Building in East Jerusalem
Haaretz today ran an excellent editorial denouncing the eviction of two Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem. It makes the very critical point about how the whole dispute over building in East Jerusalem is an exercise in skillful duplicity on the part of the new Israeli government, and is worth quoting at length:
A Palestinian woman confronted Israeli riot police as she was evicted from her home in the Sheik Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem on Sunday. Abir Sultan/European Pressphoto Agency.
...The sight of the evicted Palestinian families, who had lived in these houses for decades, paints Israel in the world's eyes as a country that maintains a cruel regime of occupation, oppresses the weak and strives to create political facts in the disputed city under the guise of the "rule of law."
But for all its importance, this international criticism is not what makes the eviction of these families completely unacceptable. A democratic state that strives for peace and justice simply has no right to uproot families who became refugees in 1948. They left homes in West Jerusalem behind them, and were subsequently granted modest accommodations by the Jordanian government. The claim that the houses in Sheikh Jarrah were purchased by Jews in the early 1900s is a double-edged sword that opens a political and legal Pandora's box.
No thinking person will be persuaded that Jews have a sweeping right to return to their homes in East Jerusalem as long as Israeli law not only bars Palestinians from returning to their homes in West Jerusalem, but even evicts them from the houses where they have lived for the last 60 years. The Israel Lands Administration's regulations do not even allow Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem to buy land and houses in many parts of the city.
So for all of the Israeli government's complaints about American racism in demanding that Israel stop building housing complexes for Jews in occupied parts of the city, there is the trump card of Israel's own actions in its regulation of housing for Palestinians in Israel and in the West Bank. (Stay tuned for my eventual critique of a memo on "talking about Israel," which is relevant to this.)
Anyone who is not totally ignorant knows that while Israeli law doesn't forbid Palestinians from inhabiting West Jerusalem (for they live there), building codes and other smokescreens create a situation where Palestinians essentially cannot buy property there, and Jews can. The situation Netanyahu described is more true in West Jerusalem than in East Jerusalem:
We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and purchase in all parts of Jerusalem. I can only describe to myself what would happen if someone would propose that Jews could not live in certain neighborhoods in New York, London, Paris or Rome. There would certainly be a major international outcry. Accordingly, we cannot agree to such a decree in Jerusalem.
There should be little sympathy for Netanyahu's crackpot attempts to smear critics as racist or anti-semitic, when, to quote the New York Times, "[a]s soon as the Palestinians had been forcibly removed from the houses, Jewish nationalists moved in..."
A plantation to be proud of
This is by far the funniest and most satisfying op-ed I have read in some time. Sarah Vowell writes about the Rhode Island name change ballot proposition (an idiotic idea, by the way) with a tone and style that I wish I could muster:
...On the one hand, as a person who spends a minimum of 20 minutes a week furious with President William McKinley, I feel that these, the historically minded, bleeding-heart hand-wringers leading this movement, are my people.
On the other hand, as New York City’s biggest, or perhaps only, fan of the founding of Providence Plantations, I feel compelled to stick up for its noble legacy of religious freedom.
I strongly recommend that you read the whole article on the Times site.
Searching for the elusive Beirut connection
It's hard to keep yourself connected here. The power doesn't cooperate, the internet doesn't cooperate, the traffic doesn't cooperate, and the weather doesn't cooperate. Everything fails, shuts down, sputters back to life, and then dies again.
Many things about this country don't make a lot of sense. However, like it did for the interminable Doctor Samir Geagea - former warlord and current head of the Lebanese Forces - somehow, everything works out in the end. (Obviously, I eventually found a connection.)
With that I leave you with some quotes from his gem of a (auto?)biography, found on the Lebanese Forces website:
Strong and irresistible, Samir Geagea can be compared to the majestic cedars of Lebanon that have characterized the Lebanese Mountains since Biblical times. These trees, arguably the most beautiful in the world, growing for thousands of years on the pinnacles of his hometown Besharri, are not dissimilar to his robust physique and principles. ...
Dr. Geagea, stong like cedars.
Just as straight and haughty as the great Cedars of Lebanon against storms and attacks of the elements, he too resisted the obstacles of those that tried to derail and humiliate him. Samir Geagea, a true stalwart, maintained the true vision, the right vision for his country. ...
