The Bowdoin Globalist – Issue 1 – Winter 2012

February 2012 / Vol. 1 Issue 1

Globalist The Bowdoin

Youth in Revolt

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Europe

Europe’s Last Dictator Mac Routh

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France’s Ban on the Burqa Tanu Kumar

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United States

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Outsiders and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Christiana Whitcomb Punk Music Takes Over Lauren Speigel

From Tahrir Square: The First Days of the Revolution Christopher Wedeman

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Interview Anitra Sprauten

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Asia

On the Front Lines in Pakistan Mariya Ilyas

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Hope for Kashmir Dylan Hammer

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Revelling, Not Revolting in Beirut Isabel Nassief

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Middle East

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Latin America

Chilean Winter Maintains Momentum Christina Curtin Do College Students Fund Mexican Drug Cartels?

Samuel Sabasteanski

Introduction

The Bowdoin Globalist

The Bowdoin Globalist EDITORIAL STAFF Stanton Cambridge

DEAR READERS,

Christina Curtin Tanu Kumar

LAYOUT STAFF Christine Rheem Lauren Speigel Gus Vergara Christiana Whitcomb Aaron Wolf

EXECUTIVE STAFF Stanton Cambridge Lauren Speigel Max Staiger Gus Vergara Aaron Wolf FACULTY ADVISOR Professor Shelley Deane

This magazine is published by students of Bowdoin College. The content and opinions expressed are not those of the College. bowdoinglobalist@gmail.com Front cover artwork by Sophie Matuszewicz Back cover photo by Aaron Wolf All pictures from Creative Commons used under Attribution Noncommerical license. www.creativecommons.org

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Today’s highly evolved telecommunication systems have redefined the term ‘neighbor’. With social media and the constant streaming of information, it is easier to understand who our ‘neighbors’ are and what they are doing. Even though we are more interconnected than ever, it takes time to get used to the reality that our neighbors are no longer just the family down the street, but rather the entire world. It is evident that what happens in the Middle East is felt in the western world and vice versa; some decisions made in distant places may have lasting effects on us. It is in our interest to learn who these neighbors truly are by making a concerted effort to learn about their political systems and cultures. As such, it has become vital to embrace the study of International Relations. We will be able to make more progress in bettering our world if we are able to first understand each other’s viewpoints.

The Bowdoin Globalist is a glimpse into the possibilities that exist within International Relations. These students are making a genuine effort to understand our planet and to share what they have learned. As a graduate of Bowdoin, I have seen the school develop into a center for diverse and global studies. This small college in Maine now has a voice that resonates with a multitude of viewpoints and experiences. The Bowdoin Globalist is a step toward understanding our neighbors across the world.

Sincerely, Senator George J. Mitchell, Jr. Class of 1954

Europe

February 2012

Photo courtesy of Adil Nurmakov

Europe’s last dictator

“They are part of our people, though it’s sad that today we have such youth.”

These are Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s thoughts on his country’s youthful protestors.

The innovative protests in Minsk, where a simple clap of one’s hands is rewarded with being whisked away by plain-clothes officers, have been overshadowed by the chaotic fury of the Arab spring. Despite the unusual nature of the Belarusian protests and the government’s brutal crackdown, unsettled protestors have not received the same degree of international support as their counterparts in the Middle East. Although Russia has increasingly exerted its influence on the Belarusian economy, little other external interference has emerged. Thus, it appears that the young protestors will need to widen the appeal of their cause in order to affect real change in the country. Otherwise, they

may fall subject to the influence of their gargantuan brother to the east.

But what exactly are the citizens of this landlocked, Eastern European country protesting? Similar to the Americans occupying Wall Street, or the Egyptians that occupied Tahrir Square, Belarusians are demanding freedom and a more stable economy. Since 1994, political strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka, a former stalwart of the Soviet Union who still employs a police force known as the KGB, has ruled Belarus from the presidential pulpit. He directs the last Soviet-style command economy in Europe, which has long outlived its functionality, and currently subsists on foreign aid and substantial Russian subsidies. Belarus’s network of clientelism has only made matters worse; Lukashenka increased government wages by 50 percent in the months leading up to a presidential election last fall, causing state-owned firms

to borrow frantically and incur considerable debts. It is no surprise that the wage increases allowed him to maintain power, nor is it a coincidence that inflation grew to exceed 35 percent and the Belarusian rouble lost half of its value. Adding insult to injury, the once standard Russian energy subsidy has been reduced from 20 percent of Belarus’ GDP to a meager 7 percent. Thus Lukashenka can do no finger pointing about a struggling economy that he controls, and recent approval ratings have slipped from 53 to 29 percent among average Belarusians, suggesting that he could be headed down with his ship.

As the economy has nosedived, many Belarusians have taken to the streets with a surprising degree of success, considering the government’s intolerance of political opposition. Due to the remarkably swift response of the seemingly omnipresent KGB, traditional protests that involve shouting and picketing have been largely unsuccessful, so discontented Belarusians are forced to be creative.

Social networking sites have become the forum of choice for protestors in countries around the world in China, Syria and Yemen. Belarus is no exception; such sites are one of the few mediums that the state does not yet control.

Though Lukashenka and his government speak grimly of Facebook, it is the Russian-language social networking site, “vkontakte,” that has been at the forefront of their criticism. Viachaslau Dziyanau, a 24-year-old dissident in exile created a group on “vkontakte” called “Movement of the Future”, and has used it to mobilize Belarusian youth.

Hardly the first movement to use clap-

Similar to the Americans occupying Wall Street or the Egyptians that occupied Tahrir Square, Belarusians are demanding freedom and a more stable economy ping as a way to convey discontent, Belarusians have nonetheless turned out in respectable numbers, with around 1,000 2

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people gathering near Oktyabrskaya Square, close to Lukashenka’s primary administrative building, in June.

Six weeks into the movement, protestors traded claps for a cacophony of cell phone ring tones and alarms activated simultaneously, in order to make it more difficult for the police to identify the dissenting culprits. It is not simply the attention received that protestors appreciate; they also revel in the opportunity to display the absurd paranoia of Lukashenka’s regime. Indeed, no story better exemplifies the frustration of Lukashenka’s government than that of 36-yearold Konstantin Kaplan who, based on the testimony of a police officer, was convicted of participating in a clapping protest, despite having only one arm.

Although the emergence of young, innovative social leaders is promising, they have yet to effect serious change in Belarus. As long as public sector employees and rural Belarusians continue to view the president as a guarantor of stability, the protestors must continue to steadily grow their movement from within or be subject to the less-than-reliable assistance of neighboring countries.

They also revel in the opportunity to display the absurd paranoia of Lukashenka’s regime It is no secret that international support, whether it has been military, economic or rhetorical, has helped propel some Arab Spring protests into fullblown revolutions. So why have Arab youths received this support, while young Belarusians are left on their own?

The most obvious reason is the more severe nature of the Arab crackdowns, but this alone does not explain the lack of support. Europe and the United States can play hardball with Lukashenka, but they must be careful not to tighten their grip too much. Both the United States and the European Union have imposed sanctions on Belarusian officials, such as visa bans and asset freezes, as well as pledged to abstain from any loans made by the International Monetary Fund.

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These sanctions will certainly hurt Lukashenka, but as Professor Laura Henry, an expert on Russian and European politics at Bowdoin College, explains, there is not much more that the U.S. or EU can do. Belarus is a strategic gateway for the

Despite Belarus’ status as a “stain on Europe,” the EU would never risk destabilizing the continent it has worked so hard to unite transportation of oil and gas between Russia and the rest of Europe, which despite Belarus’s status as a “stain on Europe,” the EU would never risk interferring with.

With little hope for significant assistance from the West, the only other choice is to look east, towards Russia and its ever-ambiguous motives. For much of his time in power, Lukashenka has been a toy of Russia and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, but Belarus is not a puppet state. Lukashenka is free to make his own decisions; he even defies Russia at times, but he ultimately knows that his powerful neighbor has the ability to apply enough pressure to bring the country to its knees. This is precisely what Russia is currently doing by cutting subsidies, and even airing a scathing documentary about Lukashenka on Russian television.

But let us not mistake Russia’s actions as support for the protestors or the ouster of Lukashenka; the reason for the sanctions is threefold. Professor Henry asserts that Russia wants to keep Belarus firmly in its sphere of influence, and prepare it for entry into Putin’s brainchild: an economic trade zone called the Eurasian Union. Furthermore, Russia has been salivating over the possibility of investing in Belarus’ largest, state-run corporations, and it has the capacity to make Lukashenka sell. Finally, Putin recognizes that Lukashenka always serves as a useful foil, making Russia’s leaders seem more democratic and open. Despite the value that Lukashenka holds for Russian leaders, the often volatile relationship has the potential to topple Europe’s last

remaining dictator.

The clapping of hands and beeping of cell phones have been a welcome surprise for Western observers, but all they can really do is look on and admire.

Although Belarus is situated amongst several EU member states, its European neighbors have their hands tied due to Russia’s overbearing presence and Belarus’s strategic role in the oil and gas markets; this leaves the hope of attaining economic and political freedom squarely on the shoulders of the burgeoning youth opposition.

