Factory workers protested conditions in Mahalla, Egypt in the spring of 2008, a precursor to the Arab Spring uprising that brought down President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Associated Press photo.

By Erin Banco

Erin Banco is a freelance journalist based in New York and a candidate for a master's degree in public administration at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. Follow her on Twitter @ErinBanco.

Kareem El-Beheiry, 27, was one of the many people arrested, detained, and tortured in the Mahalla uprising on April 6, 2008. Released 50 days later, he emerged as one of the leading voices promoting labor rights in Egypt.

Today, El-Beheiry works to raise awareness about pervasive torture in the country’s prisons, especially in poorer towns like Mahalla, and encourages youth to participate in political demonstrations.

The uprising in Mahalla not only shaped El-Beheiry's future as a labor leader, it also inspired opposition to then-President Hosni Mubarak. The Mahalla strike was the biggest protest Egypt had seen since the 1970s, when workers rallied for higher wages.

Three years after the Mahalla protests, an 18-day uprising in Cairo led to the downfall of Mubarak.

El-Beheiry, his teeth yellow, crooked, with gaps, flashes a grin and calls out to me from across the street: “Yalla, Erin!”

He recalls the Mahalla uprising as we chat at an outdoor cafe.

Police officers with plastic shields and black batons lined the dirt road where he stood. Young men from the textile factory pushed past him and ran to confront the police. Then, the security forces fired rubber bullets. Tear gas canisters flew through the air and fell at his feet.

The protest started after Egyptian workers planned a nationwide strike because of low wages and increasing food prices. The most violent clashes took place in Mahalla, two hours north of Cairo. Chaos ensued for two days as police and men from the factory battled in the streets.

Protesters smashed storefronts and looted businesses. Security forces responded with violence, further inciting the protesters. The result: 2 dead, 100 wounded, and 194 arrested, according to the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram.

El-Beheiry is tall and lanky, his knees barely fitting under the white plastic table in front of Café Hurreya. He is jittery—his right leg bouncing up and down, often knocking the top of the table and spilling his tea.

He speaks in broken English, occasionally slipping into Arabic while describing his imprisonment. The little English he knows he learned on the streets of Cairo working with activists and speaking with western media outlets.

He said that prior to 2008 he was no protester. He went to school, cleaned the house, and did as his mother told him. He thought he would spend the rest of his life in Mahalla working at the very factory he protested against.

He comes from a family that has worked in the textile industry for decades. And no one had ever complained. They went to work, worked the assembly line, and then went home to their families.

Growing up under the dictatorship of Mubarak prevented him from understanding the concept of individual rights, he said. But the Mahalla uprising changed his life.

“The government was systematically making people uneducated,” he said, puffing on a cigarette. “You can see this in the media, especially in the state media which the government controls. People are becoming absent minded because of it.”

El-Beheiry was 23 when the clashes broke out in Mahalla. He had just begun working at the textile factory and did not enjoy the job. It did not pay well and he was required to work long hours. But all of his friends worked there. He said it was the only legitimate way to make a living in his hometown. While he could afford bread and eggs for his family, many of his coworkers could not.That, he said, is why he joined the protest.

El-Beheiry became the face of Mahalla’s story after the Los Angeles Times featured him in a story. He became a quasi-spokesperson for the strike and testified openly about police abuses in prisons. Egyptians started to pay attention to what he had to say about government suppression after he launched what many consider to be one of the most popular activist blogs in the country.

While El-Beheiry still fights for labor rights, today he focuses more on exposing corruption in Egypt’s government, especially among security forces.

On Friday, Egypt's Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, stood beside the country's top general and warned against "slander" after a report was leaked implicating troops in the killing of protesters.

The officers who run the country’s police stations have been operating with almost total impunity for decades. Previous demands for reform from human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have gone unheeded.

In Egypt, anyone arrested expects to be beaten by the officers overseeing them, and, all too often, prisoners are subjected to much harsher forms of brutality, including electrocution, sexual harassment, even starvation, he said.