This man, the imposing stature, with black piercing eyes, bare forehead and moustache that crosses a constantly smiling face, has a faith that can move mountains. Able and determined, preferring occasionally to compromise to avoid the worst and achieve a positive result, Samir Geagea has never confused strategy with tactics. Before all political steps, he analyses local, regional and international factors with perspicacity and intelligence. He consults and works with others. Calm and serene, especially in moments of crisis and tensions, he is at the same time Cartesian and pragmatic. He reacts as an intellectual and thinks as a man of action. He hardly forgets the past but never takes refuge in it. He knows how to apply the past to present situations in such a way as to achieve a better future. His appreciation of silence stems from his belief that "silence is an element at the heart of all that is great". He loves and knows how to listen, he never ceases to repeat the proverb: "it is in listening and not through speaking that we learn."
Talking to: Blogger Qifa Nabki
Blogger Elias Muhanna, man behind the blog "Qifa Nabki".
Elias Muhanna, the man behind the blog Qifa Nabki, is a Lebanese blogger whose commentary has appeared in The National, Foreign Policy and other publications. In the run-up to the Lebanese parliamentary elections, Muhanna and his blog were cited and quoted widely in both the blogosphere and the mainstream media. His posts provide unique analysis of Lebanon’s politics for readers around the world, with witty reflections on the possibilities for cabinet formations, and even revealing taxi conversations.
Muhanna, a PhD candidate in Near Eastern Studies at Harvard University, sat down with NOW to discuss Qifa Nabki and what the elections mean for Lebanon.
What is your background?
Elias Muhanna: My family lives here, I’m Lebanese and my mother is American. [I] lived here during the beginning of the civil war and then my family left in the early 80s, and I grew up mostly between Lebanon and Cyprus, so living in Cyprus but coming back and forth during the war. [I] went to college in the US, and… am doing graduate school now. [After I get my PhD,] I’d like to get an academic job and work as a professor, that’s my goal… if I could get a job at AUB, I wouldn’t turn it down; that would be great.
How long have you been writing the blog?
Muhanna: I began the blog in the beginning of October [2008]…my dissertation process began last year…the research for the dissertation began roughly around the time I started the blog.
How did you get into blogging?
Muhanna: I had spent a lot of time reading a lot of blogs [about Lebanon and Syria]. Arab-Israeli stuff too… I disagreed with a lot of what people were saying in the comment sections, and I sort of wanted to debate the issues, and I ended up making a lot of friends… and discovering that many of the contributors were extremely intelligent and had a lot of arguments that I never even encountered or considered. There are certain things that we would still disagree about, but a lot of those people I now count as close friends, and we are respectful of each other’s positions... So, I did a lot of that kind of thing and I thought I’d like to start my own.
What’s the story with the logo?
Muhanna: It’s a detail from a painting that I discovered and I really liked... Since then, I felt kind of sheepish about the fact that it had become the head of Qifa Nabki’s blog and so I actually got in contact with the artist to see if he would be willing to sell me that painting… and so this summer I will actually, hopefully, be able to purchase [it].
What does Qifa Nabki mean?
Muhanna: Qifa Nabki is the first two words of maybe the most famous pre-Islamic classical Arabic poem, and it means, literally “Halt, you two, and let us weep.” It’s sort of the iconic image that begins a lot of classical Arabic poetry, where the poet, this desert nomad, is traveling through the desert with some companions and he happens upon the place where his beloved’s tribe had been encamped and she and her tribe have since moved on… He says to his companions: “Let us stop and let us weep for the memory of a beloved,” and it became a standard trope of a lot of this poetry, and to anyone who has studied Arabic poetry, it’s instantly recognizable, so it’s almost like calling a blog “To be or not to be.”
How popular is the site?
Muhanna: It began with a smattering of hits, and gradually over time – I think because of the elections, there’s a lot of interest, and these things just build, I guess. Every month there have been more and more hits.
What do you think about the media situation in Lebanon today?