Despite the fact that Russia’s undeniable potential to break Lukashenka might appeal to some of Belarus’ more romantic youths, it is not necessarily the wisest course to hope for. If Russia were to bring down Lukashenka through an economic stranglehold, it is likely that the former Soviet republic would head in the opposite direction sought by the

European neighbors have their hands tied due to Russia’s overbearing presence and Belarus’ strategic role in the oil and gas markets young protestors. The expansion of Russian influence over Belarus would likely signal the end of democratic hopes, as Putin and his government would ensure that future governments would have little in common with the EU or the U.S. As the window for reform is quickly closing on Lukashenka, the time for Belarusians to seize their future is now. The original protests during the summer of 2011 exposed faults of the current regime and mobilized thousands, but that is simply not enough. A rejuvenated effort to bring rural and older Belarusians into the cause must begin now if Belarusians want to make certain that Lukashenka truly is Europe’s last dictator.

Mac Routh ’12 is a Government and Legal Studies major and spent last fall studying European politics in Copenhagen.

February 2012

Europe

Photo courtesy of Siobhán Silke

France’s ban on the burqa

On April 11, 2011, a law banning the veiling of one’s face in public came into effect in France. The new law has had the greatest impact on women who wear the burqa and the niqab–Islamic veils that both cover the hair, face and at least part of the body. Police have stopped over 90 women wearing these garments since the institution of the ban.

In September 2011, however, Hind Amas, 32, and Najate Nait Ali, 36, became the first two women in France to actually have been fined. Amas and Nait were stopped on the street in a town east of Paris on May 5; a judge in Meaux has just recently decided upon a sentence and charged them with fines of €120 and €80, respectively. The two women have vowed to appeal their punishment all the way through to the European Court of Human Rights.

France’s ban on the burqa can be seen as part of the nation’s policy of laïcité, or the freedom of all public institutions

from religious influence. According to Nicholas Toloudis, Professor of Government and Legal Studies at Bowdoin College, the notion of laïcité was, at the beginning of the century, a subject of intense conflict as the Catholic Church and secular state competed for power.

“The concept,” he explained, “was initially brought to institutional life because of the animosity of republican ideologues toward the Catholic Church, which represented backwardness and barbarism and the ancient regime.”

After the past hundred years, however, laïcité has become an everyday part of French society. The concept has been codified in several French laws, including one passed in 2004 that forbids students from wearing any type of political or religious symbol–such as Islamic headscarves, Jewish skullcaps, or large Christian crosses–to school. Francois Fillon, the French prime minister, defended the ban on face-covering veils as

part of French national tradition.

Laïcité, however, is now beginning to be interpreted differently by sections of France’s public. According to professor Toloudis, “it is [sometimes] invoked to defend a particular understanding of France in opposition to novel demographic changes involving the influx of Muslim foreigners to French soil.”

Migration News, a journal published by UC Davis, estimates that while Muslims have lived in France since the beginning of the 20th century, their population topped one million in the late 1960s. BBC News assesses that France’s five to six million Muslims now account for about 9 percent of the nation’s population as a whole. While only two thousand French residents wear the garments, a ban on face covering veils can be construed as a specific attack on all French Muslims.

According to Gabriel Varela ’14, who grew up in France, many citizens actually do not see the ban as a religious issue, but rather a way to make French society more egalitarian.

“If you read the actual language of the law,” he explained, “it simply says that one cannot cover his or her face in public. Nowhere are the words ‘Muslim’ or ‘women’ mentioned, because targeting minorities is illegal in France.” Va4

Europe

rela went further to clarify that the law could be seen as a move to help eliminate differences in French society. He claimed that unlike Americans, the French do not believe that the public sphere is the appropriate place to demonstrate differences, whether they are differences in belief, heritage or wealth.

Regardless of the motives behind its passage, the law’s actual enforcement has been met with mixed reactions. Accord-

France will need to decide the extent to which it will risk alienating its largest minority ing to a Pew Global Attitudes Project Survey, 82 percent of the French public is in favor of the ban. Muslim feminists similarly support the ban. As we have seen, however, several women who do regularly wear niqabs and burqas have protested against what they see as the erosion of their freedom to practice religion.

The ban has many other adversaries as well. Rachid Nekkaz, a French businessman, has actually pledged to pay any fines that may arise because of the law. His organization, Association Touche Pas à Ma Constitution (or “Hands off My Constitution”) condemns the law as a political ploy used by Mr. Sarkozy in order to gain votes from conservative right wing voters in the upcoming presidential election. Mr. Nekkaz believes that the law tampers with individuals’ rights to freedom of expression and religion. The organization’s website also accepts donations to his cause of freeing women from having to pay fines for wearing a burqa or a niqab.

The future of the law remains unclear.

Several other European nations, including the Netherlands and Denmark, may be considering similar legislation. Much seems to be riding on the result of Amas and Nait’s attempts to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights.

According to Allen Springer, Professor and Chair of the Department of Government and Legal Studies, the outcome is unclear. Professor Springer be5

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lieves that the first challenge would be for the case to actually reach the court, as the judicial process “does screen out a number of claims without getting to the merits.”

Even if their case were to make it to the court, the European Union has historically given member states flexibility and independence in their approaches to dealing with the issue of Islamic headscarves and veils. Nevertheless, the particulars of the case and judicial attitudes involved could lead to a judicial victory for the women.

Ultimately, France’s ban on the burqa

and the niqab can be justified as part of a broader attempt to fully separate religious and public life in French society.

Regardless of the justification, however, this particular law, along with a recent ban on public prayer, certainly seems to be targeting France’s Muslim citizens.

As it moves forward, France will need to decide the extent to which it will risk alienating its largest minority.

Tanu Kumar ’12 is a Government and Legal Studies major and an Economics minor.

Illustration by Nicole Fossi

February 2012

United States

Photos courtesy of Christiana Whitcomb

Outsiders and the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe Driving on Highway 212 in South Dakota you could pass through the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Reservation and not even realize that you had been there. Rolling prairie stretches in every direction, except for the occasional town and cluster of small houses or trailers. At first glance, the reservation blends with the rest of the state’s expansive western sky and sea of green, until you realize that you are standing on the ground where Crazy Horse organized the Lakota people for the Battle of Little Big Horn. To your west are the sacred Black Hills, central to Lakota culture, and one of the constant reminders that this land, so cherished by the Lakota Nation, is stolen land.

The 1851 Indian Appropriations Act allocated funds to move Native Americans in the west onto reservations. Further additions to the Act allowed Native Americans to sell off their land and eventually white settlers to settle on unassigned land. The result is a piece of

land the size of the state of Connecticut, with a population of only 9,000 people. Densely populated towns such as Eagle Butte, the capital, are almost entirely Lakota populated, while huge plots of land outside the towns are owned by white farmers.

La Plant, South Dakota sits 35 miles away from Eagle Butte with a population around 170 people. Although you drive through enormous plots of farmland to get there, the unemployment rate in La Plant hovers around a staggering 95 percent. This is unsurprising when you realize that there is not a single store in the town of La Plant—no gas station, no grocery store, and certainly no movie theaters or malls. A resident of La Plant has to drive 70 miles round trip to buy a gallon of milk. While these statistics indicate extreme poverty-over 60 percent of the population lives below the poverty line-the root of this poverty exists in a complicated web of misrepresentation and misguided approaches

to solving what outsiders see as “reservation problems.”

On a blistering Saturday afternoon in July I sat on a wooden bench and watched six-year-olds jump around in a circle to the steady rhythm of buffalo skin drums, competing in the traditional grass dance. Being the first of seven weeks that I would spend in La Plant working for a non-profit, I was struck by how completely and utterly different I was. Blonde, white and from Connecticut, I could not have been in more of a position to learn from and absorb everything around me. I witnessed their first pow wow in decades. Parents and elders bustled around carrying baskets of fry-bread and helped children adjust their traditional costumes. Some families agreed to cook lunch for everyone at the pow wow, and the smell of dough and sugar settled in the stifling heat.

Community events like these are rare in La Plant for reasons that are easy to see; although a community center exists, it is isolated from the houses and is essentially an empty room. The places that define community-where you buy your food, where you fill up your gas tank, where you buy a cup of coffee, where you casually run into your neighbor-simply do not exist in La Plant. Here is the fundamental conflict, as this problem is not part of the oversight of federal and non-governmental organizations who are looking to address poverty on the reservation. “Traditional” approaches to poverty, such as fixing hunger and homelessness in the short-term, simply are not effective on this reservation. The federal government, Housing and Urban Development and non-profit organizations have made well-intentioned attempts to solve these issues, but have inadvertently created a cycle of dependence on short-term strategies.

The average family in La Plant lives in a house built by Housing and Urban Development, a branch of the federal government. HUD builds a small house and agrees to maintain them as long as the rent is paid every month. This relationship disintegrates over time as both 6

The Bowdoin Globalist

United States

parties fail to meet their side of the agreement. As roofs leak and collapse in the middle of enormous ice storms-an ice storm in 2010 left over 14,000 people in the region without water-residents of La Plant are stranded while response is extremely limited. Although the housing project was well intentioned, it was designed without taking into consideration several key facts: the Lakotas live in tornado territory, a South Dakota winter can cover a home in snow and the wind can rip the roof off, and the Lakotas traditionally are nomadic (thus settling into a suburban development is fundamentally against their tradition). As a result, the “HUD homes” are falling apart because they are built out of inappropriate materials and La Plant residents cannot afford to pay the rent. Furthermore, alcoholism and drug use spread more quickly because of the extremely close living quarters. It is not uncommon for several families to live in a two-room home. Additionally, the Lakota residents of the reservation are on welfare because that is the way that the US government has traditionally dealt with extreme poverty in its own territory. Unintended consequences include the fact that commodity food stamps have led to a diabetes epidemic on the reservation. In addition, because there has been no focus on developing an economy, an extreme sense of isolation and boredom exists that further separates the residents of La Plant from the organizations that control much of their lives.

