When I was a kid, my father had a collection of 8-track cartidge type records. The album art on one of them gave me nightmares.
That is the album art of Blue Oyster Cult’s “Fire of Unknown Origin“. For my young mind’s fertile imagination, the image was creepily fascinating. The vivid colors. The sombre expressions of the masked faces. The feeling that the people in the image are about to do something, you just don’t know what it is.
While we are on the topic of social media and political/developmental discourse, I just read this NYT op-ed by Rami G. Khouri. Khouri makes a case for a valid point: the rift between U.S. policy on democratization in the Middle East when it comes to policies aimed at empowering young activist groups – especially and specifically with social media and technology – on one hand, and implicit or explicit American support for the the totalitarian/oligarchical/repressive regimes in question (for “strategic” reasons) on the other hand. Khouri argues that…
One cannot take seriously the United States or any other Western government that funds political activism by young Arabs while it simultaneously provides funds and guns that help cement the power of the very same Arab governments the young social and political activists target for change.
Blogging, reading politically racy Web sites, or passing around provocative text messages by cellphone is equally satisfying for many youth. Such activities, though, essentially shift the individual from the realm of participant to the realm of spectator, and transform what would otherwise be an act of political activism — mobilizing, demonstrating or voting — into an act of passive, harmless personal entertainment.We must face the fact that all the new media and hundreds of thousands of young bloggers from Morocco to Iran have not triggered a single significant or lasting change in Arab or Iranian political culture. Not a single one. Zero.
I find this claim to be largely flawed. While it is true that social media does provide a purgative outlet for the oppressed, the net effects of the availability and use of such outlet is not devoid of “real” activism that could potentially bring about, or at least be part of, tangible change.
Do we have evidence of this counter-argument? Here is some.
The “April 6 Youth Movement” in Egypt and the Green Revolution of the 2009-2010
Iranian election protests are two prime examples of political activism movements that heavily relied on social media to mobilize, publicize and organize almost all aspects of their activities. Did “tangible change” come about as a result of these social media-fueled movements? Depends on how you define “tangible change”, but my answer would be yes. Khouri’s definition of change seems to be about the immediate form of it, that of traditional coups and revolutions, and in assuming this to be his definition, it is not difficult to see why he is disappointed.
Technology-driven activism is not necessarily about short-term, abrupt change (which, histrionically, has been seen to do more harm than good), but rather about the incremental form of change. It is about the dissemination of ideas and the stirring active and inclusive societal dialogue about the requisite form of change and the means by which it should be brought about. Khouri completely misses this point when he writes:
Such activities, though, essentially shift the individual from the realm of participant to the realm of spectator, and transform what would otherwise be an act of political activism — mobilizing, demonstrating or voting — into an act of passive, harmless personal entertainment.
My impression is that these new media today play a role identical to that played by Al Jazeera satellite television when it first appeared in the mid-1990s — they provide important new means by which ordinary citizens can both receive information and express their views, regardless of government controls on both, but in terms of their impact they seem more like a stress reliever than a mechanism for political change.
While I was working on my masters in International Development, I wrote a paper on how we can use social media to observe current social discourses on various themes, or what I specifically termed “grassroots developmental ethos”. In non-academic jargon, I was trying to see if it is possible to use social media to learn something of value about how Egyptians – especially young people – think about issues of change and development, and how their online interaction, from webblog posts to Facebook link shares to tweets can give telltale signs of the general direction of this ethos (which can in turn be useful knowledge for development practitioners, at least in theory).
The exact title of the paper now escapes me, and I can’t be bothered to look for it on the many USB drives in my desk drawers, but two videos that are currently making the rounds by Egyptians on Facebook, Twitter, forums and other social media channels made me remember this topic and rekindled some interest in it.
The first one is a clip from the Egyptian TV show “Al Ashira Masa’an” (which translates to “10 p.m.”), which is hosted by Mona El Shazly and garners a large and loyal viewership. In the clip, an Egyptian poet called Hesham El Gakh (of whom I have never heard before) performs an oration of one of his poems titled “Goha” (Goha is a well-known character from Egyptian folktales).
It’s difficult to translate the whole thing but what Hesham reads is basically a very pessimistic and gloomy “poem” in which he addresses his literary personification of Egypt and verbally lashes against what he sees as bad about the country (which is basically everything). If there is ever a poem to be described as “self-flagellating”, it is this one. Hisham delivers quiet a theatrical oration, with tears and everything. And you have to admit, he has a way with words and that Upper Egyptian accent lends the requisite air of authenticity to his pain (yes I am being a bit sarcastic here).
