding but satisfying to consider. Modern children’s fiction is crammed with moral dilemmas and subjects as diverse as teenage pregnancy, drug use, domestic violence and war – so The Glass Collector , about a Zabbaleen teenager who’s a Coptic Christian living in the slums of Cairo under a regime that considers him dispensable and mostly invisible, fits right in. My motive, though, wasn’t to tell another controversial story, or to be topical, but to challenge the myth that people we don’t know, who have nothing, and live in countries we can barely locate, aren’t anything like us. There were other challenges too. My teenager, Aaron, spends his days collecting waste from the city and carting it home to a bullying step-family who separate the paper, metal, rags and glass before selling it to unscrupulous merchants. Decisions about voice, language, community, religious customs, food and education (or lack of), were pressing and ever present, but intense though they and the necessary inventions were, it soon became more important to highlight the conflict between the hero’s desires and his circumstances in order to create a vivid story. But the more challenging the idea, the more interesting and exciting a story is to write. It’s a profound and pleasurable experience to expand the imagination on every level. We live in war-torn, troubled times. No one can say what’s going to happen in Egypt in the wake of the revolution, but the Zabbaleen supported the protests in Cairo because they suffered under the Mubarak regime, which threatened their way of life and very existence. I chose difficult subjects because I believe old myths must be challenged before new myths can be written. New myths where everyone is valued and those who have the least are valued most of all. Children and teenagers Egypt guardian.co.uk
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Faced with a deep deficit, Wisconsin's new Republican governor, Scott Walker, stirred up controversy by proposing sweeping limits on the ability of public-sector unions in the state to bargain collectively over benefits like health insurance and pensions, costs that have been driving many states deep into the red.
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As the country emerges from Hosni Mubarak’s rule, civil society is being opened to change. Al Jazeera’s Jamal Elshayyal reports from Alexandria on the historic union between Coptic Christians and Muslims in Egypt – and their aspirations for the years ahead.
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Egypt’s police took to the street to show solidarity with protesters who toppled president Mubarak. Shouting they are hand in hand with the people, they said were following orders. Can the police force wipe out its bloody history with the people of Egypt? Will the Egyptians forgive and forget?
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Activists are clear that for Egyptians to be truly free, Mubarak’s machinery of repression must be dismantled After an inspirational show of people power in Egypt, what next for this great country? And what kind of reforms are needed to satisfy the dreams and demands of its people? Amnesty’s partners in the Egyptian human rights community are clear. The machinery of repression underpinning Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt must be dismantled. This means, to start with, lifting the dead hand of the state of emergency and repealing article 179 of the (now suspended) constitution – which gives sweeping powers of arrest to the security forces, allowing Egypt’s leader to totally bypass ordinary civilian courts and instead send people suspected of terrorist offences to military and special courts. Similarly, emergency powers allowing administrative detention of government critics must be scrapped. Only shortly before Mubarak’s departure on Friday , the Egyptian army was promising to lift the state of emergency ” as soon as current circumstances end “, and now we need to see follow-through on that with a clear public timetable. Meanwhile, Egypt’s vast, unregulated prison system needs swift reform. Throughout the last fortnight we’ve heard reports of prisoners escaping from jails, and these must be investigated, with those who had been properly convicted returned to custody. At the same time, the authorities must urgently review the cases of thousands of prisoners held in “administrative” detention without charge or trial (one of Egypt’s most shameful practices), either charging them with a recognisable criminal offence or setting them free. Meanwhile, all prisoners of conscience must be released without delay. Free speech has burst its chains in Egypt, but for the last 30 years it has been virtually impossible for peaceful protesters to assemble on the streets of Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said, Suez or anywhere else without attracting the attention of truncheon-wielding police officers. Summary arrests would follow. The empowering effect of vast numbers of people steadfastly and publicly demanding change in Egypt has won the day. But freedom of speech and association must be now be protected and legally entrenched in Egypt. In dry practical terms , this means repressive laws – for example articles 80(d), 98bis(d), 98(f), 102, 102bis, 171, 178, 179, 181, 188, 201 and 308 of the penal code, and review law 84 (the law of associations) – must be either swept way or amended in line with international standards. Other major reforms must include guaranteeing the rights of women and girls, ending legal discrimination against all religious groups, including Coptic Christians and Baha’is, and putting a stop to the persecution of gay people (including the practice of charging gay men with the “habitual practice of debauchery”). The death penalty should be abolished. Meanwhile, we mustn’t forget the blood spilt and crimes committed during Egypt’s historic 18 days of protest. Reports indicate that at least 300 people were killed and many more injured, while an as yet unknown number were ” disappeared ” into detention and, in at least some cases, tortured. When, on February 3, two of Amnesty’s staff