What it comes down to is a culture of “give money, give houses, give supplies.”

However well-intentioned, these approaches are reactionary and short-sigghted. As a result, they often have unintended negative consequences, leading to a general distrust by the community of non-profit organizations and federal programs. These traditional approaches to poverty continuously put the Lakota people in the role of receivers and victims, a cycle that is toxic and extremely hard to break.

Looking at the Lakota people from a historical perspective is humbling. Their 7

people produced some of the greatest leaders in history. Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull and Red Cloud, among many others, led their people to protect their entire existence—their population, their land, their culture. The issue is not that the Lakota people are incapable of thriving in the twenty-first century, it is that the way that the United States approaches extreme poverty can be crippling, especially for the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. Fortunately, new kinds of charity are emerging, and their first priority is to empower. Micro-lending non-profits are willing to invest in people with good business ideas, a process that would put the control in the hands of the Lakota people. Something as simple as owning a vending machine or a laundromat can start to build an economy. Once this begins, the residents of La Plant will have more time and resources to share their incredibly rich culture.

Organizations on the reservation run by Lakotas, such as the Cheyenne River Youth Project, focus on empowering children and teenagers and enabling them to choose what they want their future to look like instead of being caught in the welfare cycle. Non-profits are looking to develop more sustainable housing under the direction of the residents of La Plant so that they are not under the control of utility companies.

Residents of La Plant hold community meetings to work together to make their community stronger. As the gap between rich and poor grows wider across the globe, the need for smart charitycharity that focuses on empowerment and sustainable development-could not be more important. The ideas, the technology and the willpower all exist, it is simply a matter of who is willing to do something a little less traditional and a little more enlightened.

Christiana Whitcomb ’14 is a Government and Legal Studies and visual arts double major. She spent the summer of 2011 working on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe reservation for a non-profit organization.

Photo courtesy of The Kominas

Punk music takes Punk Islam. The two words seem to contradict each other at first glance– a socially conservative religion and a rebellious music scene best characterized by mohawks. In light of the Arab Spring, the concept is not as farfetched as it may have once appeared. According to a Pew study, there are approximately 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, and very few of them have the same definition of Islam. Punk Islam stems from this vast difference in interpretations of what constitutes Islam.

In 2004, a Muslim convert, Michael Muhammad Knight, published a book called The Taqwacores. Chronicling a punk house in Buffalo, New York, the book follows a group of characters, albeit figments of Knight’s imagination in the most literal sense possible. Knight had never met or seen a punk Muslim; and they did not exist until after the publication of his novel. The Taqwacores examines a group of young American Muslims, ranging from a vocal feminist

February 2012

s over who wears a burqa, to a tattooed conservative, to a Pakistani who smokes weed while reading the Qur’an. Alcohol floats around the dirty house, where women act as imams and Sunni and Shi’a pray side by side. To give a brief background of Islam, most of these things are not condoned, and several are considered haram (forbidden). These young rebels each define Islam differently, according to what they agree with. It’s a statement about making Islam a personal an individualized religion, one that has adapted to an era and a country that do not resemble 7th century Arabia.

The big question at stake for those who choose to follow a more strict observance of Islamic traditions is whether such people can be considered Muslim. The answer for those who have tailored Islam to their lifestyles is a resounding yes. Though not the same, there are striking similarities between this navigation of religion and the navigation of modern culture through the

United States

punk subculture. Young Muslims have found pairing the two to be a new way of expression and identity that fits with their outside-the-mainstream beliefs.

In the United States, a small clique of bands has sprung up, symbolizing the fruition of the taqwacore movement Knight initially imagined in his book. The Kominas (“bastards” in Punjabi) formed in 2005, and have floated between the U.S., Pakistan and the U.K ever since. Perhaps best characterized by their last single, “Sharia Law in the U.S.A.” the band is constantly pushing the boundaries of Islamic culture. In 2007, The Kominas, along with Michael Muhammad Knight and several other punk bands, participated in a documentary that followed them coast to coast as they performed shows. Entitled “Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam,” the documentary has inspired a generation of American Muslims, fueling the growth of this new movement. An incredibly loyal fan base has helped The Kominas continue their project, but they have also established credibility with the media, appearing on Aljazeera and in countless American news outlets. As the face of punk Islam, the band has become the de facto source on the music and ideology of the ever-growing subculture.

The Kominas are headed by front man Basim Usmani along with Imran Ali Malik, Sunny Ali, and Abdullah Saeed.

Currently based out of Philadelphia and working on a new album, the band has been able to make their music a full time career. When asked about any potential conflict between Islam and punk music, Usmani replies that, “Islam and music have gone hand in hand since hip hop, it’s just about bringing everyone up to speed.” It’s clear that The Kominas and other punk groups will continue to record music even if it upsets more traditional Muslims, who consider such music haram. Chalking up the success of the movement to a change in American perceptions, Usmani credits “growing up in a generation known for its diversity” as one reason why young Muslims have embraced punk Islam so enthusiastically.

With lyrics like, “la ilaha I took the shahada, I tried to plead my case to the top of al-Qaeda, but they wouldn’t have any of my leftist kick, the Afghan’s fought off from invading their shit,” (from the song “Suicide Bomb the Gap”) the band touches on current tensions in the Islamic world. Other themes in their music range from Punjabi folklore to Sufi saints. The Kominas aren’t afraid to take on themes that seem taboo, and open them up to discussion through their music.

The ultimate symbol of rebellion, punk Islam offers a new way to appreciate music and a different approach to a 1400-year-old religion However, this handful of bands is doing more than just changing the status quo among young followers of Islam.

Within the punk scene itself, ideas of whom or what can constitute punk have started to change. Granted, punk music has been around since the 1970s and has seen various trends come and go in its long tenure, but this newest variety, in the words of The Kominas, “is probably doing a greater service to punk rock than the punk scene actually wants to acknowledge. Know that there will be more and more brown and beige Americans in the future.”

Both the punk scene and American Muslims can learn and embrace the fledgling movement, which already has a faithful following both here and abroad.

The ultimate symbol of rebellion, punk Islam offers a new way to appreciate music and a different approach to a 1400-year-old religion.

If you want more information on The Kominas or want to listen to their music, check out their website at www.thekominas.com.

Lauren Speigel ’12 is a Government and Legal Studies and French double-major, specializing in the Middle East.

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Asia

Photo courtesy of Mariya Ilyas

On the front lines in Pakistan In the U.S., the First Amendment is a journalist’s best friend. Beyond American borders, however, the freedom of the press is not as friendly—it’s deadly.

On January 13, Wali Khan Babar, a reporter working for a Pakistani private news channel, Geo News, was targeted and killed in Liaqatabad. Babar became first on the notorious list of journalists killed in the line of duty in Pakistan in 2011.

More recently, on November 7, Javed Naseer Rind, both an editor and columnist with the Urdu-language Daily Tawar, was kidnapped and murdered. His body, which showed signs of torture, was found 186 miles south of the city of Quetta.

According to research done by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Rind’s murder marked the seventh death of Pakistani journalists in 2011, making the country the world’s deadliest place for journalists, two years in a 9

row. Founded in 1981, the CPJ is a New York-based nonprofit organization that promotes freedom of the press worldwide by defending the rights of journalists for truthful reporting.

“Journalism in other countries is a courageous and brave thing to do,” said Athelia Knight, who worked for the Washington Post for 33 years, “people are risking their lives to tell stories.”

“Journalism is a profession that is important to a democratic society because people need to understand how their government works, how things are going in their society, and they need to really have a good understanding of where their money is going,” continued

People are risking their lives to tell stories Knight, who, in addition to his tenure at the Washington Post, has been teaching journalism at Georgetown University since 2008.

Knight also noted that while the U.S. government puts out press releases every day, “you also need reporters to go beneath that to look and see how things really work.”

While freedom of the press is constitutionally protected in Pakistan, journalists rarely exercise this right out of fear of being targeted. Increasingly, reporting anything against the government is punished by a sentence in prison—or more severely with death.

In America, where we are used to the protections guaranteed to us by the Bill of Rights, such governmental action is condemned and unimaginable. Yet it is a reality in many countries around the world—including those, like Pakistan, which consider themselves democratic.

In Pakistan, journalists assume enormous risks every day by undertaking investigative reporting. Ironically enough, politically unstable countries like Pakistan, where democracy disguises autocracy, need investigative journalism the most. It is the only link people have to the government; it is the only way they can check those in power.

Journalism is not only access to information, it is also dissemination of the truth. People rely on journalists to reveal the corruption that occurs within government regimes.

One question remains unanswered, however: why is Pakistan the worst country for journalists? What makes Pakistan so dangerous for reporters?