Now take that and contrast it with the second video making (admittedly less frequent) rounds between Egyptians online:
The video is titled “Ana Masry” (“I am Egyptian”) and posted on a Youtube channel called pmcegypt (what is pmcegypt? I don’t know). It simply presents various characters from Egyptian society (played by actors), who start by admitting to their bad habits but then say something about what is it about them (that is positive) that makes them “Egyptian”. The description with the video translates to “A video for those who love Egypt and still think that tomorrow will be better. Together we can change many things”.
What is interesting to my is not the content of the videos as much as it is the comments by different people – Egyptians – on both. What is even more interesting is the demographics of the people making those comments, or at least in the “sample” I observed on Facebook and Twitter where certain information about commenters is easily visible. Those are young, educated Egyptians: the demographic equivalent of the blood of this country. Any country. This is not a surprising observation, but rather an important one to note if anything if to be noted from all of this.
What does it say about the current social ailments of Egyptians, and what potential remedies are there for such ailments if we can actually define them?
Well, to give a very short answer, and insofar as anything can be gleaned from comments on online videos, the current social discourse in Egypt is more descriptive than prescriptive. People always tend to talk about how things are, not how it should be, and what should be done to make them be the way they should be. It is the path of least resistance in most social interactions in Egypt. The video by the “poet” above is nothing but a very lyrical version of the complaining spiel that lots of us hear from many Egyptians on a daily basis, from the taxi driver to your friends and family with graduate degrees.
The current collective social psyche in Egypt today is akin to a Jeep with its wheels spinning in sand: there is a lot going on but not much being achieved. It is all about the psychology of change. I’ll talk about the psychology of change and how it relates to the Egyptian mainstream social discourse in another post, but here is a thought for you to mentally chew on: change does not have to be political. In other words, start something or GTFO.
Speaking of Jeeps: They call this Egyptian Jeep, and I want one.
At least that’s what I have deduced after looking at the lost & found section in the Egyptian weekly classifieds paper, Al-Waseet.
The first scan is from Al-Waseet’s July 7th issue, the other is from its July 23rd issue (I added the red arrows). I didn’t get any other issues between those two, but didn’t need to to notice the weirdness…
Both issues have a combined total of 13 ads in the lost & found section. Seven, count’em, SEVEN ads are for lost Jordanian passports! That’s more than 50% of all ads for lost stuff in Cairo in two weeks! (well, one is for a Jordanian national I.D. Card, in the interest of statistical accuracy)
Does anyone have any logical explanation for this, or do Jordanians just lose their shit a lot?
Am I imagining things or have almost everyone I have seen or met recently fallen into a dark pit of misanthropy and self-loathing?
You should smile more often or your facial muscles will freeze in that sulk forever (something that is yet to be medically proven, but it happens). That would not be a good thing (for other people, that is. Enjoy it as you may, other more cheerful folk should not be subjected to seeing your anger-knotted visage on a daily basis)
Do yourself – and all of us- a favor; smile, will you?
This morning, while in my car moving at snail’s pace in Cairo traffic, I realized that sometimes the lack of options is good thing. My inner monologue went something like this:
“Should I listen to the playlist I spent an hour selecting songs for on my iPod, or the podcasts I downloaded to my iPhone? It’s nice and warm this morning, let’s open that sunroof! No. Too sunny, and I am getting all the traffic pollution in my lungs. Let me switch on the A.C. instead. Man, I wish my car had digital climate control, this A.C. is either too chilly or too warm. I need to call the office and let them know I’ll be late for that meeting. Where is the number? Oh, now I remember that I saved it to the Blackberry, not the iPhone. I need to sync everything when get to the office. Where is my headset? Here it is, but why is it flashing red instead of blue? Did I forget to charge it? I have a portable battery charger in my bag, if I could only reach back and get it without rear-ending the car ahead of me. Why does the damn traffic keep moving the second I try to look for something in the car? I might just use the car charger and speaker phone instead. Oh, I forgot to put on the music. Which playlist was I going to listen to again? The one on the iPhone? Yeah, ok just let me check my email real quick while I am stuck at this intersection. Why is the signal here that weak? Oh well, I’ll check it when I get to the office. Now where was I? Ah, music. I am almost at the office, forget the music. I need to untangle this cable mess when I park”
Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE technology and gadgets. Just look at some of the older posts on this blog. I just feel that I am entering a 
“technological burnout” phase. I am sick of screens, batteries and cables. I do not want to – and cannot – get rid of all my gadgets, I just want to trim things down a bit. In a quest to maximize my utility, I will minimize my ownership. To start using more, I will acquire less.