Muhanna: I wish there were more responsible media outlets providing more balanced criticism on both sides of the aisle. You can’t find that anywhere. The pro-March 14 media are strident in their support of March 14, [and] the pro-opposition media is incredibly partisan as well… nobody seems to be looking at both sides and criticizing them in a balanced fashion. That’s what I’m aiming for on the blog, but I don’t know how successful I’ve been.
Do you think these were Lebanon’s first free elections since 1975?
Muhanna: I definitely think this is the first free election in decades. To me, 2005 was a one-issue election; it was basically a referendum on Syria. It was run using the 2000 electoral law, which had so many problems in it, and then the way the cabinet was formed and the way the various players participated… it was a disaster. This election, although it was still very much waged on the basis of sectarian language and clan… there was sort of a more issue-based approach, even if the issues were only a couple, like Hezbollah’s weapons and the state vs. reform… But more importantly, there was real competition. We didn’t know who would win this election, and that’s a big thing.
Does the opposition view the results as a backlash against their policies or demography?
Muhanna: I wouldn’t be surprised that some people would think that [Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel] Aoun was hurt by his alliance [with Hezbollah]. It’s clear from the numbers that the places in which he won, he didn’t win by nearly as much. I think over the next couple of weeks both sides are going to feel each other out… Nobody really wants to rush into a standoff or a deal; they want to get a sense of each other’s red lines, and try to come up, if a veto [the obstructing-third vote] is not in the offering, some other kind of thing.
What about the calm on elections day?
Muhanna: Another thing that Paul Salem said yesterday [at a Carnegie Center post-election debriefing] was “the fact that in an Arab country, ordinary citizens could determine who is going to govern and who is going to sit in the opposition, all on a quiet Sunday, is a pretty remarkable thing.” I think everybody was shocked by just how amazingly low-key it was. Last weekend was totally chill. There wasn’t even that much celebration afterward.
Is there a battle over the obstructing veto looming?
Muhanna: As of right now, it’s not looking like there’s going to be a huge battle over the veto...which is kind of weird. What was it about this particular result that convinced people to climb down a little bit? If March 14 had won by 70 seats instead of 71, would [March 8] have said, “oh well we’re going to go after the veto.”
Why has Hezbollah acted so conciliatory?
Muhanna: I don’t know, that’s a really good question… There are a lot of factors in play. First of all, [the veto] is totally unconstitutional. In the past there was a debate whose basic premise was when Hezbollah joined the government, the Siniora government back in 2005, they did so under an agreement that was made, under the cabinet decree… Now the situation is totally different and Hezbollah understands that. March 14 didn’t need Hezbollah’s help to get elected, nor did they need the help of the president or independents. They were a non-factor. So it’s difficult to make the case now that you’re for a veto when there is no constitutional basis for it. So I think this is why they are being more conciliatory. Who knows, maybe behind closed doors they have no intention of giving it up.
Is March 14 in a stronger place? Will Saad Hariri be prime minister?
Muhanna: The position is his to take. If he wants to be prime minister, there is no alternative to him. Everybody will accept him. I just don’t know if he wants to be prime minister… I still have a feeling that [Tripoli MP Najib] Mikati is going to step in. Mikati played a really excellent role in the transitional cabinet between when Omar Karami’s government fell back in 2005, and when March 14 won... And the fact that he has very strong ties to both Damascus and to Riyadh makes him an ideal fit for this period that we’re in right now. He’s incredibly eloquent; he’s just a very good speaker... It all comes down to the advice that Saad Hariri is getting. If he’s getting really good advice, I think he will choose Mikati and they have to start reaching out to the FPM.
This interview was originally published on NOW Lebanon on June 10, 2009.
Arab Democracy
Voting in Aley, southeast of Beirut
Are we advertised to death?
A poster of Ali Khamenei, the spiritual leader of Iran, leads a row of posters of dead Hezbollah combatants in the southern Lebanese village of Yaater. (AFP/Ramzi Haidar)
With the back-and-forth sniping between Lebanon’s political parties this election season, it’s easy to feel that the Lebanese are coming under fire. Indeed, to anyone walking down the street, campaign billboards seem to form a seamless graphic representation of neighborhood power structure; row after row of Hezbollah campaign billboards along the airport road dissolve into Future Movement and Lebanese Forces posters, depending on whether they turn left or right.
