Arab activists declare new initiative “Youth Coalition for Revolutions of Dignity”

One of the lessons learned from SIDA's and The Julia Group's conference "Internet and Democratic Change" was that there are limits as to what internet activism can do to bring about real change and democratization. At the same time, writes Afrah Nasser, important meetings were taking place behind the scenes of the conference as Arab activists decided to declare a new initiative. 

Amidst thecritical time the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is intensivelygoing through, there have been hundreds of conferences attempting to provide asufficient analysis of the situation and its dimensions. The SwedishInternational Development Cooperation (SIDA) and The Julia Group held the conference “Internet andDemocratic Change” on 26th of October in Stockholm. The conference broughttogether a collection of Arab and non-Arab figures who are involved in some wayor another in Cyber-Activism and the Arab Spring. Perhaps one would think thatthis conference was like any other conference, discussing the same issues,however, that was not the case. It had a greater significance at least to theArab activists attending. The conference's main payoff was not only bringing anexceptional analysis on what the international community should do to assistdemocratization around the Arab Spring region. The discussions that took placeamong the Arab activists during the non-formal settings were also veryimportant as substantial announcements were to be made.

First ofall, during one of the opening sessions there was a shock factor presentedwhich contradicted the main topic of the event; “the influence of Internet onsocial change”. The title was very problematic for 25 year old Salma Said,Egyptian political blogger and twitter node. “I didn’t use Internet at allduring the first days of the revolution. Instead, I used sticks, rocks andwhatever I could to fight off the police who was brutally attacking us; theprotesters. That was the real fabric of Egypt’s revolution,” she said, “I thinkthere is an exaggeration among the west of the influence social media had onthe revolution. Actually, the majority who really made the revolution happen inEgypt has never used the Internet.”

Said wasindeed striking in her presentation; bringing the attention to the stereotypeassumption of what led Egypt’s revolution to take place. Another brave femalehuman right activist from Bahrain, Maryam Al-khawaja, also spoke but primarilyon what the international community could do to assist any democratizationprocess around the region. “The international community should collectivelytake a strong, clear and concrete stance against human rights violations andabuses taking place in Bahrain and the rest of the Arab countries”, she said.Since the crackdown in Bahrain in mid March, 1,500 people were arrested and theBahrain Center for Human Rights documented around 800 of severe torturecases.

Saidadditionally suggested how the international community could step to help: “Thesituation is ugly now in Egypt. We live under a dictatorship army and I won’tbe national in the sense of defending my own army. In fact, my army is usingthe aid coming from the west to buy weapons and kill revolutionaries. The westneeds to compel tyrant regimes and use the aid they provide as a pressuringtool to cease the violence acts by security forces against protesters.” Shealso lamented, “how the aid provided currently is going to support thedictatorship Army” just like how the case was with the previous dictatorshipregime of Mubarak.

For KhaledAbdelmagid, an activist from Libya, what the international community must dogoes deeper than acts. “They need to have a different perception of us Arabs.Probably the starting point must be to stop treating us as second or thirdclass humans. I believe the great merit we all have achieved so far is thatArab regained a descent amount of their dignity,” he said.

Usually,it’s very hard to hear from activists coming from different Arab countries inconferences such as “Internet and Democratic Change”. This could be seen as one ofthe good advantages of this conference in particular. Admittedly, it’s veryrare to hear from Syrian activists in conferences due to the immense and rigidcensorship towards activists in Syria as carried out by the regime. However,Hanin Shakrah, Swedish-Palestinian law student, human rights activist andwriter, who was detained in Syria for two weeks while she was participating inone of the demonstrations earlier this year, shared her experiences and pointedout how the situation is very critical in Syria. “Syria’s vocal and strategicpoint adds complicity to any suggestion for intervention by the west.”

Essentially,the burning desire among the attending Arab activists was to find a cease planto stop the bloodshed sweeping the region by oppressive forces. Hence, with greatenthusiasm and affirmation, behind the scenes of the conference, the Arabactivists agreed on declaring an Arab-activists-led initiative to be launchedwith the name “Youth Coalition for Revolutions of Dignity” (YCRD) which wouldbring about a new form of revolution to the Arab Spring. YCRD is an independent youth coalition thatis not politically or religiously affiliated, consisting of human rightsactivists striving through peaceful means to establish civil governments thatinstitutionalize human rights and youth involvement. The countries involved inthis coalition so far consist of: Syria, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain, Tunisia andEgypt.

Accordingly,the conference “Internet and Democratic Change” was an important chance forArab activist speakers and attendees to set face-to-face talks about theCoalition. The face of politics around the region is indeed changing and thereis a great hope that the Coalition will have a great impact in the nearfuture.

AfrahNasser, journalist and blogger from Yemen, living in Sweden.
Read Afrah's blog at: www.afrahnasser.blogspot.com

For more information about the initiative, please visit http://www.ycrd.org/ 

For more onthe same topic, please read:

"al-Awlaki's death - a winning card for Yemeni president Saleh?" by Afrah Nasser

"The revolution changed the system - but not the way people think" - interview with Egyptian human rights activist Doaa Ali Kassem.