We have developed a weird sense of entitlement. If something does not work the way it should, even for just the shortest of times, instant anxiety and resltessness sets in. Last week I found myself complaining to about my desktop computer, saying that it “takes ages” to start. My computer actually takes about 50 seconds to start from the moment I hit the power button. Those 50 seconds, however, are spent by me staring at the progress bar on the screen, tapping my fingers impatiently on the desk and wondering if I should back up my data to a DVD and throw the damn thing in a trash can.
This is absurd.
We have also developed an unconscious “collectors” mentality fueled by the culture of availability and demand for instant gratification that we foster every day (how come do we foster such culture ourselves? Keep reading). I have 189 feeds in Google Reader. I often “star” the items that I want to read later. A look at a sample of my saved items and some quick math revealed that I have read a measly 3% of my starred items so far. Similarly, I only read a fraction of the number of books I have on my Kindle. We want to collect – to acquire - stuff that we think that we’ll use now or later. We might, but chances are that we won’t have the time, patience or attention to use what we set aside, simply because it’s all too much.
Unless we put some kind of filter in place.
In his book (and TED talk) the Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less, Barry Schwartz talks about how too much choice creates anxiety, even 
depression. Schwartz suggests that if some choice is definitely good, then it does not follow from that that more choice is better.
I fully agree with Dr. Schwartz in his analysis. He believes that this all boils down to the fact that it is becoming increasingly difficult for us to be “pleasantly surprised”. We cannot be impressed as easily as before. B.B. King summed it up nicely: “The Thrill is Gone
Does that mean that we have to accept mediocrity sometimes? I don’t really see it this way, but if such is the case, and only when it comes to satisfaction we gain by acquiring stuff, I’ll accept the “good enough” instead of tearing my hair out trying to decide on and then acquire “the best”.
This post is not just the result of the in-traffic epiphany I recounted above, it was also triggered by recent accounts from that echo the same feelings. Sara reflected on a similar sentiment after she had lost most of her belongings put in storage in an unfortunate and strange incident.
Regardless of income, it is no doubt that we (and when I say “we” I realize that I do not speak for all of society) have more “stuff” and access to things, information and options than ever before. We often take this for granted. We should not.
We must acknowledge that this is a self-inflicted crime. Don’t blame capitalism. Don’t blame clever marketing. Don’t blame the Internet. It is you (and I) who seek it all out and overdose on it. We have internalized the negatives of availability and access. Once we realize the error of our ways, we must set things straight or risk becoming part of the mob.
Reclaim your attention span. Kill the distractions. Bring back the thrill.
P.S. In case you’re wondering, no you cannot have my iPhone.
The above picture is of my new toy, which I’ll tell you more about later, after I tell you how this whole cycling thing got into my head.
