Manal and Alaa's bit bucket free speech from the bletches

إيه الحلاوة دي! يووووووه, مش عارفة أنقل من الشمال لليمين فحقلب باللاتيني معلش :( El computer beta3ey mesh beyatafaham bel3araby ma3 el blogs, you'll have to help me! Am shaghaala ma3 abu ahmed kaman- LOVING what you wrote and the discussion, disagreeing and agreeing with a million different things! Bas men kotr mana ma7mu2a, i will never be able to faragh 7amassey aw 7am2ety in words.. :r Apparently ba2a el thawra el Iraniyya had little to do with Khomeiny.. I attended a workshop about this a few months ago, and did not really believe it (or feel it) untill i finished Bayat's book on street politics. He helped organize to an extent, give it structure, and an umbrella.. a little of what kefaya did for us.. or maybe abdelnasser kaman. Gives it a color/direction. Bas tel3et 3ala affa we 7essaab alot of the rural populace who take no bull-shit from state or anyone.. Yaaa ya Alaa, 3al foru2 ma-beyn 3ashwa2eyat-hum we 3ashwa2eyatna.. it is suddenly so clear. They came from rural areas to iran to seek a better life - the revolution mobilized them in the name of this better life and they mobilized.. when the revolution did not provide what it promised - haagu. When prices are high in the market for eg, after demanding that prices be lowered, once, twice, three times, the women of the neighbourhood march into the market and close the stores down! THey threatened to burn the whole market; until the government quickly lowered prices. In Moqattam the government MOVED people who's houses fell in earthquacke to CRAP areas in Moqattam, paralyzing them from the start.. it is a 3ashwa2eyya, CREATED by the government. Thus the sense of community and ties that exist in neigbourhoods in iran facilitating networking, were so WEAK that we established FK to try to create them.. through loan groups. Every , i swear, EVERY stregnth mentioned about spontaneous areas in Iran was exavctly what we could sense missing in MOqattam.. it is the exat opposite of a 3ashwa2eyya.. By making people subscribe to the system, by BRINGING them in they break something keda, DISEMPOWER the people powerfully.. It's the same as going to a shit school with a shit education system and then feeling like a cmplete failure and just seeking to escape the system. Ya3ni the closest people to the Iranian sukan el 3ashwa2eyyat i would say are teh street children.

THe other thing that is interesting is the DEMISE of the movement of the workers, unemployed, etc in Iran. Basically they demanded demanded demanded.. and eventualy teh government gave them bel2attarra.. they legalized a few of the random vendor stalls (a small percentage of hte ones existing) they gave limited unemployment benefits, and they offered support to unemployed recent graduates.. enough to saket-hum, get them to subscribe to the system, and stop looking to each other or themselves for support.. There are so many parallels you can draw between this demise and our '72 and '77..

we ba3deyn? I think we really REALLY need to look more at el 3ashwa2eyat. and NOT to mobilize onlly.. bas to really help people seek better lives. that; and we need to be very very careful about the demands we make when we move. Because we don't want a 'reform' of parts, when the foundation just isn't working.

Also, what you were saying about instiutions and what we relate to or our sense of belonging; i think what we are lacking is the 'culturally productive spaces' , i'm trying to avoid institutions.

Zaman kan fee el gam3a, we beyt el ummah, we sa3aat 7atta a7zab.. kan fee 7atta cafe riche wel bustan we groppi we a million other cafes - the idea is there were always these public spaces were notions of belonging (we mesh 3ayza 2a2ul nationalism) are created, and people can relate to.. we need more of those too...

I know these are thoughts all over the place, and many are incomplete threads kaman; bas like i told you; i just can't do this in writing.

Otherwise, ohaneek bardo 3al songs :) lovely. There's an Algerian song about - 'Tizi ouzou' -- تيزي أوزو Kheyba that i can't remember who sings it... bas if you find it you'll love it.