Revolution in the Arab World - Observation of a lost soul Blog

foreign policy • revolution in the arab world • revolution makers
and credibly capturing raw video and reporting on the ground with mobile
phones and building online content around it. The delegation experienced
frequent harassment from Egyptian national security forces.
In September 2010, a group of journalists organized by a U.S. NGO traveled
to Egypt to provide media-skills training to members of the April 6
movement in courses overseen by Samir. The goal was to prepare the movement’s
media wing to operate under intense pressure from national security
forces during planned protests leading up to the November election. The
trainers fanned out to cities across the country, such as opposition strongholds
Port Said, Aswan, and Alexandria. Sessions lasted four days in each
city, with nearly 30 trainees at a time grilling the journalists for advice. Session
dates and locations were often changed up to the very last minute as the
group struggled to avoid government scrutiny and monitoring.
The young April 6 activists wanted to ensure that the protests surrounding
the parliamentary elections would be conducted differently (no more
burning tires or charging police barricades) and meet with different results
(no more floggings by the police). This time, they would be asymmetric and
digital. At the end of a session on personal security practices, Samir turned
to me and said, “They need to stop thinking of revolution as martyrdom.
They are so used to thinking that if they don’t get arrested or beaten up they
aren’t committed enough.”
In one session, they learned about mapping tools, using open-source
maps like Google Maps and UMapper to document protest events online
and choose locations for potential demonstrations. Trainees examined their
local streets and plotted good locations for photography. In another exercise,
they closed their eyes and imagined the streets at night, crowded with
protesters, with barricades, noise, gunfire. The sooner they got accustomed
to the chaos of their environment, they were instructed, the faster they
would be on their feet to avoid the police.
Photographers in the group drilled extensively, choosing critical shooting
locations in a mock site and moving between them quickly and safely.
Videographers were made to walk backward on uneven roads with the help
of a “Man #2,” another activist who would be a security lookout and human
tripod when needed. They memorized streets in their respective cities so as
not to get pinned by security forces. They were trained on how to convey
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