With so much breaking news, teaching current events is a challenge. The Lynx has found a way to cover a couple (or more) major stories in a minute! Just use the BBC’s "One Minute World News" video--any day, any time–to bring international current events into your classroom: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/video_and_audio/
This post provides updated or additional resources for reent posts on these topics:
1) Ivory Coast
2) Libya and the Mideast
3) 1848 and 2011
4) China’s Crackdown
Ivory Coast
BREAKING NEWS: As I write President Gbagbo is still in his bunker in Abidjan–but he will soon be gone. Three of his "generals" (the heads of the armed forces, the police, and the republican guard) are negotiating safe passage for Gbago and his family and judicial and security protection for others in his camp. For those commanding Gbagbo’s army, after strategic attacks by French forces, who were asked by UN to ..., the best option was to stop fighting and ask for a ceasefire–which they did. Though people in are breathing sighs of great relief, they must also be wondering, given the violence and brutality, how soon will the winds of reconciliation begin to blow?
Check any major news agency for this and other news about the transition in Cote d’Ivoire. For example, from the BBC: for text "Ivory Coast; Laurent Gbagbo ‘Negotiating’ surrender," BBC News (April 5, 2011): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12975539; for video:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12977830
Last night’s BBC World News (a program available on PBS station’s in the US) led with two segment on Ivory Coast, where reporter Andrew Harding is on the scene. The second of these gives the basics of what brought the country to civil war. View these online (though perhaps they will soon be superseded): 1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12966464 2) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12932427
For coverage of UN and French attacks on Gbagbo’s bases and residence–and the UN argument justifying them as necessary to protect civilians, see "Strikes by U.N. and France Corner Leader of Ivory Coast," Bases and Residence," New York Times (April 4): http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/world/africa/05ivory.html?ref=todayspaper
Pundits critical of President Obama’s decision to intervene in Libya have asked, repeatedly, "What about Ivory Coast?" While I give them credit for bringing Cote d’Ivoire into the foreign policy debate, I do sense that in some instances there is a partisan motive lurking in the background. I sense this especially when the correspondent or commentator is clearly ignoring how–from an operational foreign policy perspective--the circumstances in Cote d’Ivoire are/were quite different from those in Libya. In Cote d’Ivoire, in addition to several thousand UN peacekeeping troops, there were already French boots on the ground. No doubt President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton knew that at a certain point the French would be willing to step in and help the UN. Of course, the extent to which the French may have ulterior motives is a matter of debate (though the existence of such motives is not up for debate).
Libya and the Middle East
REMINDER: You can go to The Lede (New York Times blog) for extensive coverage. The most recent installment is "Latest Updates on Mideast Protests and Libyan War" (April 4, 2011): http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/latest-updates-on-mideast-protests-and-libyan-war/?ref=africa
- Here you can find 13 embedded videos from various sources! So this is one of the best places to go for visual media. And it’s put into context by a media savvy journalist.
- Scroll to end to find earlier posts ("Updates on Libya War and Mideast Protests") dated March 21, 25, 30, 31, April 1.
Also on the New York Times web site, a SLIDESHOW called "A New Generation Finds Its Voice" (March 20, 2011): http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/20/world/middleeast/middle-east-voices.html?ref=africa#
- Each slide consists of a photo of a young person, with his/her name, age, country, and occupation (but some are still students) plus a brief brief statement.
- These statements express a wide variety of views. These POVs reflect not only personal differences but how different circumstances vary from one country to another. For example, Ruba al-Bream, a Jordanian woman thinks that "Democracy will reduce religious radicalism." This may be more likely in Jordan than in other countries. On the other hand, perhaps she is just being overly optimistic.
- Select a few slides to stimulate discussion about what is happening and what the future may bring in a number of countries.
- A great resource to connect American youth with the aspirations of 25 of young adults across the Arab world.
- See the related links at the very end of the slideshow.
One link merits special mention–the "Country-by-Country Roundup": http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/world/middleeast/middle-east-hub.html
- Breaking news and most recent articles
- Clock showing current local time
- Twitter messages
- Link to "Complete Coverage"
Revolutions in 1848 and Uprisings/Revolutions in 2011
There’s been a lot of buzzing about possible parallels between previous eras of rebellion/revolution/transformation and the current upheavals in the Middle East. References to "The Arab Spring" tell us that what’s resonating for some reporters and analysts is the "Prague Spring of 1968," which evokes not only what happened in Prague and elsewhere behind Eastern Europe’ Iron Curtain but protests in the France, Mexico, and the US.