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., Pakistan has been on the U.S. and world radar for possibly harboring terrorists. Suspected of its links to terrorist networks and organizations such as Al-Qaeda, Pakistan has struggled for nearly a decade to maintain a respectable reputation. Despite the Pakistani government’s allegiance to the U.S. in finding the mastermind behind 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden, it faced immense embarrassment when bin Laden was found and killed near a Pakistani military base in Abbottabad. Some say the Pakistani government had a hand in hiding bin Laden; others blame underground terrorist networks for humili-

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ating the nation. Regardless, this news made things worse for ambitious Pakistani journalists who took on the challenge of reporting about such issues.

This past summer, I returned to my suddenly infamous hometown, Abbottabad, to teach journalism just three weeks after news of bin Laden broke out. I helped establish a sustainable journalism program at Al-Imtiaz Academy (AIA), located at the heart of the city and minutes away from bin Laden’s hiding compound. Initially, I was nervous of going back and terrified of the potential challenges I could face in teaching youth about ethical journalism, which demands embracing the freedom of the press. While I was met with enthusiasm from school principals and students, I was skeptical of the environment and the chance for students to pursue journalism as a career. Headlines of murdered journalists were a source of discouragement.

Anything that makes the government look bad could result in death A prime example is the death of Saleem Shahzad, a Pakistani journalist for the Asia Times Online. Nearly four weeks after the news about bin Laden broke out, Shahzad’s body was found on May 31 near the town of Mandi Bahauddin—just south of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. In early July, The New York Times reported that Obama administration officials believed that Pakistan’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, ordered the killing of Shahzad who had written about alleged links between Al-Qaeda and Pakistan’s navy.

Faithful journalists, like Shahzad, have taken on the challenge of reporting about controversial, even scandalous, issues while risking their lives in pursuit of the truth. Still, their fate remains the same: anything that makes the government look bad could result in death.

Sadly, though, Pakistani journalists aren’t the only ones being killed in

Pakistan. In 2002 the murder of Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl shook the American public. Pearl, suspected of being an American spy by Pakistani government officials, was kidnapped and later beheaded just four months after 9/11. Pearl’s case is yet another example of instability and chaos in Pakistan.

If the truth is not allowed to be reported everywhere, especially in unstable regimes like Pakistan’s, then how can we be aware and trusting of the world we live in?

Why does this matter to American youth? For one thing, we should not take our freedom of the press for granted. Remember writing for or reading your high school newspaper or yearbook? What would happen if the Orient were a censored newspaper? We wouldn’t be getting the truth.

To put things in further perspective, whenever high school and college journalists in America face administrative censorship, at any level, the Student Press Law Center comes to the rescue. SPLC provides free legal advice to student journalists in their struggle to cover important issues free from censorship. This organization alone is indicative of how much we value our right to truthful information. If the truth is not allowed to be reported everywhere, especially in unstable regimes like Pakistan’s, then how can we be aware and trusting of the world we live in?

In early September, Floyd Abrams, a leading expert on the First Amendment, was invited to speak at Bowdoin.

In his lecture to a full audience in Pickard Theater, he said, “There is reason to be proud to be a journalist.”

Mariya Ilyas ’13 is a math and sociology double major and government minor, and spent the summer of 2011 teaching journalism in her birth country Pakistan.

Hope for Kashmir Approach any passerby on the street about their views on the current state of Kashmir, and chances are they’ll respond with a statement related to Led Zeppelin or fine wool. There exists a distinct paucity of media coverage about the conflict in the state of Kashmir, and as a result the issue remains conspicuously absent from many people’s minds.

Kashmir is a troubled region affected by both a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan, as well as by a growing nationalist independence movement against Indian occupation. The longstanding territorial dispute dates back to the formation of the two states themselves in 1947, and has seen three wars fought in 1947, 1965, and 1999 over the validity of their opposing claims to the area. Presently, India controls the states of Jammu and Kashmir, as well as the Kashmir valley, while Pakistan hold the northern region.

While India insists that Kashmir is an integral part of the Indian Republic, Pakistan claims that India’s illegal seizure of the region, coupled with its predominantly Muslim population, necessitates Pakistani control, or, at the very least, freedom from the Indian yoke.

Amidst these competing territorial claims, however, a Kashmiri national independence movement has been forming 1989. Over the past three years, the movement has markedly shifted towards peace and away from militant insurgency. Young protestors demonstrating en masse have replaced armed militants as leaders of the independence movement. Critically, however, the methods that the Indian military forces are using to address the movement remain largely unchanged. Acting with relative impunity, the occupying forces have perpetrated atrocious abuses of human rights, firing at and killing protesters armed only with rocks, and detaining and torturing children.

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uncertain, it is clear that this conflict merits a greater place in the global spotlight.

Dylan Hammer ’14 is a Government and Legal Studies and Asian studies double major. He plans to study abroad in Japan.

Revelling, not revolting in Beirut Photo courtesy of Een Ar In spite of this repression, protesters have maintained their resolve and taken to the streets in an effort to purposefully combat both these violations and the Indian occupation as a whole. The movement is dedicated, largely as a result of Kashmir’s remarkably young population: 70 percent of Kashmiri people are under the age of 35. Children growing up amidst the violence and war of the 1990s aim their frustrations at the occupiers. The pervasive image of the rock-throwing youth is just as present, if not more so, in Kashmir as it is around the world.

While armed resistance has all but vanished except in more remote regions, Indian forces continue to operate in Kashmir with brutality and little respect for civil rights. They crack down on freedom of speech and implement stringent curfews throughout the state. Draconian “anti-insurgent” laws, such as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and the Public Safety Act (PSA), allow policing forces to act with indemnity. Under the AFSPA, armed forces may shoot persons on the grounds of suspicion, while the PSA has legalized the detention of suspects without trial for up to two years.

Such legislation has led to egregious abuses of human rights that have been documented over the past several years.

The murder of rock-throwing protesters has drawn the condemnation of numer11

ous human rights agencies around the globe. Hundreds of children were reported detained and abused last year alone under the PSA act and children appearing in court have been black-and-blue from beatings and torture they said they faced in jails. In addition to these civil rights abuses, reports of rape of Kashmiri women

by Indian forces are numerous, and many of the more high-profile cases have led to further protests.

There is hope for the future though.

Progress has been made recently in addressing the human rights abuses perpetuated by Indian forces. This past October, India repealed the AFSPA and made amendments to the Public Safety Act in response to extensive vocalized criticism, particularly from humanitarian groups.

Notably, Amnesty International published a report last year entitled “A Lawless Law,” that condemned the PSA Act and applied significant pressure to the Indian government. Under the new amendments to the PSA, the maximum detention period is now six months, and minors under the age of 18 may no longer be detained.

While recent developments in legislation are welcome improvements to the situation, it remains to be seeen whether this is indicative of steps towards the independence of Kashmir, or further entrenchment of India’s occupying forces.

While the future of the conflict remains

Nadia dropped the bag of tomatoes and grabbed my arm, frantically pulling me through the crowded market towards her car. Without stopping, she began to question a stranger until the terrified look on her face suddenly vanished as she broke into peals of laughter, relieved. I had no idea what was going on. This was my second trip to Lebanon and I was visiting my grandfather’s second cousin Nadia, a woman uncharacteristically feisty for a sixty five year old. She lit a cigarette, still too overcome to speak as a thin line of smoke curled up into the air. Finally, she said, “Yallah, my God! I thought Hezbollah was firing [gunshots] so I was scared for you, ya habibty!”

This experience has remained with me for two reasons. First, I realized then that I’d never heard a gunshot before.

Second, Nadia wouldn’t have been worried if it were not for my presence. I later understood this when she said, “here in Lebanon, the war happens sometimes and we just keep on living our lives. I like to smoke cigarettes. The young people of Lebanon they love to party.” Her defiance was initially arresting, but I soon understood that this was not an uncommon attitude in Lebanon, where the constant threat of war makes uncertainty the only certainty.

The combination of war and partying, a pair of phenomena that may appear diametrically opposed, in fact epitomizes

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February 2012

Photo courtesy of Caesar Sebastian one type of chaos that lies at the heart of Lebanese society. While the youth of Libya, Tunisia, Syria, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain rebelled against political injustice in the Arab Spring, their counterparts in Lebanon danced on rooftops to live performances by the likes of Ke$ha, Busta Rhymes and Flo Rida. The Arab Spring demonstrates a standard form of social defiance in which revolt serves as a catalyst for a socio-political transition from traditional to modern. In Lebanon, however, it is the confluence of traditional and modern values that constitute the Lebanese youth’s unique brand of complacent rebellion. Far from transforming traditional society, it preserves it.

Historically, Lebanon has functioned as a regional chessboard on which the Middle East’s conflicts manifest themselves time and time again. After the Lebanese achieved independence from France in 1948, state leaders instituted a National Pact. The pact divided political power among the primary Christian and Muslim religious sects according to demographic numbers.