“Torture has become the norm in Egypt,” he said. “And no one cares anymore. Hitting has become normal, people don’t think of it as torture. They will torture a man every day to scare him and to get information from him because people are scared of retribution.”

We traveled to Mahalla after drinking our tea. He had not traveled to his home in over a year. His mother had never met his son--her only grandson. He rarely gets the chance to visit her, he told me, because the police have him under constant surveillance when he is in town. They have consistently threatened his family, demanding he stop publicly protesting against the security forces.

We visited his family’s apartment where his mother, sisters, and cousins all sleep in two bedrooms. As we walked into the apartment, his youngest nephew crawled to the doorway to great us. El-Beheiry scooped the baby up in his arms and went to his mother and sisters, embracing them all at once. His father died when he was younger, so he has had to provide for his family.

Tareq Hafez, one of El-Beheiry’s cellmates, lives down the street. Hafez and his brother were also arrested in 2008. They served a 3-year sentence in several Egyptian prisons, and faced brutal torture, especially in Alexandria.

“They took me into a ceramic room with air conditioning and steel doors. They used to make me jump on my knees. Then, with a huge stick, they would hit me on my back,” Hafez said. “After a while of being beaten they untied me and left me on the floor.”

El-Beheiry grew visibly anxious as Hafez recalled the brutal torture he endured, throwing his hands by his sides and shaking his head. The memories of his time in prison still upset him, he told me on our way back to Cairo.

El-Beheiry slowly sucked on his last cigarette of the day, blowing the smoke out of the microbus window. It was just past midnight as we pulled into Tahrir Square.

He tries to take the weekends off from work but this particular one he planned to host a baby shower for his son. Jumping off the moving bus, he threw me a plastic box. It was an invitation to the baby shower.

Inside were small chocolate candies inscribed with his son’s name. I looked down at the ribbon that wrapped the box. It read: “yaskut, yaskut, hukm askar" -- Down, down, military rule.

To learn how to contribute to Passport, email Patricia Nealon at pnealon@globe.com

Protests broke out in Tunisia last week in response to a film depicting the Prophet Muhammad in a derogatory manner. AP photo by Hassene Dridi.

By Sarah L. Forman

Sarah L. Forman is a senior at Brown University studying religious minorities and the democratization process in Tunisia

SIDI BOU SAID, Tunisia -- In many ways, young people were the backbone of the revolution in Tunisia last year. They took to the streets in massive numbers, ousting long-time dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and sparking an Arab Spring that eventually swept across North Africa and the Middle East.

I’ve spent several weeks here in Tunis working with Tunisian college students and doing research on religious minorities, and I’ve had the chance to meet dozens of young people — most no older than myself — who put themselves at risk to bring a new order to Tunisia.

Though many of these young revolutionaries later voted to bring an Islamist government to Tunisia — and some even consider themselves conservative Salafists — all of the students I’ve met have rebuked last week’s violent response to the inflammatory anti-Islamic film that has led to demonstrations across the Muslim world. On Friday, Salafist demonstrators breached the American embassy compound and attacked an affiliated school, leading to four deaths and massive property damage.

“All the people around me, they say they condemn this act,” said 25-year-old Lamjed, a student at the Airline Flight Academy. Indeed, he believes that foreign influences were behind the attack, and finds it hard to believe that the Tunisians he knows could have attacked the U.S. in this way.

“We are the first Muslim country to abolish the slaves, create constitutions, abolish polygamy,” he said. “For the majority of Tunisians [this response] is not our culture, not our traditions.”

Lamjed’s reaction seems to be the norm among his peers. In the days following the attack, I was amazed by how many strangers spontaneously apologized to me upon finding out that I was American, telling me that they could not believe that such aggression would come out of their country.

Amine, a 21-year-old business student, said he not only denounces the violence, but also thinks it was a less effective strategy than peaceful demonstrations might have been.

“This kind of reaction hurts Muslims all over the world,” Amine said, explaining that he was deeply offended by the film, but wishes people had responded by making other movies showcasing the peaceful, beneficent qualities of Islam or sharing information on Facebook,. By acting violently and impulsively, the protesters “hurt our Prophet in the same way the maker of the film did.”