But for those who know something abut the history of the 1848 revolutions in Europe, that year seems a much better fit. I suspect 1848 and 2011 analogies are being examined in many graduate seminar rooms–as well as undergrad survey courses and even high school world history classes.
I find it more than ironic that the events of 1848 are being considered in AP World History–rather than being confined to AP Euro. Many APWH instructors are loath to spend much time on European history topics that seem too "Eurocentric" (e.g. the Reformation), yet here is another instance where we can make a good argument for inclusion rather than exclusion. (DISCLOSURE: When I taught a college-level survey, I too spent little time on 1848–because there is just so much to cover that more than fifty per cent of I wanted to cover had to be turncated. But I did always include it.)
In an earlier post (February 22) I recommended Anne Applebaum’s column, "In the Arab World, It's 1848 - not 1989." Here’s another resource--an exceptionally well-done essay by Leon Neyfakh, "Is This 1848?" that appeared in Boston Globe (March 27, 2011): http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/03/27/is_this_1848/
Two aspects of this essay that I especially like:
- The illustrations–Vienna and Paris in 1848, Egypt and Yemen in 2011. (These can be saved for projection in class.)
- The author’s informative but cautious approach to making comparisons. If you use this in class (highly recommended), be sure students pick up on both the plus/minus aspects of trying to make this kind of analogy. What works? And what doesn’t?
Thanks to History Bobcat for this link (from a colleague who had passed it along to him).
China’s Crackdown on Dissidents
In China the government’s paranoia over any possible unrest continues. And so the crackdown on dissidents continues, reaching farther and farther into the ranks of the country’s human rights activists and the attorneys who have represented them. Some dissidents just disappear, others are more formally arrested. For a fascinating look at what Chinese dissidents are up to–despite the repression, visit "2011 Chinese Protest" (under Resources).
The latest of these is the artist Ai Weiwei, arrested just as he was about to board a plane for Hong Kong. Ai Weiwei, highly regarded both in and out of China as the artistic director of China’s Olympic Stadium, the marvelously innovative "Bird’s Nest" structure, had had previous unpleasant run-ins with the authorities. He was badly beaten in 2009, presumably for his out-spoken critiques of the government. On Twitter on February 24th he posted an audacious message: "I didn’t care about jasmine at first, but people who are scared of jasmine sent out infomation about how harmful jasmine is often, which makes me realize that jasmine is what scares them the most. What a jasmine!" (as quoted in the Washington Post, see Resources).
The web is full of material about Ai Weiwei but I saw the PBS Newshour segment last night and strongly recommend it. It lets the artist speak for himself about his motives and predicament (in footage shot before his arrest). It comes from last week’s Frontline but this excerpt is easier to use in class. Also, you can print the transcript
Resources
There is now an extensive list of "2011 Chinese Protests" and information abut them on FilePie: http://www.filepie.us/?title=2011_Chinese_protests
See Keith B. Richburg, "Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei Arrested." Washington Post (April 3, 2011): htp://washingtonpost.com/world/chinese-artist-ai-wei-wei-arrested-in-latest-government-crackdown
"Chinese Artist, Activist Weiwei Arrested." PBS NewsHour (aired April 4, 2011, 4:49 mins):
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world/jan-june11/china1_04-04.html
"Who’s Afraid of Ai Weiwei?" Frontline. PBS (Aired March/April 2011):
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/ai-wei-wei/
- Watch the full program online
- View a slideshow of the artist’s work
- Read an interview with a reporter who profiled Ai Weiwei for The New Yorker
- More good stuff (check all it out)
(Today’s post is dedicated to the memory of James Clark, my high school World History teacher. Mr. Clark, a proud Irish-American, married to a Polish-American, had a definite POV (point of view)–always on the side of the underdogs of history. In those days World History was still quite Eurocentric, but Mr. Clark was moving away from that model. He taught us about the Opium War from a Chinese POV–perhaps more accurately the anti-British POV of a "green" Irishman. The focus of his take on the Scramble for Africa, though anti-imperialist, was the Berlin Conference rather than events on the ground in Africa, yet it served me well when, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I learned about it from the African perspective. Finally, since March Madness basketball is upon us, I must tell you that Jim Clark was also a very fine basketball coach. Thank you, Mr. Clark, for sharing with us your insight and love of history.)
