So you wonder how to get any where with your blog?

There’s lot of help, and it is coming very quickly to the Arab world. Here is something from an African source, Kabissa.org, that links to an endless number of other helping resources:

Our Charter

As one of the key elements of a vibrant and prosperous world, civil society organizations working for positive social change must be supported and nurtured. Now, more than ever, the African civil society sector is in need of tools and resources that can support the important work of individual organizations, as well as strengthen the connections between organizations. New digital technologies, in particular the Internet, allow activists to access networks of knowledge, mutual support, and financial resources on a scale that otherwise would be next to impossible.Kabissa, meaning complete in Kiswahili, believes that information and communication technologies (ICTs) are a revolutionary force in civil society. Mission Kabissa’s mission is to help African civil society organization put information and communication technologies to work for the benefit of the people they serve. Vision Kabissa’s vision is for a socially, economically, politically, and environmentally vibrant Africa, supported by a strong network of effective civil society organizations. Principles

Hip singer, different message

Bright afternoon sun in Cairo. The newly arrived winds from the desert have calmed, but the hamseen seems on its way. Crossing campus. I am stopped by words on posters for a hip young singer in a chic dark suit. He looks like any stylish young singing star. The posters for an upcoming concert quote from his songs. One says:

“Every day I see the same headline

Crimes committed in the name of the divine

People committing atrocities in his name

They murder and kidnap with no shame

But did he ever teach hatred, violence or bloodshed?

No….Oh no

He taught us about human brotherhood

And against prejudice he firmly stood

He loved children, their hands he’d hold

And taught his followers to respect the old

So, would he allow the murder of an innocent

child?

Oh No”

Sami Yusuf is his name. The words are from one of his cd’s, My Ummah. He is British of Iranian-Azeri origin. For more information about him read the article by Christian Pond, “The Appeal of Sami Yusuf and the Search for Islamic Authenticity,” which appears on the website of Arab Media @ Society, the online journal located at the Adham Center for Electronic Journalism at American University in Cairo. That happens to be where I’m at. The journal was recently launched under a new name, and was formerly known as TBSJournal.

Imagine you are sitting in a coffee shop

And someone comes in with the latest gossip, latest news, latest whatever. They tell it to you and in seconds it is not only down the street, but around the country and around the Arab world. This is how it goes with blogs in the Arab world. The talk a few days ago was about something that happened in Kuwait. A Bahrani blogger had something interesting to say, and you can find it at Mahmood’s Den, (mahmood.tv) and look under “Goooood Morning Kuwait. Smaller and smaller world.

How do I blog this and what else do I do?

Small, barely furnished office just off the roar from the busy night-time rush of the square in Giza. But this could be downtown Lima or Kampala or anywhere where there’s a hunger to use the Internet to tell a story and share a view. The meeting is about freedom of expression and the room is full of mostly young bloggers and those who want to be bloggers. At least half are women. They want to know what they are allowed to use on their blogs that comes from the Internet. What are their rights? Which Arabic should they use? Standard classical or spoken? Where can they learn more? What’s important about blogging? And where can you search in the Arab world online for help? Only a few years ago, they are told, there were just a few bloggers in Egypt and now there are well over 1,000. There probably are a few more today too.

How many stories can you tell at once

In the maddeningly wild crush of a Cairo avenue, a young girl is riding a horse. It’s a jolting image of freedom and joy and risking danger. It’s the beginning to el Banat Dol (These girls), a compelling and fascinating documentary by Egyptian film maker Tahani Rached. The tale is one of terrible heartbreak about young girls living on Cairo’s streets. It could be anywhere though it is very Egyptian: the way people support one another, and how one lives outside the law but believes thoroughly in what life and religion should be. The first look at the movie matters because it is the clue to what follows. So, too, the music drives the formula. There is despair here, the movie says, but also youthful energy, still smoldering dreams and a demand for respect. Asked about the movie’s theme at a recent showing in Cairo, Rached said she didn’t want to find any officials to explain why girls live such lives without help. That, she said, is another story.

How to cover a demonstration

Chaos. Hundreds of police and unblinking, tough-looking security guys. The main square is jammed and so the demonstrators race here and there. They ran up to another square that’s several blocks away. The police keep moving you back so you can’t see and you are suddenly out of touch. But you are with a colleague who watches over your shoulder as you pay attention to the spokesman shouting in front of you. That way you don’t get lost in case of a police rush or a crowd stampede. If you are shooting pictures, always know what’s in front of you. You call another colleague who is several blocks away and she tells you the crowd is there. You get your notes from here and move on. You never lose telephone or walkie talkie contact. If people are arrested, you need to know from the police who they are and where they went. Before the demonstrators disappear, you need contacts from them. You need the government to tell you what happened, the police to explain what they did and why, and then the demonstrators and experts to explain what’s going on. You need to see and feel the scene and put it in context. It’s not just a demonstration is it or isn’t it?. What’s happening here? Why does this matter?