Through a power-sharing system, which prevented any single religious sect from accruing disproportionate political influence, Lebanon enjoyed fragile but stable state of peace. Throughout this period of political stability, Lebanon’s demographic reality changed: the number of Christians

decreased, Muslim populations increased, and the balance between Shiite and Sunni Muslims shifted. Despite alterations in the population the delegation of political power remained fixed by the 1948 agreement causing political tension among religious sects. Finally, an influx of Palestinian refugees exacerbated these tensions and the delicate structure of Lebanon’s political system collapsed and politics devolved into war. The country was plagued by civil war for fifteen years. Enactors of violence did not discriminate: Muslims fought Muslims, Christians fought Christians, and all religious sects fought each other. Relics of the war, such as the structural remains of the old Holiday Inn, remain in downtown Beirut, riddled with bullet holes and broken windows, reminding people of the country’s not-so-distant past.

In its pre-war glory, Beirut was considered the “Paris of the Middle East.”

Surrounded by contentious conflict, Lebanon’s religious multiplicity made it the most cosmopolitan city in the region.

Though the country is still recovering from civil war, Beirut has been restored to a variation of its former splendor as the party capitol of the Middle East.

Young Lebanese in their twenties—regardless of gender, sexual orientation, politics or religious affiliations—flock to rooftop clubs and luxurious poolside

lounges. Amidst violence and political instability, it is difficult to imagine such a scene.

With good reason, the media pays great attention to the paradoxical and seemingly defiant aspect of Lebanese society. The Beirut party scene refutes contemporary perceptions of Lebanon as a war zone. Such emphasis, however fails to articulate Lebanon’s complex social dilemma. Nightlife momentarily dissolves traditional divides; it creates an arena in which traditional social mores are irrelevant to a common appreciation of a ‘joie de vivre.’ Though this party culture is more than a mere escape from the realities of war, it does not represent a genuine transformation into a modern society. Traditionally respected divisions of religion, sexuality and politics are confronted by an awareness of modern values in clubs, but maintain a strong hold over practices in every day life. Though the youth ‘play’ together, interreligious marriage is rare, homosexuality is taboo, and female submissiveness still has a place. This modern consciousness of Lebanese society, considered separately from the traditional backdrop on which it occurs, belie the truly unique nature of Lebanon’s youth, which can only be understood through the interactions of these opposing forces.

In the west, our focus on Lebanon and the region as a whole has been on its political upheaval underpinned by traditional religious divides. We therefore call for a solution: for peace in the Middle East. In 2008, King Abdullah II of Jordan gave a speech in which he outlined the most effective way to address this struggle. One of the most necessary changes he saw was the need to address the discord in Lebanon, for it is there that regional tensions seem to concentrate. In this light, these contrasting instances of rebellion and reverence experienced and created by Lebanon’s youth are particularly poignant as the region stands on the threshold of imminent change.

Isabel Nassief ’12 is a Government and Legal Studies major. She studied abroad in Beirut, Lebanon last spring.

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Photo courtesy of Ahmad Hammoud

From Tahrir Square: The first days of revolution There is always something memorable about a taxi ride in Cairo.

The traffic is slow, but with the monotonous honking of thousands of cars, one’s prospects of sleeping are slim.

Watching people risk their lives crossing the street is one of those perverse spectator sports the city’s residents never tire of. Accidents are frequent along Cairo’s wild Nile-side highway, the Corniche el-Nil. Taking a taxi into downtown Cairo is rarely dull.

Throughout the ten years I lived in Cairo, I spent a lot of time in taxis going to the homes of my Egyptian friends downtown. I would usually stare out the window soaking it all up, practicing my 13

Arabic with the taxi driver who, after finding the most American music he had, would play Frank Sinatra or Michael Jackson CDs to which he knew the words better than I did. It wasn’t a boring routine, but it was predictable.

But on the evening of February 11, 2011, nothing seemed routine. There were no traffic police and cars were hectically swerving down the streets. My family and I were headed downtown to Tahrir Square to see the epicenter of the protests that had endured for 18 days.

The sun had already gone down, but we weren’t planning on staying for long.

Burnt police trucks littered the sides of the roads, and as we moved closer to the

city center, we saw more and more pedestrians carrying Egyptian flags.

All of a sudden, there was an explosion of noise. Cars were honking madly; almost simultaneously everyone outside was suddenly on their cell phones, talking excitedly. People were running by, waving their flags and yelling.

Something had happened, but because the radio in our car didn’t work we had no idea what. We didn’t have to wait long to find out. Within seconds one of my Egyptian friends called me, “Mubarak just stepped down!” he yelled.

I wasn’t the only person shocked by what happened in Egypt in the beginning of 2011. Hosni Mubarak had ruled

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Egypt for almost 30 years since the assassination of President Anwar Sadat.

He was the longest serving president in Egyptian history.

Dawn of the revolution

The day the revolution began, January 25, was an official holiday, Police Day, so I had the day off from school.

There were rumors of possible protests downtown, but I, like many others, ignored them. Protests had been planned many times in the past, but typically they had been failures, with police vastly outnumbering the protesters. In retrospect it seems easy to look back at all the factors involved, and see how they ultimately culminated in the overthrow of Mubarak’s regime. At the time, however, even the young bloggers who were at the forefront of political dissent were skeptical about radical, dramatic change.

“I hope the revolution ends at nine, because I’m going for drinks afterwards,” joked Alfred Rauf, a young computer scientist, on his Facebook page that morning. Egyptians were generally viewed as too apathetic, too concerned with making a living, to change a seemingly unchangeable political situation.

After the failure of multiple protests and a police crackdown in 2005, Egyptians took their political dissent to the Internet. Ironically, while the regime maintained its pressure on dissidents, it was simultaneously pushing to make the Internet available to as many people as possible. Internet service was suddenly accessible to millions of disaffected youth. “It was a way of cementing ties in a country where it’s illegal to have meetings of more than five people under the emergency law,” says blogger Hani Morsi. In a virtual world, discussions with groups of hundreds of people were possible, and “what was discussed in the virtual space has come back into the real space in the form of social action,” Morsi continued. People on blogs and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter began to call for demonstrations in downtown Cairo on Tuesday, January 25.

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Life under the Mubarak regime Mubarak’s suppression of Islamic groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, and his preservation of the peace treaty with Israel earned him strong support from the West, particularly the United States. In the decade since 2001 Egypt received an average annual foreign aid of $1.8 billion from the United States, making it the second highest recipient of US foreign aid after Israel.

Under Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP) Egypt was transformed into a de facto single party state, perpetually under emergency rule. Under the state of emergency, constitutional rights were suspended, police enjoyed more power, press censorship was legalized and the government could imprison individuals indefinitely and without reason. Most newspapers were outlets for government propaganda, and according to Reporters Sans Frontiéres, Egypt was the 32nd worst country in the world for freedom of the press.

Despite consistent economic growth over the last decade, living conditions for the majority of Egyptians remained poor. According to a 2005 Central Intelligence Agency estimate, 20 percent of Egypt’s 81 million people lived below the poverty line. The disparity of income between the majority of Egyptians and wealthiest 10 percent of the population accounted for increasing alienation between the ruled and the rulers.

The corruption of the Egyptian police force was infamous. If a policeman stopped you for a minor infraction, you could easily get out of a ticket by simply offering a little backsheesh (Arabic for a “tip”), or “a cup of tea” as traffic police called it with a smile. While minor corruption could be laughed at, Egyptian security forces were notorious for their brutality, as is evident in the high num-

ber of torture cases amongst prisoners.

Examples such as Mohammed Shaarawi, who was kidnapped and sexually abused by police for simply protesting on the steps of the Journalist Syndicate, or Sherif al-Kanati, who was arrested and sodomized while in custody, were tragically common among political or religious dissidents. Furthermore, Egyptian intelligence participated actively and enthusiastically in extraordinary rendition, a process whereby the CIA would send suspects to friendly countries, such as Egypt or Jordan, where torture is standard operating procedure. This ‘torture by proxy’ avoids domestic legal complications in the United States, and was carried out by Egyptian security forces.

But the security and intelligence agencies were just one of many crooked elements within Mubarak’s regime. Corruption reached the very top levels of the Egyptian regime including, most Egyptians believe, President Mubarak himself.

Although presidential terms are six years long under Egyptian law, there was no limit to the number of terms the president could serve. Mubarak’s regime held presidential elections every six years, however the elections were often described as rigged. Many political groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, were theoretically illegal. Constitutional amendments made it virtually impossible for anyone—Muslim Brotherhood member or otherwise—to challenge Mubarak. The inflexibility and longevity of Mubarak’s rule led him to be known among not only his opponents but also many apolitical Egyptians, as “the Pharaoh”. Beginning in 2000, speculation grew that Mubarak’s banker son, Gamal Mubarak, was being groomed to follow his father into power, sparking fears of a “hereditary pseudo-monarchy.”

The protests that day began peacefully. Eyewitnesses recall that the police appeared initially to be unusually well behaved perhaps due to regime sensibility in the aftermath of the overthrow of Tunisian President Zein Al-Abadain Ben Ali less than two weeks earlier.

However protesters did clash with secu-

rity forces in Tahrir Square and outside the Egyptian parliament. After midnight riot police succeeded, with tear gas and truncheons, in clearing demonstrators from Tahrir Square. But it was the largest demonstration in Cairo since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, and it signaled that the rebellious 14

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spirit thriving in Tunisia had spread to Egypt.

Egypt was suddenly tense with anticipation. Small demonstrations broke out around Cairo, Alexandria and other cities. No one knew if it was just a spike in unrest, or the beginning of something much bigger. The test came three days later on January 28, dubbed the “Friday of Anger.” My father woke me that morning with simple instructions: “Don’t leave the neighborhood today.