The "Butterfly Effect" is almost a cliche. It’s the notion that if a butterfly flaps its wings in Beijing it will change the weather in, let’s say Beirut, in ways we can’t easily predict. Here’s a more technical definition: "the idea in meteorology that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings will create a disturbance that in the chaotic motion of the atmosphere will become amplified eventually to change the large scale atmospheric motion, so that the long term behavior becomes impossible to forecast" (1). That’s not really too technical--we really don’t need to consider the nonlinear equations so essential to chaos.
It is the "fantastically complex and chaotic behavior" of those equations that attracted me to chaos theory when I first heard about it years ago. I thought to myself: Hey, this is what we historians have always imagined: small differences, over time, eventually, may result in very different outcomes. This is also referred to as "sensitive dependence on initial conditions" (2).
When Edward Lorenz of MIT, who discovered this effect, first wrote about it he used a seagull metaphor, but most of us are glad he changed it to a butterfly (3). That makes for a more colorful metaphor.
Well, I don’t know how many real butterflies are flapping today in Beijing–though spring is coming soon to Beijing, too. It is another kind of spring that the Chinese Communist Party fears–a spring such as Prague had in 1968–or Cairo in 2011. What I do know is that Chinese officials have plenty of butterflies in their tummies right now. And those flutterings are partly due to the wind of change blowing from Tunisia and Egypt (4).
The Chinese have clamped down on foreign journalists, who might just observe a few protesting Chinese dissidents. Those protesters, even if few in number, might serve as domestic "butterflies" affecting the atmosphere across China (as far west as Xinjian and Tibet). China’s dissidents are mostly cyber-savvy and, being denizens of a society with a high degree of Internet penetration, could stir up a ruckus. Despite the authorities’ many attempts to rein in the Internet, dissidents using social media have managed anonymously to call for what might be labeled "walk-by" demonstrations. The government response? Remove those posts from the Internet and, for good measure, monitor the cellphones of Beijing residents–all 20 million of them! In any case, it’s the possibility of protest that is behind the Chinese government’s decisions to further restrict speech and assembly–and to the arrests and disappearances of political activists (5).
Now for the shamrocks, since its St. Patrick’s day. Every year Irish organizations in Shanghai sponsor a St. Patrick’s Day parade--but this year there was no parade in Shanghai. The Chinese authorities didn’t want the parade (scheduled for March 12th) to draw a crowd along a major thoroughfare in an area targeted by Internet activists. So the Irish organizers nixed it. Instead, one of the Irish organizations held an indoor-celebration, invited-guests only (6). Shamrocks, I suppose, but sequestered and probably subject to surveillance.
Here’s another mind-boggling connection to keep us sober on St. Patrick’s Day. It fits right in with one of today’s top stories, the conflict in Libya. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s support for terrorism is well-known, but did you know that Libya was one of the two main sources of weapons used by the IRA (Irish Republican Army) in Northern Ireland? It seems that Libya deserves a lot of credit for the IRA’s capacity for violence if, as some would claim "the IRA’s acquisition of arms through Libya in the 1980s helped transform the organisation into one that could fight a devastating and sustained campaign" (7). In addition to conventional arms, Libya was the source of the IRA’s "most significant and infamous weapon," the plastic, odorless and thus difficult to detect, explosive known as Semtex. Responding to the release of the man imprisoned for the Lockerbie bombing, relatives of those killed with Libyan weapons–in terrorist incidents perpetrated by IRA–renewed their efforts to wring compensation from the Libyan government (8).
And what country do you suppose was the other major source of IRA weapons? Read Sean Boyle’s article in Jane’s Intelligence Review to find out (see note 7).
ACTIVITIES
WATCH the Frontline video "Behind the Mask" (if you can find it in a library) or READ the transcript (online). There are many excellent additional items on this program’s web site. This could be homework or a project for an interested student–in a social studies or history class. Concerns about how weapons liberated during the Libyan conflict might flow into the "wrong" hand makes this relevant today–rather than just a topic of interest to historians.