There was such a demonstration in downtown Cairo and the Daily Star of Egypt did a good job overall.

CAIRO: Demonstrations organized by the Kefaya National Movement for Change and opposition parties against proposed constitutional amendments were met with a massive state security sweep in downtown Cairo on Thursday.

Over 30 Kefaya activists were detained in protests that began in Tahrir Square and spread through Talat Harb Square, ending with a sit-in of some 200 people outside the Tagammu Party headquarters on a side street off Mahmoud Bassouny St demanding the release of the detainees.

Protesters were vastly outnumbered by ranks of central security forces that surrounded Tahrir and Talat Harb squares and lined every major connecting street downtown.

Dozens of security trucks and squadrons guarded major sites like the Egyptian Museum, the Mugamma, and the American University in Cairo, even as protesters did not outnumber 50 when the demonstration began at 5pm.

Individual protesters shouted anti-Mubarak slogans on a traffic island in Tahrir Square before plainclothes security agents began arresting activists, beating them and hauling them into nearby security trucks.

“We’re ready for democracy and that’s why we’re here,” Sayyed Mahmoud Saadawy, a Kefaya activist, told The Daily Star Egypt.

“We reject constitutional amendments set to oppress the people. This is terrorizing the public,” said Sayyed Abdel Fattah, a lawyer and Kefaya member standing in front of the Mugamma building as the police made arrests.

One of the first activists to be detained could he heard screaming from inside a blue security truck after he was dragged from the street. He had been leading a chant for reforms to the proposed constitutional amendments saying “quiet, quiet Hosni Mubarak!”

Abdel Fattah said the amendments would only allow those in charge to inherit more power. Other protesters echoed those sentiments, singling out President Mubarak and his son Gamal, head of the ruling National Democratic Party’s policy secretariat, who many suspect is being groomed to succeed his father, in power since 1981.

One Kefaya member attracted protesters and security forces as she stood in the middle of the street outside the Mugamma screaming: “The kids that were taken, I want them back now or else we’ll block the street.”

Layla Sweif stood in front of evening traffic until police pushed her and other demonstrators out of the square.

Activists reassembled in Talat Harb Square, reviving chants of “Why are we under military law? Is this prison or what?” and “Mubarak you have our money, why have you made us broke.”

More uniformed and plainclothes security officers surrounded protesters in Talat Harb as members of the opposition Al Ghad party waved banners and chanted anti-government slogans from the second floor balcony of their party headquarters.

Escaping what some called a “siege” activists then moved outside the Tagammu Party headquarters, located on a one-way side street off Mahmoud Bassouny Street.

There, rows of uniformed police and plainclothes thugs numbering into the hundreds filled the side street, allowing people to enter but blocking the entrance back to Mahmoud Bassouny.

The cordoned off crowd of about 200 protesters burned the American and Israeli flags, setting off brief skirmishes with the lines of security forces pushing down the side street.

“The last time I had seen this much security was in the March 2003 anti-war demonstrations,” said blogger Hossam El-Hamalawy, standing outside the Tagammu’s headquarters.

Abdel Aziz El-Husseiny, Media Coordinator of Kefaya, addressed the demonstrators and gathered media after tensions dissipated before 8pm.

El-Husseiny read the names of the detainees, at that time confirmed to be 33, and the crowd responded by declaring a sit-in until their release, shouting “free our imprisoned brothers.”

At that time, security forces refused to allow activists to leave the side street, effectively blocking them off.

“We can’t leave until [the security forces] move, but we’ll stay until the morning,” Aida Mansour, a Kefaya member, told The Daily Star Egypt.

“I know the ones who were arrested well. When I tried to leave just now, [the security forces] searched me and told me to stay here. Now I can’t leave. We’re caught in a dead end. This is ridiculous.”

The stand-off ended relatively peacefully, however, after people in the crowd began receiving mobile phone calls from some of the detainees, who were being shuttled around the city in security trucks.

Security forces then allowed people to leave the side street and the crowd dwindled, though around fifty remained, waiting for more news of the detainees.

As the crowd lingered, El-Husseiny told The Daily Star Egypt that the arrests were “what we expect from the Egyptian regime and how it deals with peaceful political activists demanding general freedom.”

