Skip to content

Tag: diplomacy

The death of the “twitter rev­o­lu­tion” and the struggle over internet narratives

Published March 24, 2011

By Donya Alinejad In her latest speech on internet freedom, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared the internet the “town square” of the 21st cen­tury. Clinton seized on the wide­spread atten­tion for Facebook during the Egyptian rev­o­lu­tion and used the oppor­tu­nity to reit­erate internet-oriented US for­eign policy. Just days ear­lier the Egyptian people had ousted Hosni Mubarak, their dic­tator of 30 years. Cairo’s Tahrir Square had been occu­pied by pro­testers, stained with the blood of the revolution’s mar­tyrs, and gained iconic status as the center of the 21st century’s most pop­u­lous rev­o­lu­tionary move­ment. Soon after, pro­testers in Libya named the Northern Court in Benghazi “Tahrir Square Two.” If these events show us any­thing, it is that the town square of the 21st cen­tury is still, simply, the town square.

Continue ReadingThe death of the “twitter rev­o­lu­tion” and the struggle over internet narratives

2 Comments

The Terror of the ‘War against terror’

Published March 21, 2011
Photo by Waseem Akbar

By Mohammad Amer It looked like a scene from a Hollywood detective film. While driving in his car in a busy street of Lahore, an American took out his weapon and fired at two young men riding on a motorbike. The attacker stopped and emerged from his car. Then, using an even bigger automatic weapon, killed his antagonists, who were already injured and had fallen to the ground. The murdered Pakistanis were carrying weapons but they did not get a chance to pick these up and use them. In the meantime, elsewhere in Lahore, a black car with ‘tinted windows’ rushed to rescue the attacker. Hurrying on the wrong side of the road it crushed a passersby. However, before it could reach the attacker, the latter was arrested by the police.

Continue ReadingThe Terror of the ‘War against terror’

5 Comments