Try to stay as close as you can to the house, and definitely don’t go downtown.” It was a sobering moment to wake up to. “Today is the day that Egypt goes either in one of two directions,” he continued, “either the demonstrators will overpower the police and we’ll see a serious revolution, or the police will succeed and the government will violently crack down on Egypt.”

Because both of my parents are journalists, they went downtown in anticipation of the protests. We soon discovered that the Internet and phone services had stopped, and we had no way of contacting other people except for with a satellite phone we had to go to the roof to use. The next few hours were spent in an excited mood of anticipation, watching the news and waiting for any information.

In Egypt, and other countries in the Muslim world, Friday is the day of prayer, and after midday as Egyptians were leaving the mosques, demonstrations erupted around the city and congregated in Tahrir Square, in central Cairo.

This time, the police were not as forgiving. Using tear gas, water cannons and batons, security battled demonstrators for hours around Tahrir Square, and on Qasr Al-Aini Bridge, which led to Tahrir.

Shocked, my siblings and I watched as news channels depicted police trucks driving into crowds of protesters, and young Egyptians throwing Molotov cocktails at police cars. It was an apprehensive moment, as I realized that the country where I had spent the majority of my childhood could never return to 15

The Bowdoin Globalist

how it had been before that day.

As the evening progressed, fires broke out at the headquarters of the National Democratic Party, near Tahrir Square, overlooking the Nile. State-run television channels largely ignored the

The country where I had spent the majority of my childhood could never return to how it had been before

demonstrations, and continued reporting on other news as usual.

As the clashes around Tahrir grew, the Egyptian Army suddenly appeared on the streets. In a highly dramatic TV moment, protesters were seen cheering and celebrating as the army was deployed into Tahrir Square. Traditionally, the army was always seen as above petty politics, part of the people. The protesters assumed that the army would defend rather than oppress them.

That night, I fell asleep on my couch, extremely disappointed after watching an address to the nation by President Mubarak in which he pledged to form a new government, and not to run in presidential elections scheduled for later in 2011.

“Still smoking”

Photos courtesy of Mosa’ab Elshamy and Yasmine Perni

The next day, I awoke curious as to what Egypt would look like once I left the house. My father was asleep, after having reported on events until sunrise. He later described how when he left his office near Tahrir Square, Cairo was eerily silent. There were no cars in the center of the city, and he walked for kilometers through streets littered with burning police vehicles before he could find a taxi willing to drive him home.

He said as he drove away from the city center, he saw dozens of trucks full of dejected looking riot police heading toward their bases on the outskirts of the city. He recalled that the taxi driver cursed them as they drove by.

My brother and sister decided to stay home, but my mother and I drove around the neighborhood in search of some remnants from the night before.

At first, the city seemed the same.

Fewer cars were driving about, but the neighborhood seemed unchanged. Curiosity prompted us to drive further from home. It was not until we reached the Corniche, the road by the Nile leading to the center of the city, that we saw our first army tank, a site that we would become accustomed to soon enough.

As we drove down the highway, we saw an increasing number of charred

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and smoldering police trucks and cars.

We also witnessed scattered buildings blackened with flames and smoke: they were either branches of Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party or police

Any attempt by the police to exert their authority was heckled by a population that suddenly discovered they did not have to obey orders anymore and security buildings.

As we entered downtown Cairo, trucks packed with police drove by us in the opposite direction. Any attempt by the police to exert their authority was heckled by a population that suddenly discovered they did not have to obey orders anymore. As we entered Tahrir Square, we saw the NDP headquarters still smoking from the previous night.

Several times our car was suddenly surrounded by protesters still out from the night before.

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We parked the car and walked around taking pictures. Tanks lined the Corniche near the Square, but the soldiers didn’t mind taking pictures with people.

Egyptians indicating their support of the army arrived, giving food and drinks to the soldiers, who seemed to enjoy the attention and adoration.

Despite the joy of many Egyptians, the city was still tense. While some people approached my mother and me, thrilled by the fact that foreigners supported them, others were not so approving. While taking a picture of the burning NDP building, we heard one father comment to his family in Arabic, “Look at the foreigners coming to take pictures while our country is burning.”

That day, as more and more protesters flocked to Tahrir Square, the army declared a curfew, which was ignored by the populace. Demonstrations demanding that Mubarak resign continued to grow, and the government purportedly ordered the army to use live ammunition on protesters. The soldiers never carried out the orders.

When the cell phone system was restored, I spent hours on the phone with friends, discussing our individual experiences. Frequently, I had to say goodbye to friends who were being evacuated by their parents’ employers. None of us knew how long they would be gone for.

Lagan Shaabiya

After trying to go grocery shopping in the afternoon, my mother returned home and informed us that she had seen a large group of masked men with guns near a grocery store by the Nile. Soon news began to circulate that the government had thrown open the doors to several prisons in an attempt to cause mayhem around the city. Unfortunately, my neighborhood was situated adjacent to Tora prison, one of the largest jails in Egypt. News channels reported that homes in some neighborhoods, including ours, had been looted. Most shockingly, we learned that the children’s cancer hospital in downtown Cairo had been sacked. Without police to patrol

Photo courtesy of Mosa’ab Elshamy 16

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the city, communities all over Cairo organized squads of vigilantes (known in Arabic as Lagan Shaabiya—Popular Committees) in an attempt to stop baltagiya (thugs) from going on a rampage.

As was discovered over the next few days, many of the baltagiya were actually undercover police, police informers, or Egyptians from the poorest areas of Cairo recruited to cause trouble. The government mistakenly expected Egyptians to choose security over freedom, and eventually clamor for the return of a stable government.

As dusk fell on the evening of January 29, and curfew theoretically went into effect, my parents and I walked around the community, joining some of the neighborhood patrols. We all had plastic bags wrapped around our arms in order to identify us to other vigilantes. Armed with baseball bats, kitchen knives and our dogs, we ventured around our neighborhood, navigating our way around makeshift blockades made of tree branches and concrete blocks. On almost every street corner men sat on picnic chairs around fires, discussing politics and what lay ahead that night with a new found freedom. Most patrols only had what protection they could find, mainly clubs and miscellaneous weapons. One young man was dressed fully in black and wielded a samurai sword, but after speaking to him it was evident he had no idea how to use it. My younger brother, free from school and homework, had spent the day playing hours of video games. Excited at the prospect of defending our house, he ran about collecting his BB guns and blow darts.

Luckily, our house was never attacked, but many others in our neighborhood were. After that first night of uncertainty, the neighborhood gathered together in a way unimaginable before the revolution. Without an organized army or police force to defend the populace, it was remarkable to see communities unite in such a powerful way.

Raging revolution

But the regime of Hosni Mubarak wasn’t about to surrender. On February 17

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2, violence escalated as Mubarak supporters, commonly believed to be hired by the government, entered Tahrir Square on horses and camels and started attacking protesters. It was a shocking scene to see on live television. Afterwards, I learned that for many Egyp-

The regime’s offensive against the uprising petered out while the army remained on the sidelines and the police stayed in their barracks. People continued to flood into Tahrir; some were curious, others were eager to finally express their pent-up frustration with decades

tians this was the moment they realized that the Mubarak regime was morally bankrupt—it could only use the crudest and most blatant forms of violence to maintain its grip on power. That night, the violence reached its peak as snipers working on behalf of the Mubarak regime shot protesters in the square, while others lobbed Molotov cocktails on the protesters from buildings overlooking Tahrir.

Shocked by the regime’s brutality, protesters demanded to know why nations such as the United States, who claimed to support democracy, did little to bring an end to the conflict.

of dictatorship.

On Sunday, February 6, a multi-faith mass was held in the Square involving Christians and Muslims. Both religious groups took turns in forming a protective circle around the other while they prayed. Some Muslim protesters took to wearing Coptic crosses in support of religious tolerance. In a country where tension often erupts amongst religions, it was a moving moment, broadcast live by international and Arab news channels.

Despite the revolution raging in downtown Cairo, my school decided to reopen. After so many days of isolation

February 2012

from friends, I was glad to return. More than half the school had been evacuated; I was one of the few foreigners to remain in Egypt. On February 10, not long after school had been reopened, speculation arose of a possible coup d’état. People returned home in eager anticipation of the capitulation of Mubarak. However, Egyptians were disappointed that night, as Mubarak appeared on television to

The January 25 revolution has been called the unfinished revolution simply state that he would give certain powers to his newly appointed Vice President Omar Suleiman, but that he would remain president. His speech was met with rage and frustration, as demonstrations intensified in all major cities.

I went to sleep that night seriously concerned with how long Mubarak could remain in power, and with how much more violent it would get. “This is going to get so bad,” I wrote to a friend

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in an email that night. “The country is becoming a slaughterhouse and it’s not even Friday yet,” he responded.

Legacy of the Pharoahs

The next day my mother, sister, brother and I headed to Tahrir Square. On the way, a friend called me and told me about Mubarak’s resignation. Excited by the news, we continued to Tahrir and spent the evening walking around the Square with millions of ecstatic Egyptians. The cacophony of noise and sights was overwhelming and impossible to describe.