READ/DEBATE/WRITE: Send students to the Room for Debate section of the New York Times to read the six short essays in "Why Is China Nervous About the Arab Uprising?" Lead a discussion or ask students to debate the reasons for China’s jitters in this "world historical context." Follow-up with short in-class essays to assess students attention during the debate.
RESOURCES
"Behind the Mask: The IRA & Sinn Fein." Frontline (Aired October 21, 1997) on PBS. Companion web site: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ira/. Transcript: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ira/etc/script.html
"Why Is China Nervous about the Arab Uprisings?" Room for Debate. New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/02/28/why-is-china-nervous-about-the-arab-uprisings
- In six short essays six experts consider this question: "Is a growing economy sufficient to keep broader discontent among the Chinese at bay?"
NOTES
1) Michael Cross, "The Butterfly Effect": http://crossgroup.calteach.edu/chaos_new/Lorenz.html
2) "The Butterfly Effect": http://www.stsci.edu/ lbradley/seminar/butterfly.html. I read James Gleich, Chaos: Making a New Science (Viking, 1987). Later I was pleased to discover that Janet L. Abu-Lughod was thinking along the same lines; see Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350 (Oxford University Press: New York, 1989), pp. 368-69.
3) For a bit of history about how Lorenz came up with the notion see source in note 2. For the seagull (1963) to butterfly (1972), see source in note 1.
4) Chinese activists calling for their own "Jasmine Revolution" make the link with Tunisia explicit. See Tom Lasseter, "China Cracks Down on Protest Threats, Rounds Up Dissidents," Truthout (February 20, 2011): http://www.truth-out.org/67924; Andrew Jacobs, "Chinese Government Responds to Call for Protests," New York Times (February 21, 2011); Ian Johnson, "Despite Intimidation, Calls for a ‘Jasmine Revolution’ in China Persist," New York Times (February 24, 2011).
5) Sharon LaFraniere, "China Tightens Controls on Foreign Press," New York Times (March 3, 2011).
6) See note 5.
7) Sean Boyne, "Uncovering the Irish Republican Army," Jane’s Intelligence Review (August 1, 1996): http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ira/inside/weapons.html
This article supports content in the Frontline documentary, "Behind the Mask" (see RESOURCES) . For the quotation and supporting details see "The IRA’s Store of Weaponry," BBC News (August 14, 2001): http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/1482426.html.
8) "Call for Libya to Pay IRA Victims," BBC News (August 25, 2009): http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8219433.
(I've decided to insert "Update" posts as needed rather than weekly, so I'll edit the previous titles to reflect this change. Expect an update about every 7-10 days, depending on the topics covered.)
Wisconsin and Union Rights Protests
Resistance to Gov. Scott Walker’s union-restricting agenda continues in Wisconsin, with few signs of ending any time soon. From various sites in Illinois fourteen state senators are preventing the quorum necessary to pass any fiscal measures in the State Senate. Yesterday (March 1) Gov. Walker unveiled a state budget for the 2011-2013 biennium that Democrat legislators, protesters in Madison, and their stay-at-home supporters are denouncing for its draconian cuts to school districts and local governments. Stay tuned by going to the web sites of Wisconsin TV stations and newspapers (as listed in "Cairo in Wisconsin?").
1) In my first post on the Wisconsin protests (Feb 20) I suggested that when protesters decided to occupy Wisconsin’s iconic Capitol, they were carrying out, deliberately, a symbolic act. I can now support this interpretation with visual evidence from a Washington Post photo gallery (1). In the center of the first slide there is a sign proudly proclaiming, "Whose house? Our house!"
- "Wisconsin Budget Battle: Protesters Rally Against Anti-Union Bill" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2011/02/19/GA2011021900272.html?sid=ST2011022103805). This is an excellent collection of 53 slides (so I’ve deleted an earlier slideshow of poor photos and put this one in its place).
