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November 23, 2011
November 23, 2011
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Letter from the Editor

The term "Arab Spring" has always felt ominous to me. After all, we all know what happened after the short-lived Prague Spring of 1968, which was brutally squashed. As I write this, we read that more than 32 people have been killed in clashes in Cairo's Tahir Square. Thousands have been arrested. Amnesty is reporting that people in Egypt who dare to express themselves are being arrested and tried in military courts.
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November 22, 2011
November 22, 2011
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From Monitoring to Building: Questions for South African Peace-Worker Jasmin Nordien

Arseh Sevom spoke with South African activist Jasmin Nordien about her experiences working in civil society organizations. In this post, we focus on her experiences throughout the 1980s, when she worked with the Network of Independent Monitors reporting on state violence and supporting individuals and grassroots organizations. Jasmin shares some of the lessons she learned about the importance of creating networked organizations, the differences between leadership and management, and the need for clarity of purpose. Jasmin tells us, "The one thing I learned after working at NIM was that I no longer wanted to monitor. I wanted to build the kind of society that my children and grandchildren would group up in."
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November 22, 2011
November 22, 2011
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A letter from an Arab woman to her Iranian friend

In this text given as a speech at The twenty second international conference of the Iranian Women's Studies Foundation (IWSF), Amal Hamidallah-van Hees addresses the fears and hopes of Arab and Islamic women watching the changes in their region. "We are watching with our eyes wide open," she writes, noting that many lessons were learned by the revolution in Iran. She urges women to engage with politics and Islam. "We will claim our space, even the religious one."
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November 22, 2011
November 22, 2011
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Rock the Casbah

Davi Baker, who blogs for the San Francisco Examiner as the SF Muslim, goes back to the ninth century to speculate on the roots of change in the Arab world. In the work of scholar Patricia Crone, he uncovers political thinkers speculating on the best way to organize society without a caliphate. Consensus, participation, violent overthrow, acquiescence, or anarchy? Baker writes, "Essentially they argued that the Caliph must be agreed upon by the entire community, either unanimously or by consensus, and without this no legitimate Caliph could exist. It was widely accepted that Allah did not impose obligations which were impossible to fulfill, so it was reasoned that there was no obligation to establish a legitimate Caliph."
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November 22, 2011
November 22, 2011
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UN Calls for Access for Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran

Originally published by United4Iran. The UN General Assembly’s Third Committee today adopted a resolution (PDF) calling on the Iranian Government to allow unfettered access to the country by the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran, Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, to investigate violations taking place in the country. The resolution also calls on Iran to release all arbitrarily detained individuals held for exercising their right to peaceful assembly and expression, including leading opposition figures, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi.
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November 19, 2011
November 19, 2011
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“One Has to Do All One Can for Human Rights”

Antonia Bertschinger tells us of her work at the Swiss section of Amnesty International. She tells us how she came to be involved with human rights work. Bertschinger came to the work via her interest in Afghanistan. She studied Persian in university and worked in the Kabul Museum in Switzerland. "I loved working there because it helped me learn so much about Afghanistan. This did some awareness raising for me to learn what it’s like to live in a country where all the rights are violated, especially women’s rights, and which had such a long war, and so many other disasters. She ended up working in the Foreign Ministry in Iran rather than win Afghanistan, however. It was there that she met so many people working to build a better society and for the protection of human rights. Bertschinger asks of her own home in Europe, "How can we ever forget that human rights and the rule of law are the basis of our good life?"
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November 19, 2011
November 19, 2011
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The Accidental Leader Questions for Amsterdam50

Eric Asp, pastor at Amsterdam50, discusses the struggles of unexpected leadership in the answers to questions from Arseh Sevom. " When the founder of the project first left, I was asked, together with another young leader from the church, to step into the role of Pastor-In-Training (learning on the job). We really felt like just a couple of hacks, figuring things out as we went along (which has since become a strong part of our organization's identity). We got a lot of support from others..."
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