Amine received an invitation to join the demonstration at the embassy, but he said he chose not to go because he worried it would devolve into violence. He was proud to walk through tear gas and join the protests against Ben Ali last January, but this felt different. Indeed, in many ways Amine has lost faith in much of the political and government systems here; he is not even sure if he will vote in the next elections. Last year he supported the victorious Islamist party, Ennahda, but so far he has not been impressed with the direction the country is moving.

Yassine Jridi, also 21, agrees that Tunisia has lost its way.

The self-proclaimed Salafist says that after the actions of some extremists, he feels like he has lost the ability to speak and share his ideas — the rights young people like him fought to attain last year.

“Being a Salafist is not being a terrorist,” he said, explaining that he uses the term to explain his commitment to respect his religious obligations, not to suggest that he wants to impose his religious beliefs on others. He feels he is unable to share his comparatively moderate ideas because some extremists have made Salafism seem so frightening and aggressive.

Jridi and Amine were quick to point out that though they reject the violent outcome of Friday’s demonstration, they think people were right to protest the film at the embassy at some level.

“It is unacceptable to insult the Prophet in this way,” Amine said. So long as people stay peaceful, “we have the right to be angry."

To learn how to contribute to Passport, email Patricia Nealon at pnealon@globe.com

Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus is celebrated in a mural in his native Bangladesh. Photo by Akshan de Alwis.

By Akshan de Alwis

Akshan de Alwis is a junior at Noble and Greenough School

August was the holy month of Ramadan, the mornings and evenings resonant with the call to prayer. When the fast is broken, a meal of dates, chickpeas fried in batter, and jelabis -- intertwined tubes of fried rice flour filled with honey -- is shared with families and those in need.

Ramadan brings a fresh focus on those most in need of food and security, the women and children of Bangladesh.

As an intern with the Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association (BNWLA) I helped compile research on violence against women and children -- especially cruel acid attacks -- for a report to be submitted to the United Nations.

Acid attacks are one of the most dehumanizing crimes against women, recently profiled in the Oscar winning documentary Saving Face.

At a crisis center in the Chittagong Hospital, where many victims of acid attacks come to seek medical, psychological, and legal aid, a woman I will refer to as Sama had recently had acid thrown on her face while she slept.

Her nostrils were fused together and half of her face was erased. The BNWLA lawyer who represented her said that Sama could not leave her abusive husband because of her dependency on him. She suffered in silence until he attacked her with acid.

One of the reasons that women here are so deeply vulnerable to violence is their economic disempowerment. Women who have access to resources are less dependent on their husbands and male guardians and are able to leave abusive situations.

One path to independence is micro-credit, the lending of small amounts of money that allows women to start businesses of their own and gain financial freedom from abusers.

Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who founded the first micro credit enterprise in the world, Grameen Bank, has now expanded opportunities by harnessing the power of new technology through Grameen Telecom and Grameen Phone.

His idea is to link rural Bangladeshi villages to the marketplace of ideas and the marketplaces of the world.

In 1983, he founded Grameen Bank in Bangladesh to provide small loans to women who were not considered credit worthy by mainstream banks. Today, 90 percent of the millions of micro-credit borrowers around the world are women who receive money in exchange for promising to educate their daughters and delay their marriages.

Yunus is now promoting the concept of social businesses that value social benefits over profits. He points to a Grameen/Dannon partnership that supplies yogurt at 5 cents a cup to Bangladeshis as a way to address malnutrition.

The distributors are the women who have micro-credit loans from the Grameen Bank; the milk comes from cows owned by women with Grameen loans.

In a social business, according to the Yunus Centre website, investors/owners can gradually recoup the money they invested, but cannot take any dividend beyond that. The main purpose of the investment is to achieve one or more social objectives, such as health care, housing, or financial services for the poor, or nutrition for malnourished children.

Yunus said that the most effective way of fighting poverty is to strengthen the status of women and girls in their families so they can make better decisions about their family’s nutrition, health, and education.

