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I find it difficult to believe this news story in today's New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/world/middleeast/17yemen.html?_r=1&hpw
If it is even remotely true, it is an astonishing case of the management of conflicting agendas and worldviews within a sort of autonomous zone in Sana, Yemen, created as a result of the sheer length of the nonviolent sit-in portions of the protests. University students and tribal elders converse with one another. Rival tribal groups forge new common loyalties. Tents have television and internet connections. Newspapers and journals flourish. "The protest area is virtually its own city, complete with restaurants, medical clinics, auditoriums and gardens. There are numerous art galleries and exhibits, and an endless series of seminars and lectures."
In the meantime, outside the temporary autonomous zone called Change Square, people appear to be shooting and killing one another pretty much as has been reported in other news stories.
I suppose if I quote much more of the story, the New York Times will come and make me take down the post, which itself would be a gratifying sign of recognition by the world at large.
But how can one resist quoting passages like this, which sound like total fantasy that would not be out of place in a China Miéville novel, if not one by John Crowley: "The square remains amazingly vibrant, a carnival-like city within the city. Tribesmen with daggers in their belts strut through the crowd, singing antigovernment 'zamils,' or tribal chants. ('God burned your face, oh Ali,' one of them went, in a derisive reference to the president.) Vendors wheel wooden trays of glistening red tomatoes and cucumbers, while others sell fruit juices, popcorn and fried foods.
"Banners bearing the names of countless political factions hang between buildings, and the faces of martyrs killed during government crackdowns decorate the tents. Underfoot is a slurry of mud, plastic bags, fliers, food and leaves of qat — the plant Yemenis chew in the afternoons for its stimulant effect.
“'There are new values forming here,' said Dughesh Abdel Dughesh, a sociologist. 'You can see a big sheik sweeping the street, nuclear physicists taking away garbage.'”
The second half of the story contains the reports of conflict within Change Square that one would have expected to be the whole story. The astonishing thing is that the aforementioned cases of mutual aid and management of cultural tensions have happened at all. The particular militants who stole Mr. Dughesh's chairs after his co-educational seminars seem themselves to reflect the surprisingly damped-down level of confrontation, though references to direct intimidation suggest the course that events could take in the future.
It might be instructive to learn who has been creating the embryonic institutions of Change Square, and facilitating the incidents of community-building.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/world/middleeast/17yemen.html?_r=1&hpw
If it is even remotely true, it is an astonishing case of the management of conflicting agendas and worldviews within a sort of autonomous zone in Sana, Yemen, created as a result of the sheer length of the nonviolent sit-in portions of the protests. University students and tribal elders converse with one another. Rival tribal groups forge new common loyalties. Tents have television and internet connections. Newspapers and journals flourish. "The protest area is virtually its own city, complete with restaurants, medical clinics, auditoriums and gardens. There are numerous art galleries and exhibits, and an endless series of seminars and lectures."
In the meantime, outside the temporary autonomous zone called Change Square, people appear to be shooting and killing one another pretty much as has been reported in other news stories.
I suppose if I quote much more of the story, the New York Times will come and make me take down the post, which itself would be a gratifying sign of recognition by the world at large.
But how can one resist quoting passages like this, which sound like total fantasy that would not be out of place in a China Miéville novel, if not one by John Crowley: "The square remains amazingly vibrant, a carnival-like city within the city. Tribesmen with daggers in their belts strut through the crowd, singing antigovernment 'zamils,' or tribal chants. ('God burned your face, oh Ali,' one of them went, in a derisive reference to the president.) Vendors wheel wooden trays of glistening red tomatoes and cucumbers, while others sell fruit juices, popcorn and fried foods.
"Banners bearing the names of countless political factions hang between buildings, and the faces of martyrs killed during government crackdowns decorate the tents. Underfoot is a slurry of mud, plastic bags, fliers, food and leaves of qat — the plant Yemenis chew in the afternoons for its stimulant effect.
“'There are new values forming here,' said Dughesh Abdel Dughesh, a sociologist. 'You can see a big sheik sweeping the street, nuclear physicists taking away garbage.'”
The second half of the story contains the reports of conflict within Change Square that one would have expected to be the whole story. The astonishing thing is that the aforementioned cases of mutual aid and management of cultural tensions have happened at all. The particular militants who stole Mr. Dughesh's chairs after his co-educational seminars seem themselves to reflect the surprisingly damped-down level of confrontation, though references to direct intimidation suggest the course that events could take in the future.
It might be instructive to learn who has been creating the embryonic institutions of Change Square, and facilitating the incidents of community-building.
