{"id":641178,"date":"2013-02-04T15:04:12","date_gmt":"2013-02-04T20:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ted.com\/?p=68795"},"modified":"2013-02-04T15:47:50","modified_gmt":"2013-02-04T20:47:50","slug":"6-talks-for-thinking-about-the-arab-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/641178","title":{"rendered":"6 talks for thinking about the Arab Spring"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"embed-ted\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/embed.ted.com\/talks\/zahra_langhi_why_libya_s_revolution_didn_t_work_and_what_might.html\" width=\"586\" height=\"329\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Two years ago, waves of revolution swept through the Middle East. On February 17, 2011 &#8212; two months after civil resistance began in Tunisia and less than a month after the people of Egypt rose up in Tahrir Square &#8212; revolt began in Libya to oust dictator Muammar Qaddafi.<\/p>\n<p>Activist Zahra&#8217; Langhi was part of the &#8220;day of rage&#8221; that eventually led to Qaddafi\u2019s toppling. But the cost was high &#8212; a six month war in which almost 50,000 people lost their lives. In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/zahra_langhi_why_libya_s_revolution_didn_t_work_and_what_might.html\">today\u2019s powerful talk<\/a>, Langhi turns her eye to the incredible task of rebuilding the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cQaddafi left behind a heavy burden &#8212; a legacy of tyranny and corruption. For four decades, Qaddafi\u2019s tyrannical regime destroyed the infrastructure, as well as the culture and moral fabric, of Libyan society,\u201d says Langhi. \u201cI was keen &#8212; along with many other women &#8212; to rebuild Libyan civil society, calling for an inclusive and just transition to democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To that end, Langhi co-founded the Libyan Women\u2019s Platform for Peace (LWPP), a group lobbying for women to be included as the Libyan government was reformed. In this talk, Langhi explains the \u201czipper list,\u201d an initiative the group championed which called for political parties to alternate male and female candidates, weaving both genders onto their ballots. At first, this worked remarkably well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, bit by bit, the euphoria of the elections &#8212; and of the revolution as a whole &#8212; was fading out, for every day we were waking up to the news of violence,\u201d says Langhi. \u201cOur society, shaped by a revolutionary mindset, became more polarized and driven away from the ideas and principles &#8212; freedom, dignity, social justice &#8212; that we first held. Intolerance, exclusion and revenge became the post-math of the revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Today, Langhi questions whether \u201crage\u201d was the right path out of dictatorship. In this talk, she posits that perhaps what her country needed more than quantitative representation of women in government was the qualitative representation of traditionally feminine values like compassion, mercy and consensus building. To hear Langhi\u2019s important thoughts on what needs to happen <i>after<\/i> a revolution, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/zahra_langhi_why_libya_s_revolution_didn_t_work_and_what_might.html\">watch her talk<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Here, more TED Talks about revolution in the Middle East.<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"embed-ted\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/embed.ted.com\/talks\/wael_ghonim_inside_the_egyptian_revolution.html\" width=\"586\" height=\"329\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>\n<b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/wael_ghonim_inside_the_egyptian_revolution.html\">Wael Ghonim: Inside the Egyptian revolution<\/a><\/b><br \/>\nGoogle executive Wael Ghonim helped galvanize Egypt\u2019s revolution by creating a Facebook page memorializing a man who was tortured by Mubarak\u2019s regime. Still, he says, in the Egyptian revolution, no one was a hero &#8212; because everyone was a hero. In this talk from TEDxCairo, Wael Ghonim tells the story of the first two months of the revolution &#8212; a story we now know is still in progress.<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-ted\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/embed.ted.com\/talks\/bahia_shehab_a_thousand_times_no.html\" width=\"586\" height=\"329\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/bahia_shehab_a_thousand_times_no.html\">Bahia Shehab: A thousand times no<\/a><\/b><br \/>\nIn Arabic, there is a phrase: \u201cNo, and a thousand times no.\u201d\u00a0 As revolution spread through Egypt, art historian Bahia Shehab took up her stencil and proclaimed \u201ca thousand times no\u201d to dictators, to military rule, to violence against women. In this brave talk from TEDGlobal 2012, Shehab shares her previously anonymous work with the world.<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"embed-ted\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/embed.ted.com\/talks\/srdja_popovic_how_to_topple_a_dictator.html\" width=\"586\" height=\"329\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>\n<b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/srdja_popovic_how_to_topple_a_dictator.html\">Srdja Popovic: How to topple a dictator<\/a><\/b><br \/>\nWhy was 2011 such a pivotal year for people-powered revolutions? In this talk from TEDxKrakow, Srdja Popovic &#8212; himself a part of the movement that toppled Milosevic in 2000 &#8212; looks at why these revolutions gained so much footing. He outlines the skills and tactics needed to oust a dictator. Most surprising: a sense of humor.<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"embed-ted\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/embed.ted.com\/talks\/wadah_khanfar_a_historic_moment_in_the_arab_world.html\" width=\"586\" height=\"329\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>\n<b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/wadah_khanfar_a_historic_moment_in_the_arab_world.html\">Wadah Khanfar: A historic moment in the Arab world<\/a><\/b><br \/>\nThe former head of Al Jazeera, Wadah Khanfar has a unique perspective on the Arab Spring. \u201cChange was imposed on us and people rejected that because they thought it was alien to the culture,\u201d he says in this Talk from TED2011.\u00a0 \u201cAlways, we believed, change should spring from within.\u201d Here, Khanfar speaks with great optimism about revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and beyond.<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"embed-ted\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/embed.ted.com\/talks\/dalia_mogahed_the_attitudes_that_sparked_arab_spring.html\" width=\"586\" height=\"329\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>\n<b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/dalia_mogahed_the_attitudes_that_sparked_arab_spring.html\">Dalia Mogahed: The attitudes that sparked the Arab Spring<\/a><\/b><br \/>\nIt\u2019s the opposite of what one would expect: as Egypt grew in wealth, its people\u2019s satisfaction plummeted. This was what Dalia Mogahed, the director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, saw even before the Arab Spring. In this talk from TEDxSummit, she shares some of the grievances she saw in survey data &#8212; which sprung not out of distrust of the West, but admiration.<\/p>\n<p>  <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/gocomments\/tedconfblog.wordpress.com\/68795\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/comments\/tedconfblog.wordpress.com\/68795\/\" \/><\/a> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/stats.wordpress.com\/b.gif?host=blog.ted.com&#038;blog=14795620&#038;%23038;post=68795&#038;%23038;subd=tedconfblog&#038;%23038;ref=&#038;%23038;feed=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/TEDBlog\/~4\/3OyB2zz6WL0\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two years ago, waves of revolution swept through the Middle East. On February 17, 2011 &#8212; two months after civil resistance began in Tunisia and less than a month after the people of Egypt rose up in Tahrir Square &#8212; revolt began in Libya to oust dictator Muammar Qaddafi. Activist Zahra&#8217; Langhi was part of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7344,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-641178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7344"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}