I think of Sama and her inability to protect herself and I want do something to prevent others like Sama from experiencing her fate. I mention Yunus' program in the report that will be delivered to the UN and hope that in some small way it gives voice to women like Sama.

To learn how to contribute to Passport, email Patricia Nealon at pnealon@globe.com.

Young people crammed into the headquarters of the National League for Democracy for a youth group meeting. Photo by Akshan de Alwis.

By Akshan de Alwis

Akshan de Alwis is a junior at Noble and Greenough School

Naypyitaw is a city of contrasts. At its center is the parliament of Myanmar, a shining marble complex surrounded by a river-turned-moat. Behind it is a dreary compound of cramped quarters, home to all members of parliament who are not members of the ruling government party.
Here the roads are not even paved. Still, aides walk around proudly sporting t-shirts with the smiling face of Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy, which sent its first members to parliament earlier this year after decades fighting for democracy in Myanmar.
At a small cafe, I met Su Su Lwin, who heads the women's wing of the NLD, and her husband, a senior aide to Suu Kyi.
Su Su Lwin is the daughter of a former executive committee member of the NLD. Before the 1988 uprising led by students and monks, she taught linguistics at Yangon University. She quit to join the NLD.
Now, she is one of 13 female NLD members of parliament, representing the Thongwa Township in eastern Yangon. In by-elections earlier this year, the NLD won 44 seats.
But since arriving in Naypyitaw, they have been confined to humble quarters hundreds of feet from huge government mansions and office buildings.
Their movements are controlled, making communication with the rest of the country and their fellow members of parliament almost impossible.
There is no land-line telephone or television, and few have cell phones, which are prohibitively expensive. It took two months for the government to permit the NLD to open a headquarters in Naypyitaw.
When parliament meets, there is no set schedule, and members have no idea how long they will be sequestered in their quarters.
As Su Su Lwin begins to describe the ornate chandeliers in parliament, there is a blackout in the compound. She says in a firm voice that she doesn’t want to complain about the living conditions; as long as she can represent the Burmese people she is happy.
It’s a chance for change that her party wants to seize. Until January, most of the old party leaders were locked up.
The leaders of the 88 Generation Group -- the founding fathers and mothers of democracy in the country -- were released from prison. Among them was Ko Ko Gyi, the iconic leader of the revolution who led the student uprising and was jailed for most of his life.
I met with him and the charismatic Min Ko Naing, who lost his eyesight during his time in prison. Ko Ko Gyi said he was first released in 2005 then rearrested two year later and sent back to serve a 65-year sentence for sending e-mails under the Electronic Transactions Act.
The 88 Generation Group led by Ko Ko Gyi and Min Ko Naing now devotes itself to travelling around the country to build an open society in Myanmar.The group is careful not to describe itself as a political party, but a movement of the founding members of democracy.
Two days before we met, Ko Ko Gyi had been appointed by the government to a commission investigating the sectarian violence in June between Rakhine Buddhists and Muslim Rohingyas in which at least 83 people were killed.
The commission's report is due Sept. 17.
He produces the letter of appointment signed by President Thein Sein. Given the genesis and history of the movement, it is remarkable that Ko Ko Gyi has been named to the commission as a representative of the 88 Generation Group.
The press now is allowed to cover some of Ko Ko Gyi’s activities and the government recently lifted the censorship of the media overall.
That day, newspaper stands were covered with NLD newspapers with front-page pictures of Suu Kyi.
Still, Ko Ko Gyi warns against accepting the exaggerated claims by the government that a homegrown version of the Arab Spring has taken root here.
“The rule of law can only flourish in an open society. For that we have to work on education and awareness-raising among our people," he said.
I attended a NLD youth meeting where we discussed different models of democracy. I asked some of the older youth if they were excited about the recent lifting of media censorship. One responded that that she was prevented from attending computer classes conducted by the NLD.
"We are grateful much is changing,'' said another, "but freedom is what we deserve. We will be happy only when we have freedom and nothing less."
To learn how to contribute to Passport, email Patricia Nealon at pnealon@globe.com.