You may or may not already know that I have a not so mild fascination with two-wheeled pedal powered machines (aka bicycles), specifically mountain bikes. Like many other bike-heads, this passion started in early childhood when I got my first “real” bike after the obligatory training period on a tricycle with solid rubber tires and blue bar end ribbons (I hated those ribbons). I do not have any pictures of my first “real” bicycle, but let me try to paint a mental portrait: It was a blue steel frame, heavy as a tank, with silver and red decals. It had short, wide and slotted (for aerodynamic purposes, I believe 
) chrome fenders, fat tires, blue flared BMX-style grips that were made out of a hellish material that made the skin on your palms and inner thumbs bleed after a few minutes of gripping those babies (imagine mixing low-grade rubber and crumpled sandpaper with copious amounts of caustic glue (if there is such a thing), putting the mix in a mould to harden, and spray painting the result and calling it a “handlebar grip”). Several articles of discarded material adorned various parts of the frame (old inner tube around the chainstay, bright yellow electrician’s tape on the handlebars, etc). It was also a single speed but the gear choice was so wrong that I spent nearly all my riding time on the streets of Cairo out of the saddle. Seated pedaling was near impossible on anything but a downward sloping street. This worked in my favor though, as I developed the legs requisite for the type of riding I now love to do. In short, that bike was a piece of #$@%, but by I loved it! I had tons of fun riding it and would spend hours on end roaming the streets of Nasr City, jumping off curbs, sessioning ramps I built out of discarded construction wood, and crashing. A lot
Back then (in nineteen nintey something) , and probably because the Cairo neighborhood in which my family lived was still relatively uncrowded, there was a lot of kids on bikes during the summer months. And I mean a lot. Most of the kids on my street were older than I am and usually went on “long rides” to other neighborhoods. The bigger kids, naturally, scoffed at the younger ones trying to join the fun on grounds of peer superiority, or something. One time there was this guy on an geared road bike who asked me if I wanted to swap rides (“tebadel 3agal?”). Compared to my bike, his was almost featherlight and I had severe distrust in the skinny wheels and tires it rolled on. It was a few frame sizes too large for me, of course, but I just lowered the saddle, climbed over it (not on it) and started cranking the way I am used to on my bike, and the thing flew! A few blocks down the guy who had my bike called out, red-faced and panting like a squirrel who’s been made to run on a wheel for hours. He dismounted a few meters down, left my bike on the curb, walked towards me while glancing back at it in horror. “Enta beterkabha ezay de??!” (how do you ride this thing?!). A puff of adolescent pride filled my chest. Other older kids tried to show him what a wimp he was, but walked away to their bikes as my horrible gearing crushed their egos. From this day on I think all the older kids secretly called me the dude who rides the devil’s bike.
Fast forward to my high school and college days. I played competitive handball for close to 12 years, rowed on my university’s crew team for a couple years with a short stint on the basketball team and even tried archery (loved it, still trying to get back to it…in my backyard). I started looking for something that doesn’t require a team and/or special facilities or sports courts (I was graduating, could no longer compete, and “Nostalgic basketball Thursdays” as we came to call them were getting less and less regular as many of the participants got sucked away by the blackhole of life known as “marriage”. I needed something solo and with a bit (or a lot) more excitement than morning jogging around the neighbourhood and gym sessions. How about a bike?
Bought one a few years back and next thing I knew I was back to jumping curbs and (secretly) sessioning makeshift ramps I (secretly) built out of discarded wood. I was also crashing a lot (not so secretly, though). Ahh, long-lost joys of childhood, it is so good to see you!
Road/urban riding in a place like Cairo isn’t that great. I started taking the bike off-road in Wadi Degla. The more I rode there, the more I fell in love with the place. A vast trail network that makes for super fun desert riding.
On the solo weekend rides, I noticed that 99.9% of the people on mountain bikes were gringos. How come more Egyptians don’t do that?! Well, 
a dearth of suitable equipment is one thing, but not that much of a hindering factor, I suppose. I whipped together a website with whatever information I had/found on mountain biking in Egypt. Egyptian riders started trickling in. Two years ago I either went riding solo or had one other friend along. Last Friday a total of ten riders showed up for the morning ride! To put this number in perspective, try telling a random Egyptian “let’s wake up really early on a weekend morning to go ride bikes in the desert!”. You’d get a blank stare, if they were polite. In all seriousness, this is proof that it is mostly a matter of information availability and community-building than access to equipment and locations. Egyptian youth (or many Egyptians in general, regardless of age group) WANT to do things like that, but either don’t know where, how or with who. But I digress.
With the help of an amazing team of volunteers, I organized two amateur mountain bike races in 2009, the first of their kind in Egypt. We even have our own custom jerseys, like a real mtb team and everything
The sport is still obscure (not so with the road cycling, where there is a national squad and even a junior league). Accessible trails are limited but we’ve got this great, massive trail network right outside Cairo. Time allowing, we would venture out to the Sinai for some epic riding.
As infinitely fun as it is, you can hurt yourself mountain biking a lot more than you can hurt yourself playing, say, basketball (although I seem to hurt myself doing anything, including a basketball game a couple months ago where someone busted open my right eyebrow. Hell, I even spilled my own blood opening my car’s trunk!). This is not a general rule, but remember that I told you that I had fun jumping curbs and makeshift ramps? Well, I have even more fun dropping off rocky ledges and hauling ass through off-camber trails strewn with sharp rocks.