Though it’s election season, public political imagery is anything but new in Lebanon. As is the case in other countries, public space in Lebanon is appropriated by various groups as they compete for the public’s attention, whether it is to convince you to buy a product, visit a restaurant, vote for a politician or remember the deceased. But few restrictions limit billboards in Lebanon, so advertisements for anything and everything frequently become overpowering along highways and other well-trafficked corridors.
Political billboards are particularly visible, but several scholarly works have recently begun to deeply examine the legacy they have in Lebanon. While many posters were removed in 2008 following the Doha Accord, election fever seems to be overpowering the spirit of reconciliation reached in Qatar last summer, and it is now difficult to tell that any removal effort ever occurred.
Upon arriving in Beirut six years ago, Paula Schmitt found its billboards “amusing” and “picturesque; a diversion in streets empty of public parks, benches or trees,” but over years spent living and reporting from Lebanon, Schmitt began to understand that the underlying purpose of Lebanese political billboards is to reinforce three “insidious” aspects of Lebanese political culture: “sectarianism, clientelism and the cult of personality.”
This is the thesis of Schmitt’s new book, Advertised to Death: Lebanese Poster Boys, released at Virgin Megastore in Beirut last Friday, in which she relates the development of her understanding of Lebanese political posters in a way that is quite understandable, if a bit unpolished, to those uninitiated into the complexities of Lebanon’s labyrinthine political environment.
The book is an academic-style study that manages to reveal the author’s frustration with the circularity and sectarian nature of Lebanon’s political arena; accordingly, Schmitt’s narrative is frequently punctuated by the use of the first person, so the book reads at times like a dissertation and at others like an opinion piece.
Schmitt, former Lebanon correspondent for Rolling Stone Brasil and Radio France Internationale, wrote the book as she completed her Master’s Degree in Middle Eastern Studies at the American University of Beirut. She makes an academic analysis of the iconography of signage, analyzing poses, geometry, contents and spatial context in Lebanon’s many political billboards. As well as analyzing the traditional posters that grace the cities and villages of Lebanon, Schmitt traces the evolution of posters over the past few years, noting the increased attention paid to design and the movement away from kitsch toward hip. Advertised to Death is illustrated with over 100 photos so readers can examine the competing slogans, photoshop trickery and sectarian nature of the signs for themselves.
Schmidt spares neither side of the political spectrum in her critique, with analysis devoted to the Amal Movement’s Nabih Berri, Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah, the Hariri family, the Gemayel family, and even the all-too-memorable ski accident victim memorial posters that have been plastered around Gemmayzeh and Achrafieh for over a year.
But more attention is paid to the signage of Hezbollah and Amal, perhaps because religious and political billboards tend to be more concentrated in Shia areas, and she chronicles the effective image overhaul executed by Hezbollah following the 2006 July War, when the group began calling itself the Lebanese Resistance.
But iconography is not just the currency of Lebanese politicking. Many Middle Eastern countries have long venerated political and social leaders by iconifying them in posters and other signage. A visit to any residence in Jordan will likely reveal a prominently hung photograph of King Abdullah, and a host of glowering images of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad greets anyone who crosses the Lebanese border at Masnaa. Yasser Arafat’s visage still gazes from the narrow alleyways of Lebanon’s sprawling Palestinian refugee camps.
However, the book argues that in Lebanon, such posters are not an exception but the rule: “[B]illboards in Lebanon make one believe that constituents here tend to follow personalities, rather than ideas.”
And since it is election season in Lebanon, the old habits of ginning up support with billboards and posters are intensifying with each passing day. As we see with the current election cycle, posters related to particular candidates are not only divorced from any policy proposals, but even willing to veer into territory usually occupied only by personal care products, as was the case with the scandal-producing “Sois belle et vote” billboards.
In an interview with NOW, Schmitt said about today’s billboards: “I know political propaganda is supposed to be very reductive and simplistic, by definition, but in Lebanon they are exclusively so – there are no political proposals on the billboards.”