An Egyptian protester writes on the street using sand, which reads in Arabic: "the revolution continues" in Cairo's landmark Tahrir Square on June 7. AFP PHOTO / MOHAMMED ABEDMOHAMMED ABED/AFP/GettyImages.

By Erin Banco

Erin Banco is a freelance journalist based in Cairo. Follow her on Twitter @ErinBanco.

CAIRO -- Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi swore in new members of his cabinet Thursday, appointing the former leader of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, as the next Minister of Defense. The move only adds to the fear of a prolonged military role in the government -- a situation that thousands of Egyptians had fought to stave off during the 2011 revolution.

The Revolution Youth Union, one of several youth groups formed after the revolution, condemned the president and Prime Minister Hisham Qandil Friday for their cabinet appointees, claiming that the decisions were based not on merit, but on favoritism.

It has been 18 months since Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, and by many people’s standards the Egyptian revolution has ended. Mubarak has been sentenced to life in prison and the country has taken the initial steps to forming a new government.

But the new government does not resemble what the revolutionaries had envisioned. Not only did Morsi choose to keep Tantawi in power, but he also appointed several other cabinet members who served under Mubarak, including two women. One of them, Nadia Zakhary, is the minister of scientific research and the only Christian in the cabinet.

Looking back on the past year, some would argue that the revolution failed. The military still holds a majority of the power and the liberals did not succeed in getting their candidate elected. Media outlets from across the world have been quick to point to the end of the revolution, or its failure.

But the youth who began the Egyptian revolution, who saw their friends die at its birth, and who saw a modern Pharaoh fall at its apex, all have one message: the revolution is not over.

Tarek El-Khouly is a member of the April 6th youth movement. He joined the group in 2010 after graduating from university. He rose quickly in the group and took the lead in coordinating what became the Revolution Youth Coalition -- the group responsible for leading the protests on July 25. El-Khouly is still actively involved in carrying out the revolutionary mission.

“The road is paved and there is still hope but people don’t understand, and a lot of revolutionaries who enjoy a great deal of revolutionary purity don’t understand that the revolution can last for 10 years. Not 10 to 15 years in the square, but back and forth discussions till we reach a democratic society,” he says. “The pressure on the street level can still influence events, when people come together, but the movement of protesting as the only form of revolution does not affect people that much anymore.”

The tear gas and fighting during the revolution is long gone. The streets are quiet. No one would know that 18 months ago Tahrir Square had transformed itself from a frequent place of political protest to one of the most historic landmarks in the world. But slashed across the walls encircling the square is the revolutionary war cry: al-thowra mustamira. “The revolution continues.”

It does, but in fragments.

After interviewing revolutionaries from different political factions, it became clear that it wasn’t that the revolution had ended, but that cooperation had disappeared. All the revolutionaries remember the extraordinary amount of compassion and solidarity that existed in the square during the first days of the revolution.

Everyone was helping everyone else. People were passing out food and water and offering medical services to those who needed it. Somehow, that solidarity has been lost in an increasing politicized atmosphere. And most of the revolutionaries know it. They know what they did wrong, and what they need to do to fix things. They are their own worst enemies.

“We have made mistakes as youth who belong to the revolution. These mistakes have to do with unity and even on a political level, in regards to offering an alternative during the parliamentary elections and in the presidential elections,” El-Khouly says. “We need to serve our revolution using political measures and political work because at the end that is the real gain for the revolution.”

While mistakes were also made by several different political parties, including the military council and the Muslim Brotherhood, many Egyptians who did not have an active role in the revolution last year seem quick to blame young people. They think the youth of the revolution focused too much on their battle and less on ridding the state of the old regime.

Still, many revolutionaries still fervently believe there has been change. Neda Hafez, who was in the square for the 18-day uprising, said the fear of speaking out against the military, against the government, is gone. The government now fears the consequences of continuing political protest throughout the country.

Revolutionaries are still fighting against military power, and for real democracy. They may have left the streets, but they are still committed to their cause.

