A R A B I C A ???????
SIGNS AND SLOGANS
*This Al Jazeera report looks at the importance of signs and slogans in ongoing Arab revolutions. One placard from Benghazi, Libya shows a chess queen knocking the king, with the head of Gaddafi, off the chessboard. It’s part of what looks like a warehouse where revolutions are built. At a table in an unidentified part of the newly free Libyan city sit a group of young men on computers. In a different area, signs are being designed and painted by hand. One reads, “The Libyan people reject foreign intervention.”
BOOKS AND WOMEN
*In Riyadh on Wednesday evening, a group of conservative members of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Protection from Vice stormed the Riyadh Book Fair, roughing up the women present, taking away the microphone and yelling at women to dress more modestly. The young men who launched the assault were arrested and later released.
VIRTUE OF PATIENCE
*It is scenes like this that finally drove Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, a Mubarak man, to step down. Egyptian blog 3arabawy posted footage of “The women of Tahrir,” part of the crowd gathering daily to demand the resignation of Shafiq. One sign reads, “Victory comes with patience.” Mass demonstrations to step up the pressure on Shafiq were scheduled for Friday.
VIRTUE OF IMPATIENCE
*Jordanian columnist Mohammed Abu Romman argues that if citizens and the political opposition do not unite now to press for immediate reform, “we will lose the historical moment and go back to square one.” The Jordanian government said this week that true reforms are coming, but will take months to implement. Ahmed Hmeid tweeted in response to the article, “let us agree the ball is now in the reformers’ court. Will society succeed in building a broad front for reform?”
KICKER TWEET
*A tweet response from Benghazi in reply to a question about the situation there: “Silence is better than an answer.”
March 3, 2011
photo credit: illustir