“The billboards … [are] the first thing we see and absorb and live with if we walk in the city,” Schmitt said. “What does that give me to see the face of Pierre Gemayel, or Hariri, or Nasrallah? How are we benefitting from that?”
Indeed, while this question has been asked before, perhaps it has not been asked enough. The book is interesting and timely, but it does not ask the question as well as it could. The author does not spend much time analyzing the posters of the March 14 coalition, leaving the impression that her study of Lebanon’s political posters is actually more of a work on Shia imagery. The book leaves the reader with questions, but it is at least a good first step toward illuminating the true cost and effect of posters on the contemporary Lebanese political scene.
Article originally published in NOW Lebanon on June 3, 2009.
Memo to Iraq
MEMO TO IRAQ
by Tim Fitzsimons
This month we celebrated the five-year anniversary of George W. Bush’s triumphant landing on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln off of California, where, a mere six weeks into the War in Iraq, he declared in front of a staged rally of sailors that “[i]n the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”
Mr. Bush was correct; the goals had been realized: we had quickly toppled the government of Saddam Hussein, established control over the country, and few at home in America had been asked to do more than bat an eye.
Since we won that first fight, however, we have lost the war of words and images. In the wake of “Mission Accomplished,” we have seen the horrifying pictures from Abu Ghraib prison, a cell phone video of Saddam Hussein’s botched and barbaric hanging, and front page after front page plastered with images of decapitations and blood running through the streets of Baghdad.
Somehow, despite the fact that this war has gone on for longer than the Civil War and both World Wars, we as a nation have failed to seriously question its continuation. One of the two main candidates for president seeks simply to end American casualties, since he has rightly identified that as the only factor that concerns most of us. We have not been paying close enough attention to the war over the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, the one that we are losing most terribly. They will always remember.
But we won the War for Iraq. Mission accomplished.
***
Nine months ago, as I was rumbling down the "green tunnel," a tree-lined main throughway in the Kashmir valley, my translator Shabir pointed down a road that flicked by and told me that it led to his village.
I had heard about that village before. He had already explained to me what life was like when the Indian army would conduct a "crackdown," the English word that embodied the brutality of the conflict in that beautiful region of northwest India. In a crackdown, the army would surround a village, corral all of its residents, line up the men old enough to be "insurgents," blindfold them, and then walk down the line with an informer, who would silently finger the accused. Those unlucky enough to be chosen would be whisked away and “disappeared,” never to be seen again.
Recently, the BBC reported that mass graves had been discovered in the valley, suspected to be some of the sites where those disappeared people were finally put to rest.
Kashmir was my introduction to India. Before my flight from New Delhi even touched down on the tarmac at Srinagar airport, I could see hundreds of camouflaged tents behind tall fences surrounding the airport. When I stepped off of the plane, I saw military trucks and barbed wire, and men with machine guns in hand. We were frisked twice before we were permitted to leave the airport, and we were the only ones there. The height of the conflict has long since passed, but so much remains.
As we drove around Srinagar pursuing our story, our car would be pulled over every few hours by the Central Reserve Police Force, and we would both be frisked. Shabir would always get particularly incensed, but never to the police. He would wait until we were speeding away before letting slip some of the rare four letter words he reserved for the “occupiers.”
When Shabir and I would talk about the conflict between Kashmir, India, and Pakistan, he would gaze out of the car window and his mannerisms would change. His emotions would deaden, and he would speak in a sort of robotic way that showed he found the question too difficult to answer fully:
"I think Kashmir should be part of Pakistan," he would say, looking away.
"Why? You already said that you think being part of India makes Kashmir prosperous," I would ask, slowly.
"But you know," (and here he would begin to get especially uncomfortable), "I can't want to go to India. Pakistan is a country for Muslims, and we in Kashmir are Muslim."
But his true feelings shone through his explanation. A day or two before, when he had explained what a crackdown was, I had asked him if it had ever happened in his village when he was a kid. "Yes," he had said simply, "many times." His employer had told me that his village was a hotbed of insurgent activity in the 1990s, so I already knew. Shabir remembered the conflict well. India to him was forever seared into his mind as the force that disappeared all those people from his village, causing so much pain to so many people.
And with that, I learned that the cost of insurgency and counter-insurgency is not one that fades with age. Pay close attention.