El-Husseiny called on Egyptians to boycott the constitutional referendum, which “a majority of the Egyptian people will not take part in anyway because it is something that the government has decided without their will.”

He added: “We will continue to demand a change in this regime which only exists by rigging elections and policing severely.”

Other activists highlighted the workers’ strikes across Egypt, saying that those “examples of extreme oppression” had sparked the day’s protests.

Nadia, whose fiancé was among the first Kefaya activist to be detained, was in tears as she stood outside the Tagammu Party Headquarters.

“What happened today is evidence of the repression of freedom in Egypt,” El-Husseiny said. “The regime fears only a few hundred peaceful Egyptians.”

By early Friday morning, fourteen detainees were reported released from Dhaher Police Station, although over twenty remained in custody.

At 10 am Friday, the remaining detainees were transferred to El-Galaa court downtown for prosecution, according to local witnesses there.

Just after noon, however, lawyers arrived at the courthouse but were refused entry, although the detainees were being held inside.

“This is an embarrassment for every Egyptian lawyer, the fact that we cannot go into our own courthouse,” Sayeda Abdel Fattah told The Daily Star Egypt.

A guard outside the courthouse admitted to The Daily Star Egypt that “yes, it is [the lawyers’] right to be admitted into the courthouse, but we have to obey our superiors authorities.” He preferred to remain anonymous.

Lawyers were eventually admitted into the courthouse, although at press time a sentence was still pending.

The protests came after Abdel Wahab El Messiri, the newly appointed General Coordinator of Kefaya, reportedly said in late January that Kefaya would shift its activities away from public demonstrations towards political organization.

“We are starting new educational training sessions to increase political awareness among the members,” El Messiri said.

Still, Mounir Fakhry Abdel-Nour, General Coordinator of Al-Wafd party, disagreed at the time, saying that Kefaya had distinguished itself as a popular street movement driven by protest and public demonstration.

Who am I?

I am Stephen Franklin. I am a Knight International Fellow for the International Center for Journalists, and I am helping train Egyptian journalists and students now in Cairo. I’m here to teach but also to learn and listen and like my colleagues, I am here to share in the story all around us. I have a number of years experience in the Middle East, among them as a foreign correspondent.

The basics

The meeting was long and meandering. What is good for journalists? What should Arab journalists know. More technology? More technics? Rami Khouri waited and then offered his suggestions. He was visiting Cairo for a conference. He spoke about the years he has spent as an editor and a columnist in the Arab world; years of working in Amman and Beirut and elsewhere. He talked about the Arab journalist who is struggling to do a job “squeezed between Google and the muhabarat (intelligence).” What they need to learn, he suggested, is not that difficult. They need to know their craft and need to know how to make their work credible. A basic truth. For more information about him go to his site. Here is something he said recently about the Arab world:

“The Middle East has suffered so much homegrown internal tyranny and sustained external assaults that it has become a dangerous pressure cooker, given that the majority of citizens live with enormous and still growing dissatisfactions in their economic, social, ethnic, religious or national lives. If the pressure is not relieved by allowing the region and its states to define themselves and their governance values, the whole pot will explode. I suspect we are witnessing both things happening together these days.

On the one hand, Islamist, ethnic, sectarian and tribal movements grow and flourish all over the Middle East — and are aided by Iran — in a dramatic example of collective self-assertion. On the other hand, massive external pressure, led by the United States, some Europeans, Israel, and some Arab governments, fights back, hoping to keep the lid on a region trying to define itself and liberate itself from the modern legacy of Anglo-American-Israeli armies.

The pervasive incoherence of this bizarre picture makes it perfectly routine for Arab monarchies to support Salafist terrorists, for Western democracies to ignore the results of Arab free elections, for Iranians and Arabs, and Shiites and Sunnis, to work hand in hand and also fight bitter wars, for Islamist and secular Arab revolutionaries to join forces, for freedom lovers in London and Washington to support seasoned Arab autocrats and the occasional loveable tyrant, for Western and Arab rule of law advocates to sponsor militias, and for Israel and the United States to perpetuate Israeli policies that exacerbate rather than calm security threats and vulnerabilities for all in the region.

Short-term panic, medium-term confusion and long-term directionlessness have long defined policies by Americans, British, Arabs, Israelis, and Iranians alike in this region. They have only become more obvious these days, as confrontation, defiance and war in the Middle East interact to signal the end of an era and the start of a new one. This spectacle, which includes but transcends the Great Arab Unraveling, is in its very early days. Harrowing things are yet come.”