2) For more analysis of Wisconsin’s pro-union protests (and more historical background) listen to these segments from WUWM (89.7 FM)’ "Lake Effect" program:
- Lake Effect (2-23-2011): "Analyzing the Fireside Chat" (9:24). Mitch Teich interviews David Canon (UW-Madison, Professor of Political Science). URL: http://www.wuwm.com/programs/lake_effect/view_le.php?articleid=1184
- Lake Effect: "Wisconsin’s Labor History" (9:06). Dan Harmon interviews Steven Meyer (UW-Milwaukee, Professor of History, specialist in Wisconsin’s labor history). Meyer is the author of "Stalin Over Wisconsin": The Making and Unmaking of Militant Unionism, 1900-1950 (New Brunswick, 1992). URL: http://www.wuwm.com/programs/lake_effect/view_le.php?articleid=1184
- Lake Effect (2-17-2011): "The Stakes of Gov. Walker's Plan to End Collective Bargaining" (12:00). Bonnie North interviews Philip Dine (George Washington University, Adjunct Professor of Labor Management Relations). Dine is the author of State of the Unions: How Labor Can Strengthen the Middle Class, Improve Our Economy, and Regain Political Influence (McGraw Hill, 2007). URL: http://www.wuwm.com/programs/lake_effect/view_le.php?articleid=1179
3) For a list of solidarity rallies around the US visit the Jobs With Justice site (http://www.jwjblog.org). From the blog’s menu of recent posts, select "Worker Solidarity Rallies Planned." This brings up a roster of last week’s events (February 20-26) as well as this week’s rallies. Students could plot these on a US map to discover how labor issues are spreading.
- From the JWJ About page: "At Jobs with Justice, our goal is to build a strong, progressive labor movement that works in coalition with community, faith, and student organizations to build a broader global movement for economic and social justice."
4) Unions--public and private--are under attack in virtually all 50 states. Two articles in The Nation provide detailed information about nation-wide efforts to ban or restrict unions:
More Signs of Connectivity Among Dissidents and the Disgruntled
In "Cairo in Wisconsin?" the Lynx pointed out that some protesters in Madison had signs referring to the Egyptian uprising against Mubarak. Since the fall of Mubarak, his dictatorship has receded into the realm of history and so there are few signs making explicit parallels between Mubarak and Gov. Walker. There are, however, plenty of "Stop the Imperial Walker" signs, alluding to the four-legged monster robot of the Star Wars movie (2). See, for example, slide # 23 in the Washington Post gallery, "Wisconsin Budget Battle."
It is still a viable strategy to launch a discussion of on-going protests in the US and abroad by acknowledging that protesters may be drawing inspiration from the success of the Egyptian uprising (3). Now I can point to a photo of a "Walk Like an Egyptian Sign" that illustrates "cognitive connectivity" between the current crop of protesters in the US and those in North Africa and the Middle East. See slide #23 in "The 100 Best Protest Signs At The Wisconsin Capitol" (http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/the-best-protest-signs-at-the-wisconsin-capitol).
I’ve discovered that the title "Cairo in Wisconsin?" was too provocative for a few potential readers–who appear not to have noticed the question mark. It was NOT my intention to encourage anyone to see Egypt and Wisconsin (that is, the historical and/or contemporary contexts of these events) as equivalent. To equate what the people of Egypt suffered under Mubarak with efforts to undermine or eliminate labor rights in the USA would be to trivialize the brutality and torture of dissidents in Egypt–and the poverty of most Egyptians. I would never do that. I have lived in a dictatorship (Idi Amin’s Uganda), fearing for the safety of my family and friends.
Of special interest then, is this item in today’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Egypt, Madison Link Flawed, Student Says" (4). It is whether there is anyone else with about the experience of Alex Hanna, co-president of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s TAA (Teaching Assistants Association), which functions as a bargaining unit. Hanna was in the thick of events in Madison, even sleeping in the Capitol, but he had witnessed events in Cairo just prior to returning to the Madison campus. He was in Cairo doing research for a master’s thesis on how social media enable communication in regimes that restrict political speech and activism. He cites major differences between Madison and Cairo but also points out that in both cases social media played a role–though somewhat differently.
What is significant, however, is the "cognitive connectivity" that we can observe as dissident or disgruntled citizens in what may be very different contexts observe the outcome of protests in one context and apply it their own circumstances (*). The young man carrying the "Walk Like an Egyptian" sign had connected the dots in a cognitive/neurological process and his sign was the external manifestation of this process. To understand his behavior we need to take into account links that, viewed more objectively, may be "flawed." Of course, for teachers this provides an opportunity to engage students in a broad discussion of "people power" and its limitations. No doubt the discussion would pivot around the differences between protests here and abroad.
