Re: <nettime> Steven Levy: Joi Ito Explains Why Donald Trump Is Like

[Donatella Della Ratta <ddr@mediaoriente.com>]

Hey MP,

this might be a bit off-thread but i feel i would like to add
something cause this really touches me in my daily work and life

I understand that the way Joi used the expression "Arab Spring" might
be misleading there, expecially being compared to Trump's election But
it saddens me very deeply, having lived in the Arab world for many
years and loving Arab culture and language , to hear that the Arab so
called Spring cannot be something genuine and domestic but should have
been orchestrated by the US

What is fundamentally wrong with us when we think that the US does
have Agency, the Agency of big Imperialism, while poor Arabs dont?
how do we know that? is it genetically proven that they couldnt
revolt without being paid by US and other powers? I am sorry but your
sentence saddens me..especially after having seen so many friends of
mine dying or being imprisoned or loosing everything just for their
dream of dignity and freedom, and definitively not for some US cash or
conspiracy

Anyone who know the Region and speaks Arabic knew that lots of
political struggles were in the making far before 2011..The Arab
Spring was not a Spring as it was portrayed by our media..but a long,
painful struggle which started in the factories in Mahalla, Egypt and
in the mines in Gafsa, Tunisia, in the mid 2000s.. and in Syria, if
you go back to the history, there was a first peaceful "revolt "in the
2000 called Damascus Spring followed by a not so peaceful uprising of
the Kurds in 2005

sorry I do not what to make a tedious history lesson., i do not want
to cite books, articles etc.but, again, pls give Arabs a chance to
have their uprisings without thinking that all that happens in the
Arab world is US fabricated.

and this really relates to the other thread opened by Vahid Salehi on
Syria: Vahid, I totally agree with you. What's wrong with our left?
are we silently backing a man killing his own people destroying cities
erasing history only because he is (supposedly) anti-imperialist?
where did we take this idea from? do we really know Assad's policy
vis-a-vis Palestine? Just because we want desperately to have an ideal
, a romantic idea of the anti-imperial left (and what's left of this
left?) are we really gonna excuse this guy and what he and his regime
did to the people?

I am sorry but if the only idea that we have left as a progressive
left is to be anti.imperialist (meaning anti-US), well that's too
little for us to go ahead..we should wonder why the left is in such
a deep crisis...politically speaking, what are our ideas and ideals
beside saying: I am anti-.US? what is our positive, propositive
vision of the future? are we going to justify a massacre, a genocide,
people being killed in real time on social media with the excuse of
eradicating terrorism just because the guy leading this massacre is an
"anti-imperialist" leader?

I hope we can find better ideas for our future, for our politics
Having lived in Syria for many years, speaking fluent arabic and
having so many young friends who died to defend romantic ideas of
freedom and dignity I am horrified by the idea that we the progressive
left could forget their fight in the name of a void , meaningless idea
of being anti-imperialist

sorry for the long email ..

donatella

2016-12-08 15:44 GMT+01:00 mp <mp@aktivix.org>:


> On 08/12/16 01:46, Patrice Riemens wrote:
>
> Joi Ito:
>
> > It’s about working class empowerment. This election was more
> > like the Arab Spring than it was like some well-orchestrated,
> > well-designed political maneuver.
>
> The thing about people in such power positions is that they are
> often ignorant - structurally given in the organisational sense well
> explained in Manufacturing Consent - or plainly don't give a toss.
> Arab Spring? Well... what exactly was that?
>
> Could it have been any of these things?
>
> http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-arab-spring-made-in-the-usa/5484950
>
> http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2011/04/official-arab-
> spring-subversion-us.html



-- 
Donatella Della Ratta
Arab media blog
www.mediaoriente.com
twitter @donatelladr



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