“The military has brainwashed people into thinking the revolution is over,” Hafez says. “We are the only ones that should have the last word in saying whether the revolution is over or not.”

It is a possibile that by the next election the military council and the Muslim Brotherhood will have broken each other down, and a third option will arise, one that brings a truly revolutionary voice and spirit forward. But that would require effective communication and cooperation among often-splintered revolutionaries.

“It's time for them to take a step back and wake the hell up,” said Ramy Yaccoub, chief of staff of the Free Egyptians Party, a liberal party founded following the 2011 revolution. “You don’t understand how much bickering goes on with them. It’s the ‘holier than thou’ syndrome that is a disease that has infected these people and they can’t get over it. Everyone thinks that they are 100 percent right all the time. And they have already lost a lot of clout.”

To learn how to contribute to Passport, email Patricia Nealon at pnealon@globe.com

Deminers gathered and marked off these weapons found at the Zintan ammunition storage area. Deminers across the country said they often could not destroy the munitions they collected due to a lack of explosives. Photo by Nicolette Boehland.

By Nicolette Boehland

Nicolette Boehland, currently a fellow with CIVIC, the Campaign for Innnocent Victims in Conflict, in Libya, previously researched the use of weapons in Libya with Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic.

TRIPOLI, Libya -- In Tripoli, the mornings during the month of Ramadan are eerily, almost post-apocalyptically calm. Determined to take advantage of this uncharacteristic peace and quiet, a friend and I set off one morning for a walk by the sea. I took in the scene—the huge ships in the Tripoli harbor, a broad, well-made highway running parallel to the water, lamps and flowers along the sidewalk’s edge, a small park with a merry-go-round and trampolines that would soon be overrun with children—and I thought to myself how far Libya has come.

In less than a year since the end of the armed conflict was officially announced, the country is making huge progress toward stability and peace. Since I arrived here three weeks ago to work with the advocacy organization CIVIC on issues related to civilian protection, I’ve been lucky enough to witness signs of this progress first-hand. Some of these signs have been widely recognized and celebrated, such as the country’s successful elections on July 7. Other signs are more subtle, gleaned from conversations with Libyans who were at great risk just a year ago and now tell me, alhumdullillah (thanks be to God), they have nothing to fear.

Still, as a human rights researcher, my confidence in Libya’s prospects for stability in the future is marred by a particularly visible threat: the abandoned weapons that still remain here. Most post-conflict countries face challenges with explosive remnants of war, but the sheer scale of unused weapons left over after Libya’s 2011 armed conflict is almost unprecedented.

Over the course of more than four decades, Khadafy's regime acquired a massive stockpile of weapons, worth billions of US dollars and contained in hundreds of storage facilities spread across Libya. Due to the chaos and fighting of the 2011 armed conflict in Libya, some weapons were moved out of the country. However vast quantities remained within Libya. Today, the country is awash in weapons, ranging from bullets and mortars to torpedoes and surface-to-air missiles.

The urgency of the situation first struck me back in March, when I visited Libya as part of a four-person team from the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School. On that mission, we documented a massive amount of abandoned ordnance and conducted interviews in Dafniya, Misrata, Sirte, Tripoli, and Zintan.

Through these interviews, we identified the major risks that abandoned weapons pose for civilians in Libya, including the storage of stockpiles in populated areas, the harvesting of materials from abandoned weapons for sale or personal use, the display of weapons as mementos of war, and curiosity among the population about contaminated sites and munitions—all of which can easily lead to death or injury. Clearance of munitions by untrained civilians is also a danger.

During my time in Libya, I’ve gathered anecdotes and stories about the impact of abandoned weapons on civilians. Some of the stories are disturbing: one local risk educator, Abdul Hammed El-Ahjoby, told me that “kids here will correct you if you call a weapon by the wrong name.”

Other stories are tragic. Abduladim Amar, a local man from Mizda, Libya, described to my colleague at Human Rights Watch an explosion that killed 22-year-old Mustafa Abdulrahim Muhammad. “The guys were collecting metal,” Amar explained. “Mustafa was with his brother, and he was hitting a Grad rocket to disassemble it to get valuable parts out. By mistake he hit the warhead of one of the Grads and it went off. His body was in pieces.”