were detained by the military in Camp 75 in the Cairo suburb of Manshiyet el-Bakri, along with 33 other human rights defenders, they could clearly hear the screams of detainees being beaten . For too long torture has been a dark stain on Egypt. We need to see credible investigations of the part played by the police, the Mukhabarat (secret police) and the army. With bravery, dignity and fortitude, Egyptians have captured the world’s attention with their popular uprising against repression, poverty and corruption. Now, at a pivotal moment in world affairs, it’s vital that leaders around the world listen very carefully to their message: that there can be no reform without human rights reform. We are living through a moment of global significance. Many in Algeria, Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain and the wider region (and indeed right across the world) are demanding exactly what Tunisians and Egyptians have demanded. At a major rally in Trafalgar Square at the weekend, thousands stood in solidarity with the people of Egypt and the greater Middle East and north Africa. They expressed their solidarity with the call for a human rights revolution and defiance of those who would suppress the right to be free. One banner on Saturday caught my eye. It read: “Bye-bye state of secret police!” Hear hear to that. Egypt Protest Middle East Human rights Kate Allen guardian.co.uk
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Al Jazeera tracks down the leader of a heavily armed separatist group in the Philippines. Ameril Umbrakato, leader of Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, which recently split from the Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front, exclusively talks to Al Jazeera’s Marga Ortigas.
Continue reading …Arab governments must embrace a generation of men and women who are making their own history The entire Arab world is witnessing a tectonic shift. There is a fragile, if for many sublime, expectation that democracy may now spread in our region. At the same time, the prospect of Arab self-determination has left some uneasy. One of the defining characteristics over the last 18 days of protest in Cairo is that no one has been able to predict what would happen next. But today some things can be said with certainty. The first is that there is no going back. A new generation has come of age. Creativity, new communication technologies and the use of rational peaceful protest have restored Arab self-esteem. Cairo concluded what Tunisia had hinted at : that decades of realpolitik had failed. It seems to have united east and west in the understanding that true security begins with the dignity of the human being, and is based upon what we often refer to as hurriya , or “freedom”. While in Jordan the youth element may not be as evident, protesters still call for inclusivity, and seek participation in a body politic and within a wider national platform. With the government change here objectives are being discussed regarding what I call the “social contract”, and a politics which needs to become more normalised than radicalised. Such voices are being heeded, because almost everyone here understands that the credibility and security of the country depends upon it. Recent events have shown that men and women make their own history, and are capable of controlling their own destinies. Unfortunately in our region this has not always been self-evident. It is now. Rather than fearing this “new wave”, Arab governments should embrace it. It’s time to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. The Mumbai-based Strategic Foresight Group has calculated that, between 1991 and 2010, constant war and conflict has cost the region $12 trillion in lost opportunity. A new architecture of relations is urgently required to replace the ad-hoc structures of the past. Co-operation can be achieved in three ways. The first is what I refer to as a zakat or “responsibility” fund, collected and distributed regionally, in order to create more integrated economic development – just as the Marshall plan did for postwar Europe. The giving of alms is an Islamic pillar of faith. It is an obligation. So too should be its distribution – on an equitable, institutional and trans-border basis. Second, we need a supranational Community for Water and Energy for the Human Environment – an Arab equivalent of the European Coal and Steel Community established by Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet in 1950. Our water resources and woes are shared – water has no respect for national boundaries. The Jordan river, one of the most complex and contested waterways in the world, has four riparian parties – Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Palestine. At the same time a global energy and water belt extends from the central Asian republics down the Volga through Turkey to the Strait of Hormuz. It can no longer be protected solely by military forces guarding the ports of the Persian Gulf. Our security is constantly undermined by our energy interdependence and dependence, and time is running out. Finally, it is time to convene a Semi-Permanent Conference for Peace based in the region and modelled on the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the three baskets of the Helsinki Process – co-operation in security, economy and humanitarian issues. These are my thoughts in parenthesis, as we consider an Arabia no less complex but far more pregnant with possibility … a new psychological landscape. To paraphrase George Marshall, a place “that hangs in the balance as to what it is to be”. The scales of justice have been tipped. The arc of history no longer bends towards reform. It insists on it. Egypt Middle East Jordan Tunisia El Hassan bin Talal guardian.co.uk
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Thousands of people are taking to streets across the region demanding political and social reform.
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http://www.youtube.com/v/q9Bw45P2zGs?f=user_uploads&app=youtube_gdata More here: Protesters clash with police in Benghazi, Libya
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