This article was published on May 17, 2008 in the Tufts Daily.
Picture This: How Images from Gaza got from Ordinary People to Us
Demotix citizen journalists in Gaza sent images of things inaccessible to journalists (Eman Mohammed/Demotix)
As the bombardment of Gaza began last month, an Israeli media blackout denying journalists access to the Strip held firm. And yet, global criticism of Israeli action crescendoed as image after heartbreaking image was published in the media.
As there were no – or very few – journalists in Gaza, the images of the carnage often came from ordinary people. Many reached the world via a new website: Demotix.com.
This London-based company has created considerable buzz by allowing anyone to upload their pictures of anywhere, connecting the street to the mainstream by allowing media outlets to buy pictures taken by ordinary people. Citizen journalism just got organized and – maybe – profitable.
Jonnie Leger, Director of Sales at Demotix Images, told NOW Extra that “during the Gaza conflict, when foreign reporters couldn’t get into the territory, our contributors were giving amazing content.” Indeed, working with citizen journalists resulted in unexpected convergence when Israelis and Palestinians were covering opposite sides of the same events, “we got the same story told by different reporters on the same day — the photos are the same.” The agency received – and sold – images from inside Gaza because its citizens were able to skirt the Israeli media blackout cutting off access to the Strip.
And even before the assault began, several Palestinians were underground, digging out of the Strip. Rare images of these burrowers floated out onto the global newswire via Demotix as talk of tunnels and smuggling began to fray the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.
It is not only from hard-to-reach places like Gaza that citizen journalists can sell images. As newspapers and television networks face declining revenues and close foreign bureaus, many are looking for ways to capitalize on the power of the internet and an undiminished demand for foreign reportage. Turi Munthe, the founder and CEO of Demotix, saw an opportunity and in early 2008 started the company.
For the past year, Demotix has advertised on social networking sites and searched for promising photographers on flickr.com, a photo-sharing website with a devoted following. Today, Demotix boasts over two thousand regular contributors, and emerged from “stealth beta” mode to become official in August last year.
Before founding Demotix, Munthe worked at the Royal United Services Insititute, the world’s oldest defense and security think tank, where he studied radicalization. He was also a journalist and spent time reporting in Beirut and the Middle East, where he found himself drawn “further and further toward civil society.”
But he became disenchanted by the mainstream media and its decline, telling NOW Extra that he watched the media, “commit a quite efficient harakiri over the past few years,” as outlets shut down foreign bureaus and slashed staff rosters.
Munthe saw an opportunity to link media outlets with an increasingly dependable and sophisticated network of independent photojournalists, and Demotix was born. Although determinedly a global company, the Middle East has provided its biggest hit – with Gaza, and there is talk of an Arabic website.
Aside from a desire to bolster the ailing news industry, Munthe “sought to create a social enterprise, a business model that can do good.” Munthe’s experiences have led him to believe that the more closed and blocked a society’s media is, “the more likely you are to be dealing with issues of eventual serious radicalization…When you put a society into a pressure cooker and you heat it up, things pop.”
Hence, Demotix’s moral underpinnings: “If you can get street reporters published and give them a bit of a megaphone, it’s slightly harder for governments to come and crack down on them.”
Other companies have experimented with concepts like Munthe’s with varying degrees of success. In 2006 the Calgary, Canada-based Istockphoto.com created a successful stock photography agency by using the internet to connect independent photographers, was purchased by Getty Images for $50M.
On the news side, organizations such as CNN, al-Jazeera, The New York Times, and others have slowly increased the amount of “citizen journalism” they include in their regular coverage, but it has been dependent on the charity of photographers and their willingness to surrender their copyright. This stemmed from the idea that citizen journalism was something “unprofessional” that could easily be compromised by biased providers. But as the technology of the cameraphone improved and proliferated, the acceptability of “user generated content,” or UGC, increased.
Demotix created a paying market for the photographers whose citizen journalism has been used as free material by news agencies for years. Now, Demotix sells those images to those same outlets for mainstream prices, passing half the money on to the photographers.