The Egyptian youth had toppled the pharaoh. The Egyptian youth had managed to prove to the world, and themselves, that they were in control of their own destiny.

The revolution didn’t end there. The January 25 revolution has been called the unfinished revolution. With the army still in control of the country, and reforms continuing at a sluggish pace, Egyptians remain discontented with the current situation. Parliamentary elec-

tions commenced in late November, and are planned to culminate with presidential elections by June 2012. However, the army has not lifted emergency law, and concerns continue to grow that Egypt is on the brink of a sectarian civil war after a series of bloody clashes between Coptic Christians and Muslims throughout Egypt.

Throughout the ten years that I lived in Egypt, I considered Egyptians to be some of the most friendly and hospitable people I have met. The revolution brought the youth their freedom, but I hope it doesn’t remove the affability and kindness I consider to be inherent in the populace. Hopefully one day in the future I’ll drive down the Corniche again in a taxi, chatting to a driver living in an Egypt free once and for all from the legacy of the pharaohs.

Christopher Wedeman ’15 has lived in the Middle East his whole life in cities including Amman, Cairo, and Jerusalem.

One Year Later As I write this, it is one year to the day since the beginning of the Egyptian Revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak. Exactly a year ago, I had an argument with an Egyptian friend over whether anything serious would come of the protests that had occurred that day.

Even now, however, it is difficult to be certain of what came of them.

In late November, the first parliamentary elections were held.

Some Egyptians boycotted what they considered an artificial election, however overall voter turnout was impressive and estimated at over 50 percent. When reading the official results, the head of the election committee joked that the overall turnout was “the highest number since the days of the Pharaoh.”

The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the newly formed political party of the Muslim Brotherhood, won

47 percent of the seats. More noticeable, however, was the success of the ultraconservative Salafist Nour party, which won 24 percent of the seats.

Their support stems from the poorest segments of society and rural areas.

While the Brotherhood has sworn to uphold the rights of all citizens regardless of religion, the Salafis aim to return Egypt to a puritanical Islamic entity—vowing to ban alcohol, segregate the sexes in public and impose the veil. This is a prospect that terrifies secular Muslims, not to mention Coptic Egyptians.

Since November, general safety in Cairo has deteriorated. Rumors circulate of muggings, kidnappings and rapes. Frequent ploys by thugs include setting up makeshift barriers on sparsely populated streets and stealing cars, leaving drivers by the side of the road.

Returning to Cairo for winter break, one of my Egyptian friends, at his father’s

insistence, carried a Taser and pepper spray with him wherever we went.

To mark the first anniversary of the outbreak of the revolution on January 25, hundreds of thousands of Egyptians have crammed into Tahrir Square. However the revolution has a long way to go before it is complete.

After spending hours in the square photographing the anniversary, my mother wrote to me, “Isn’t it strange how things change in just one year?

Last year people hated the police and saw the army come in as saviors on the 28th. Today the army is the big enemy.”

Presidential elections are scheduled to take place in June, at which point SCAF has promised to hand power over to the civilians. It’s a promise few have faith in: skeptics foresee a decade of turbulence, while others are left wondering if the results of the most recent elections will “restore Egypt back to the time of the prophet.”

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Middle East

The Bowdoin Globalist

REVOLUTI 19

February 2012

Middle East

Illustration by Nicole Fossi

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Michael Mort ‘12 is a senior at Bowdoin College. He spent last year in Jerusalem, studying at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and was a spectator to the rise of protest in the Middle East and North Africa in early 2011.

but usually these episodes had no relation to the protests in Syria, Morocco, and Egypt etc. It was sometimes difficult for me to discern what triggered the protests in Jerusalem as there is so much anger in region.

Globalist: Do you find the term “Arab Spring” appropriate to the rise of protest in the Middle East and North Africa this year?

Michael Mort: Quite simply, yes.

What we saw was unprecedented.

Tunisia was the most liberal of states and it succumbed first to revolution.

In Egypt people hated Mubarak for a while, but they had generally been apathetic. There is the saying in the Middle East, “if one sneezes, everyone catches a cold.” In the days leading up to revolution in Egypt, we saw the rise of a pan-Arabist movement, nostalgia for the times of Nassar, and a recharge of hostility towards Israel. This was all magnified by the ability for people to connect over the Internet. Mubarak had heavily pushed for the modernization of Egypt with the Internet, this January it backfired upon him, and the youth used social media to organize protest.

Globalist: Do you find this to be a youth movement?

MM: It started as a youth movement but ended up expanding to affect every demographic of society. While the youth may have initiated the revolution, we now see others vying for credit and political control. The news we see in the United States suggests that these dictators were Islamists when in fact many of them were cooperators with the West and tolerant of Israel. These dictators were cracking down on Islamist parties within their countries and because these parties were banned, they now have rejuvenated momentum and respect. The youth in Tunisia still think it is their revolution, but it was the Islamist party that gained control with a 40% win in elections. Generally, it is the older generation that is in support of traditionalist political parties; the young tend to be more secular.

Globalist: Did the presence of these protests impact your time abroad?

MM: It was very clear that Israelis were scared about Egypt. There were protests in Jerusalem, but usually not protests from the Palestinians. This may be due to Palestine’s bid for statehood. For the first time, conflict wasn’t centered in Jerusalem but all around it.

The “Shepard’s War” was out of the spotlight. There were times I could see parts of Issawiya, an Arab village in Jerusalem, burning from conflicts in the neighborhood. During Hakba (May 15) and Haksa (June 5) there were incidents of Molotov cocktails being thrown at Hadassah Hospital,

Globalist: Do you view protest in the Middle East and North Africa as an isolated phenomenon, or as part of a larger global movement?

MM: I would say it is isolated to the region. The protests in the Middle East are now turning into a bunch of civil wars. Some people try to draw connections to OWS and other protests in the West, but they really aren’t the same thing. There was an incident of people in Tunisia ordering pizza for OWS protestors in Madison, Wisconsin, but I would say that is the extent of their relationship.

Anitra Sprauten ’12 20

Latin America

The Bowdoin Globalist

been crucial to maintaining its momentum,” he speculates. “The grassroots, democratic and transparent organization of university students across the country… helped it to form clear and legitimate demands, that have resonated with the Chilean public and rallied its supporters.”

23 year-old Camila Vallejo’s incendiary speeches and deft use of social media have elevated her to cult status as the face of the Chilean Winter and chief proponent of the movement’s demands. President of the University of Chile’s student union, Vallejo is an icon-

Photo courtesy of Erwin Horment

Chilean winter maintains momentum Imagine waking up tomorrow morning, and going through your usual morning routine: a scalding shower, perhaps a mug of coffee, and then you step out onto campus. What do you see?

Probably not a horde of hundreds or thousands of your peers, with their bodies painted or faces masked, protesting in the streets. Fortunately, most American college students have not witnessed such sights or been accosted by riot police with water cannons and tear gas.

Yet throughout Chile, this scene has been playing out over and over again in the streets of Santiago, Valparaíso, Concepción and numerous other cities.

For seven months, high school and college students have paralyzed the educational system, demanding that the government provide free public university education for all. The strikes have proven deleterious to both sides; since May, nearly 2,000 protestors have been arrested and over 500 policemen 21

have been injured. As the seasons have changed in the Southern hemisphere, the protests, known as the ‘Chilean Winter,’ have carried over into spring,

Probably not a horde of hundreds or thousands of your peers, with their bodies painted or faces masked, protesting in the streets with no concrete victories but little sign of losing momentum.

According to Santiago-based reporter Joe Hinchliffe, the movement’s longevity can be attributed to both societal frustration and the students’ solidarity. “My impression is that this movement has inflamed decades worth of repressed discontent with the inequalities in Chilean society and frustration at the inability to address this issue… through the political system... I also think the unity of the movement has

Students are extremely disgruntled with the current educational infrastructure, which they view as an authoritarian holdover from the regime of military dictator Augusto Pinochet ic social activist with definite panache.

“We do not want to improve the actual system; we want a profound change— to stop seeing education as a consumer good, to see education as a right where the state provides a guarantee,” she declares. “Why do we need education? To make profits? To make a business? Or to develop the country and have social integration and development?”

Clearly, young Chileans like Vallejo view the latter as the proper objective of education. Yet three quarters of the country’s universities are private, forprofit institutions. President Sebastián Piñera’s conservative government has offered some concessions by agreeing to to lower interest rates on student loans and pledging a 7.2 percent increase in education spending in the upcoming year.

Still, protestors have systematically rejected these compromises. The objective of the Chilean Winter is complete institutional reform. Students are extremely disgruntled with the current educational infrastructure, which they view as an authoritarian holdover from the regime of military dictator Augus-

Latin America

February 2012

Illustration by Alexa Barry to Pinochet. Indeed, Chileans still lack the constitutional right to freedom of assembly: a law known as Decree 1086 mandates that the students seek prior permission for all protests. The country’s police force may therefore dissolve even peaceful protests, and police brutality can often be left unpunished under a 1978 amnesty law. The Inter-

In the past seven months, the Chilean youth have generated the largest protests to sweep the ‘Thin Country’ in decades.

American Commission on Human Rights has condemned the government and police’s use of force against the students as ‘disproportionate,’ yet abuses continue.