In 2009 alone I bruised, cut, sprained and scraped myslef more than any other time in my life by just riding my bike off-road. I have pictures for some of the injuries but want to keep this blog R-rated . I am not extreme or anything, I just like to do stupid things with confidence, and crash in style
Coming through customs in Cairo airport two years ago with a large cardboard box, the customs official had this big smirk on his face that silently said “You are going to pay through the nose now for bringing this big ass TV over from abroad!”. As he opened the box, his facial expression changed to thoroughly confused and looked up to me for explanation. “It is a bicycle“, I said. He waved me through with a look that said “What a moron. If he’s gonna haul a box THAT big from abroad he might as well have bought a big-screen TV!”
What he didn’t know is that bicycle probably costs more than many big-screen TVs. If he knew that he would have thought that I am an even bigger moron for buying it.
As a side note, I don’t own a TV. The reason why will be told in another blog post. I am sure you’ll be hanging on the edge of your seat until then.
Where was I? Ah, I was telling you about bikes and biking. To me, it is a combination of childhood-esque pure, clean fun (not so clean if you ride in the mud like we did a few weeks ago), the feeling of accomplishment you get from endurance sports, the great outdoors and macho big-boy fascination with big-boy toys like high-end bikes and components (or cars or motorcycles or game consoles…it’s just what you choose to spend your money on. I choose to spend it on something that doesn’t produce greenhouse gases and gets the blood pumping . Ok, enough of the environmentally sensitive and health conscious B.S., I can almost hear you say it!).
Development thought hit an impasse largely because development theorists and practitioners were trying (and arguably, are still trying) to do something very similar. They were drawing upon primordial forms of development theory, suggesting interesting but questionable/incomplete assumptions about history and its connections to the present/future affairs, and depending too much on..well, not magic, but conditional aid money.
The ancient alchemists thought there was only four elements (and later, seven), and that – using the “right methods” – any substance can be made out of those four elements. Modern chemistry came about to tell us that that we have 118 chemical elements, and that theoretically, any substance can be made using those elements. Theoretically is the key word here, because for this to be possible, the right conditions must exist. The right conditions are not always practically feasible. As I have suggested in a previous post, the issue becomes less epistemological (what elements can we use to make X?) and more practical (How can we create the right conditions so that we can combine A & B to make X).
Traditional development practitioners and theorists thought that there is only a limited number of development paths (like alchemists theorized that only a handful of basic elements exist) that nations can go through and that history has plateaued. As development thought matures, I believe we will see that we have a multitude of paths, just like modern chemists have plenty of elements to play with. What we have to do is find the right conditions for the optimal paths.
Like ancient alchemists, old school development practitioners – as I will henceforth call them – are trying to turn something undesirable into something desirable, but their methods – also like alchemists – are obsolete. They have become the old school of development like alchemists have become the old school of chemistry.
I am not a chemist, but I do believe that – metaphorically speaking – lead can be turned into gold from a developmental sense. Only if we shed inherited assumptions about how to do so.
How many times did you hear someone talk or read what someone wrote about the need for “tangible, positive change”, or something along those lines?
I am not talking about “radical” or “revolutionary” change. I don’t mean the type of change that we read about in history books, attributed to gifted visionaries or charismatic leaders, often brought about in a forceful wave that wipes out the unfavorable status quo. Rather, what I am talking about here is the type of systematic, purposeful and incremental transformation in the current unsatisfactory state of affairs towards a better state of affairs.
Read that last sentence again. The operative words are systematic, purposeful and incremental transformation.
How many times did you actually see someone trying to induce “tangible, positive change” by “systematic and purposeful means”?
I believe grassroots movements are the coming agents of change. The literature is abound with explanations on why this is the case, but it mostly boils down to the fact that the traditional power hierarchies are being broken down by technological enablers and accelerating rates of change. Power (or the power to bring about change) is trickling down and being spread faster than ever. The main bottleneck for grassroots movements is no longer epistemological (as in knowing how or even why to act) but organizational (as in building up and sustaining initiative and action).
Education. Technology. Activism. The three corners of the grassroots triangle.
The problem with a systematic, incremental transformation, however, is that it is a long-run strategy. Long-run strategies have an inherent problem: They are boring. Human nature generally tends towards instant gratification. Patience is for hermits and monks. We want change now or soon, or why bother? Also, and unfortunately, In the long run, we’re all dead. A Kynesian truism.
The good news is that a systematic, incremental transformation does not necessarily require gifted visionaries or charismatic leaders (although their help would be definately nice). What it does need, in my opinion, is:
I have more brain dump on that subject, just not in coherent form yet