One problem posed by the market is danger for journalists sending valuable images from oppressive regimes. Clearly, Demotix needs images from, say, Myanmar and Syria as much as from Lebanon and London, but journalists in those places can face severe punishments. So, Demotix has incorporated layers of security that strip the metadata (hidden information incorporated into an image’s file data) from submissions. Proxy servers are also used if the user would like to cover their tracks and prevent internet tracing from following too closely.
Following submission, Demotix works closely with its contributors to ensure that a tightly edited package is presented for sale, and that any doubts about the images are eliminated. Jonnie Leger explained that all content is treated the same way that images from a professional photojournalist would be, and that “unless I’m 100% sure this is real, I can’t push it out to the press.” Leger ensures the legitimacy of the UGC by keeping in close contact with photographers throughout the process.
Swayed by the story, this sometime photographer signed up with Demotix and can report that there is a simple signup process and straightforward privacy agreement. Within a few minutes, I was uploading my first story. The beta version of the site still is a bit choppy in places, but it works well and efficiently.
The online submission form makes tagging and organizing photos by story easy. Anyone can search the site for a story, and after submission photos are updated into a section of recently submitted content. No takers yet, but it is good to be part of a community in the business of telling their stories to the world.
Originally published in NOW Lebanon on January 27, 2009.
Watching the World Change
This is a photo taken the moment that Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States.
Curiously, the expressions on the onlookers' faces were neither of joy nor fear, but rather studious observation, as if looking away would have revealed that the moment was just an illusion.
Straight from the Notebook
I've typed up some notes from an interview I conducted with a thorougly defeated man. He was an Iraqi refugee living in Amman, and he was a Sabean. His comments underscore the sectarian cleavages that have grown in Iraq, as well as the despair that has enveloped those who were chased from the country. These notes are fully unedited, from the original broken English and Arabic translation, but I think by reading them this way you get a better sense of how the interview went.
The man was short and had a sad, handsome face. His hair was graying and he was slight in size and stature. His young children darted in and out of the room as we conducted the interview. They inched along, backs to the wall, eyes fixed on me because I was an outsider.
--------------------------------------------
Back to Amman - 8/13/09
Before the war -
name-Nasser Mosat
AGE-45
When he came to Jordan...
he is Sabean
We are 18,000 in the whole world, because its few and theyre well-educated, education of children. "Our religion depends on peace + knowledge in life,"
They're an ancient religion, before Islam, Christianity, before Jews...
Iraq is their real country
John the Baptist - they baptized Jesus. Muslims don't accept anything different, anything diff. is wrong
Sheikhs are politicians, they want to control other people
Before 2003 before no tension - his opinion there was gvmt to protect them
-->more about muslims *how it changed how people
whole family killed in iraq. bro, sis, mother, killed by mehdi army, doesn't care about ngos
he doesn't like to ask
got $ from Care, never uses
he has bad things, missile killed his 13 other family members
"I'm not Iraqi anymore"
existed before war
"militias told me to leave iraq + i said i'm not iraqi anymore."
before the war a lot of missionaries tried to convert them to islam
-->palpable tension between the sects in iraq
"we leave death in iraq, to a slow death in jordan"
he never goes to ask for handouts because its not what i want "it's not who i am."
"my future is finished, i have just the future of my children."
made interview w/ aus. resettlement. waited 8 months for response from Australia.
Thinks it will be 1 year for Australia, even w/ answer they must wait one more year.
Doesn't understand why its so late. They must find some solution for us.
Muslims can go back to Iraq when better Sabeans must stay in Jordan or trans to another country. I hope there are some place for us to go, they must.
"I'm out of patience and out of money," just wants a peaceful place for kids and family
employment
When the UN called about resettlement@UNHCR, they sat for 5 hours and interviewer began to cry
she asked where does he want to go, australia
they asked w/ which party they worked w/
they bribed the un and if you work for someone big or bribe you get processed more quickly
all savings are gone. -now getting help, gets some help from relatives
spends $500/mo w/ good health
$600/mo 5 person family
prices of food have gone up. heard australia better than other countries
harder for him to move to australia than others
These people, our religion don't want material possession. Simple peaceful life
"I've lost most of my life and I can't make it up. I'm now just living for my kids."