Despite the protests’ popularity among students, not all Chileans sup-

port the movement, which has severely disrupted the educational system. Nicolas Arqueros, a student at Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, laments, “this has produced a great deal of disorder in my life. Right now I don’t have my normal routine of classes, so I waste my days without doing anything useful…I have spent a lot of money staying in the city where I study, because I still have a lease on my apartment.”

As a result of the strikes, students such as Arqueros risk losing not only their daily routine and rent money, but the entire academic year, scholarships, and even the chance to attend good universities in the future. Enough is enough, some say.

Paulo Zurita, a student at Universidad Andrés Bello, is another young Chilean who is intensely frustrated by the loss of months of school caused by a movement that he feels has lost sight

of its original goals: “in Chile, we all know that the education system isn’t the best, and we know it is necessary to improve it… and in this regard I am in agreement with the students’ initiative to march through the streets in protest. This uprising began as a strictly educational movement, but as it has gained momentum and a multitude of followers it has been transformed into a political movement and has left the educational aspect behind.”

As Zurita recognizes, the students’ grievances are valid to an extent—education should not be a for-profit endeavor. Even Bowdoin, with its USD 50,000 annual price tag, is a non-profit institution. Still, the Chilean Winter should seriously consider halting, or at the very least, scaling back strikes in order to establish a more constructive dialogue with the Ministry of Education and Piñera’s admittedly unpopular government. Such an effort would also mitigate the adverse effects the strikes have on both the members of the movement and their peers.

In the past seven months, the Chilean youth have generated the largest protests to sweep the ‘Thin Country’ in decades. The movement has not lost steam, but a strategic change is in order. Hinchliffe posits, “the students need to change their tactics in order to maintain the public support and the incredible energy that has propelled the movement so far. They know that too, most of the leaders of the student movement are talking about this, about what direction the movement should take in the coming months.” While such changes are as of yet unknown, this protest machine, fueled by ordinary students of history and government, biology and economics, is not losing momentum.

Christina Curtin ’12 is a Government and Legal Studies and Latin American Studies double major. In the fall of 2011 she studied in Buenos Aires and travelled throughout the Southern Cone.

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Latin America

The Bowdoin Globalist

Illustration by Alexa Barry

Do college students fund Mexican drug cartels?

The Mexican government is currently struggling in a conflict against eight major drug cartels. Though these cartels vary in size and strength, they are all capable of large-scale drug trafficking violence. These range from bribery to use of fully submersible “narco-submarines” which are sometimes capable of transporting hundreds of tons of drugs to the United States and are built in hidden shipyards with foreign engineering expertise.

Felipe Calderón has needed to expand his initial force of 6,300 soldiers originally tasked with cracking down on drug violence into a much more substantial 25,000; now so many Mexican civilians and soldiers are dying that Mexico’s crime problem is increasingly labeled as a civil war. Calderón’s battle extends even beyond this violence. Among youths and especially 23

in drug cartel-controlled areas, the culture of conflict and civil disobedience is becoming mainstream. One example of this is “narocorridos”, songs composed about the drug war. Oftentimes local artists will be paid to compose and perform these songs, the idea being that this will sway public opinion

The most likely users of marijuana are students and unemployed, with gross incomes of 1030k per year, and aged around 20 in favor of the valiantly depicted drugrunners. In some areas, such as Sinaloa state, this drug cartel propaganda has achieved such success that drugrunners are referred to as “valientes,” or braves.

Yet the drug cartels are a truly international problem, which touches nearly every corner of North America with a continent-wide chain of production, purchase and consumption.

And while it is easy to dismiss common Mexicans as ignorant of the consequences which their support for the drug cartels has for their country, many college students are guilty of the same paucity of introspection.

American youth believe what happens in college will only matter for the first few years after graduation. Most of what we do wrong will fade even faster; social probation, hangovers, and ill-timed breakups will probably never impact our lives in the long term. Yet our social habits do have potential for long-term ramifications. Only rarely, if ever, do our friends who use marijuana think about where their weed came from, or about what effects their purchase had on the world. Fewer yet realize through their THC cloud that the marijuana many US college students smoke comes from drug fields run by Mexican cartels.

So how do we, as college students and US citizens, generate profit for cartels? The most likely users of marijuana are students and unemployed, with gross incomes of 10-30k per year, and aged around 20. Some of those individuals smoke marijuana grown and distributed by Mexican cartels.

Those cartels then use that money to buy guns and politicians to aid them in their criminal activity. Fortunately, unless you participate in hard drug use (such as cocaine or heroin), your impact on the Mexican drug war is probably negligible. There is a good reason why the cartel members are often referred to as narcoterrorists, not cannaterrorists; marijuana is, pound for pound, of the cartels’ less profitable drugs. In 2000, Americans spent $45 billion on cocaine and heroin combined, compared to $10.5 billion on marijuana. While these numbers are by no means insignificant, they become less worrisome when you consider that the RAND Corporation estimated last

February 2012

year that only $1.1-$2 billion of US marijuana sales go to the cartels. Our current marijuana supply is the result of an increasing US domestic production; in the mid-90s, 80 percent of US marijuana came from Mexico; today, the US marijuana supply is increasingly from Canada, and more than half of weed consumed in the US is grown domestically. This is an estimate which seems to be supported by a range of opinions such as the RAND Corporation and the UN. One the other hand, Mexico supplied 70 percent of the US’s cocaine and heroin by the mid-90s, and the cartel market share has likely only risen.

This trend seems likely to continue; while the marijuana drug trade has only been decentralizing over the past 30 years, increasing cartel efficiency

American youth believe what happens in college will only matter for the first few years after graduation means that cartels seem sure to capture more of the US heroin and cocaine markets, especially should Afghanistan’s government’s poppy eradication efforts continue. Finally, Bowdoin students benefit from their geography.

Because marijuana is more likely to be locally sourced than heroin or cocaine, and because Maine is both home to liberal marijuana laws and also separated from Mexico by the cornbelt, the major production region for marijuana in the US, the chances of your personal weed belonging to a cartel are slim.

On the other hand, just because you may not have a negative impact on the drug war doesn’t mean you can’t have a positive impact. The US government has historically had a profound impact on illicit substances in Mexico. The drug channels now used by cartels to funnel drugs into the US got their start during the prohibition on alcohol. Mexican marijuana and alcohol production exploded during Prohibition, and during the coeval massive smuggling operations gave birth to

Latin America

many of today’s routes. And just as the Midwest is now overrun with feral and low-THC marijuana because of WWII era planting initiatives, so too did the NW of Mexico remain drug free until mass opium planting there during WWII. The US, fearing that loss of supplies from the Far East and Turkey would cause a morphine shortage and incognizant of the long-term ramifications, encouraged Mexico to take up the slack in opioid production.

Marijuana legalization legislation, ever popular among college students, has the potential to help Mexico win its drug war. Legalization today can help erase the mistakes of governments from the 1920s on by increasing US production.

Although legalization has been shown to raise the general use of a particular substance, it would likely take the production and sale of marijuana out of the hands of the cartel as long as users were able to pay the taxes imposed by the government. Felipe Calderón himself opposes legalization, claiming that it would lower prices and cause more Mexican youths to turn to drugs while failing to break the cartels’ stranglehold on the market. At the same time, former Mexican Presidents Vicente Fox and Ernesto Zedillo support legalization. Fox claims that “we have to take all the production chain out of the hands of criminals and into the hands of producers . . . So there are farmers that produce marijuana and manufacturers that process it and distributors that distribute it and shops that sell it”.

For those of you who know the history of cigarettes and worry about the impact of legalization and taxation on the price of weed, fear not: the RAND Corporation reports that “even with taxes, legally produced marijuana would likely cost no more than would illegal marijuana from Mexico, and would cost less than half as much per unit of THC.” This claim is based on estimates that legally grown marijuana would be high-THC varieties called sinsemilla, which range from 12-18

percent THC content, as opposed to Mexican marijuana’s average of four to six percent. Even if you doubt your ability to influence national legalization legislation, fight for local change.

Legalization in one state could easily be smuggled and sold in other states and, with more THC and an equivalent price to Mexican weed, it would be likely to outcompete cartel weed, lowering their profits.

You can also support responsible firearm control legislation in the US. In Ciudad Juarez, just across from El Paso, 1,550 people died from drug violence in 2010. 90 percent of confiscated drug cartel firearms originated in the US. The US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives claims that in 2008 American firms sold 7,700 guns to Mexico, more than twice the 3,300 sold in 2007, and more than triple the 2,100 sold in 2006. All of this money may be helping to offset the recession in the US; but in the end, what’s good for US firearm firms is bad for regional security.

The US has historically engaged in virtual victim blaming, punishing the Mexican state for its inability to combat the drug trade. While it is clear that there are huge levels of government corruption facilitating the war on drugs, US policies have not served to aid the effectiveness of the Mexican government. Instead, US policies, such as “decertifying” nations which fail to meet certain targets for drug reduction efforts (leading to increased trade tariffs, US opposition to loans to those countries, and a cease of foreign aid to those countries) only bring anti-imperialistic sentiment and help to discourage international cooperation on what is a truly global problem.

Breathe easy knowing that your green probably isn’t funding drug cartels, but don’t forget that one of Mexico’s best weapons against the cartels may very well be your vote.

Samuel Sabasteanski ’13 is a Government and Legal Studies and Sociology double major.

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