Relevant to the kind of connectivity I’ve been thinking about is Richard Grusin’s notion of "premediation." He examines how today’s news and social media prepare audiences psychologically for multiple possibilities in the future. In his new book, Premediation: Affect and Mediality After 9/11, he describes the impact of the anticipation elicited by social media during the 2009 election protests in Iran (*). In yesterday’s Lake Effect program he considers the way in which premediation is occurring in both Egypt and Madison.
Grusin suggests that one of Egypt’s effects has been an intensified sense of hopefulness among protesters in Madison. Disgruntled people in Wisconsin, after seeing and hearing--with unprecedented immediacy--what was happening in Egypt, were psychologically prepared to act. While he thinks Wisconsinites would have protested regardless of what was happening elsewhere, he suggests that the structure and intensity would have been different without "premediation." Grusin, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Professor of English, directs UWM’s Center for 21st Century Studies.
In addition, Chinese dissidents have observed the protests across the Arab world and tried to emulate them by calling for a "Jasmine Revolution" in China (see NYT 2-20/21-11). The response of Chinese officials, including the arrest of human rights activists, indicates how seriously the government is taking attempts to use social media to call for protests that might create instability (6). Despite the government’s surveillance of social media, it seems that Grusin’s "premediation" is also operating in the Chinese context.
Meanwhile, in Zimbabwe, when citizens there (no doubt, including quite a few dissidents,) gathered to watch Al Jazeera and BBC videos of events in Egypt, the police arrived and seized their equipment (laptop, DVDs, projector) and took 46 of them into custody. Those detained were charged with "attempting to overthrow the government by unconstitutional means" and face up to twenty years in prison (7).
For those who have been wondering why people in sub-Saharan are not rising up against tyrants ... just wait. Listen to Trevor Ncube, owner of independent newspapers in Zimbabwe and The Mail & Guardian (a major South African paper): "Indeed the single most important lesson frojm Tunisia and Egypt is that we as Zimbabweans are our own liberators" (8).
I strongly recommend that you access the original Ncube article and also read the comments. Ncube asserts that events in Tunisia and Zimbabwe "certainly planted ideas in Zimbabweans’ minds that may influence the country’s future in a significant way." This supports my argument about "cognitive connectivity" and Grusin’s notion of "premediation." But, as Ncube points out, "Zimbabwe’s political predicament is far worse" and this, of course, goes far in explaining Zimbabweans’ reluctance to rise up and overthrow Mugabe (though protests have occurred–and politicians, lawyers, and human rights activists have been arrested and sometimes brutally beaten or tortured). Very candidly, Ncube describes what people in Zimbabwe are facing, the entrenched power of Mugabe’s regime. The comments reveal even more. Share this unique primary source with your students.
Notes
1) See also Michael Fletcher, "Wisconsin Gov. Walker Threatens to Trigger Layoffs for Thousands of Public Workers, Washington Post (2-26-2011). From this article access video, "Wis. Legislation Sparks Country-wide Protests" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/25/AR2011022507027.html).
2) DISCLOSURE: I have a vintage AT-AT Imperial Walker in my basement (keeping it for my son, who turns 36 this month).
3) Protesters in Columbus, Ohio have also alluded to the Egyptian revolution. See "After Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana Face Union Fight," New York Times (2-23-11).
4) Craig Gilbert, "Egypt, Madison Link Flawed, Student Says," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (3-2-2010).
5) Richard Grusin, Premediation: Affect and Mediality After 9/11(Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). Available in hardcover and paperback.
6) Andrew Jacobs, "Chinese Government Responds to Call for Protests," New York Times (2-21-2011).
7) Celia W. Dugger, "TV Viewing Leads to Zimbabwe Arrests," New York Times (2-22-2011).
8) Quoted in Celia W. Dugger (see note 7). For the original article see "We Are Our Own Liberators," The Guardian & Mail (2-28-2011). URL: http://www.mg.co.za/article/2011-02-18-we-are-our-own-liberators/
