Training for a Revolution
The Egyptian April 6 Youth Movement's PR man, Bassem Samir, turned activists into reporters by organizing a trip to the United States for a group of Egyptian activists, where they learned the ins and outs of video journalism. They then went back to Egypt and travelled to major cities secretly teaching more activists these techniques. Samir and his colleagues even trained activists to choose sites for their protests that would make good photo locations. They were also taught how to move their content after it had been shot: Photographers would hand off small memory flash cards at frequent intervals, switch cameras with activists posing as innocent bystanders, and send in camera teams in waves instead of all at once. These training programs led to the abundance of footage from Egypt that we have seen the past few weeks.
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/02/10/egypt_youth_activists_april_6_kefaya_jan25/slideshow.html
"Ana bint"
This video was recorded on 18 January 2011 by Asmaa Mahfouz, the girl who helped start the Egyptian Revolution. She shared it on Facebook, and the video went viral. It was so powerful and so popular that it drove Egyptians by the thousands to Cairo's Liberation Square. Below, a transcript of the English translation of her video message:Four Egyptians have set themselves on fire to protest humiliation, hunger, poverty, and degradation they had to live with for thirty years. Four Egyptians have set themselves on fire, thinking maybe we can have a revolution like in Tunisia, maybe we can have freedom, justice, honour, and human dignity.Today, one of these four died, and I saw people commenting and saying, "May God forgive him, he committed a sin and killed himself for nothing." People! Have some shame!I posted that I, a girl, am going down to [Cairo's] Tahrir Square, and I will stand alone, and I will hold up a banner; perhaps people will show some honour.I even wrote my phone number, so maybe people would come down with me. No one came except three guys! Three guys, and three armoured vehicles of riot police! And tens of hired thugs and officers came to terrorise us.They shoved us roughly away from the people, but as soon as we were alone with them, they started to talk to us. They said, "Enough, these guys who burned themselves were psychopaths!"Of course, in all state media, whoever dies in protest is a psychopath. If they were psychopaths, why did they burn themselves outside the Parliament building? I am making this video to give you one simple messsage:We want to go down to Tahrir Square on January 25th.If we still have honour and want to live in dignity on this land, we have to go down there on January 25th. We will go and demand our rights, our fundamental human rights. I will not even talk about any political rights. We just want our human rights and nothing else.This entire government is corrupt: a corrupt president and a corrupt security force. These self-immolators were not afraid of death, but were afraid of security forces!Can you imagine that? Are you also like that? Are you going to kill yourself too? Or are you completely clueless?I am going down on January 25th, and from now until then, I am going to distribute fliers in the street every day. I will not set myself on fire. If the security forces want to set me on fire, let them come and do it!If you think yourself a man, come with me on January 25th.Whoever says women should not go to protests because they will get beaten, let him have some honour and manhood and come with me on January 25th. Whoever says it is not worth it because there will be only a handful of people, I want to tell him that you are the reason behind this.And you are a traitor, just like the president or any cop who beats us in the streets. Your presence with us will make a difference, a big difference!Talk to your neighbours, your colleagues, friends and family, and tell them to come.They do not have to come to Tahrir Square, just go down anywhere and say it: that we are free human beings. Sitting at home and just following us on news or Facebook leads to our humiliation. It leads to my own humiliation.If you have honour and dignity as a man, come down and protect me and other girls in the protest. If you stay at home, then you deserve all that is being done to you, and you will be guilty before your nation and your people.You will be responsible for what happens to us on the street while you sit at home. Go down to the street, send text messages, post it on the internet, make people aware.You know your own social circle, your building, your family, your friends -- tell them to come with us.Bring five people, or ten people; if each of us manages to bring five or ten to Tahrir Square. And talk to people and tell them, this is enough!Instead of setting ourselves on fire, let us do something positive. It will make a difference, a big difference.Never say there is no hope! Hope disappears only when you say there is no hope. So long as you come down with us, there will be hope. Do not be afraid of the government, fear none but God!God says that He "will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves" (Qur'an 13:11).Do not think you can be safe anymore! None of us are! Come down with us, and demand your rights, my rights, your family's rights.I am going down on January 25th, and I will say "No" to corruption, "No" to this regime!