In a report just released based on our investigations, we detail the risks abandoned weapons pose to civilians in Libya and find them severe. However, these risks can be significantly mitigated with proper stockpile management, clearance of munitions, risk education and victim assistance programs, and international support to supplement national efforts.

The report, released by the International Human Rights Clinic in partnership with CIVIC and the Sustainable Security and Peacebuilding Initiative at the Center for American Progress (CAP), offers an in-depth look at the progress and challenges involved in dealing with abandoned weapons. Its main finding is that the problem of abandoned weapons in Libya requires immediate action from the Libyan government, with support from the international community.

Certainly, Libya has come a long way since the end of the conflict here, but for the country to continue on its natural path toward peace and stability, the threat of abandoned weapons must be addressed, and soon.

To read the full report on abandoned weapons in Libya: http://civicworldwide.org/component/content/article/620

To learn how to contribute to Passport, email Patricia Nealon at pnealon@globe.com.

Protesters gather in Cairo to protest their choices in the presidential runoff election. Photo by Erin Banco

By Erin Banco

Erin Banco is a freelance reporter based in Cairo. Follower her on Twitter @ErinBanco.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered Friday in front of Mostafa Mahmoud mosque, the birthplace of some of the most infamous revolutionary marches, just one day before the scheduled Egyptian runoff election for president

The scene was all too familiar. “Yasqt, yasqt hukm askr.” Down, down with military rule, the protestors chanted. It has been 16 months since the ousting of former President Hosni Mubarak, but the cheers and the demands remain the same.

“This is the only thing we have left at this point, to take to the streets again,” one woman protester said before joining in the cheers. Many of the revolutionaries and liberals who participated in the march from Doqqi to Tahrir Square, tired and frustrated, said they felt trapped.

They don’t support either candidate.

Electing Ahmed Shafiq, who served as prime minister under Mubarak, would be supporting a person who represented everything they had fought against in the revolution. But electing Mohamed Mursi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, would usher in an Islamic country, isolating minorities.

The transition of power in Egypt took a monumental turn Thursday when a set of judges from Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court ruled that one third of the Islamist-dominated parliament was elected illegally, effectively dissolving the legislative body.

The court ruled that the law governing parliamentary elections was unconstitutional because it allowed party members to contest the one-third of parliamentary seats that had been reserved for independents. As a result, the entire chamber was considered to be null and void, giving legislative power to the Supreme Council on Armed Forces (SCAF). SCAF disbanded the parliament formally Friday night.

The court also ruled Thursday against a law passed last month that would have barred Shafiq from running in this weekend’s presidential runoff. Under the law, senior officials from Mubarak's regime were banned from running for office.

“I had hoped that the elections would have more transparency and that the judicial system would be more pure in its decisions,” Khaled Mohamed Hassen said of Thursday’s verdict as he observed the protest Friday in Tahrir Square. “I thought the military would be more thoughtful in the needs of the people.”

But Ramy Yaccoub, chief of staff of the Free Egyptians Party, the liberal party founded following the 2011 revolution, said he was not surprised by Thursday’s verdict. “The majority of Egyptians are happy,” he said. “There was no shock here. This was expected. That’s what people need to realize.”

Tahrir Square was eerily quiet Friday. Cars passed through with ease. There were only a few dozen people who congregated, protesting Shafiq by chanting together and holding signs.

Many of those participating said they objected to Shafiq's involvement in the Battle of the Camel, which took place at the height of the revolution on February 2, 2011. The skirmish left several dead and hundreds injured. Shafiq was prime minister at the time. Earlier this month, his name was added to a list of primary suspects in a civil lawsuit.

Fatimah Ziyad said she was in Tahrir Friday to honor the memory of her grandson, who was killed in the battle. She said she blames Shafiq for his death.

“I am here to explain the difference between Shafiq and anyone else,” she said. “He used the bodies of the martyrs like my grandson to climb up the revolution ladder. How can he become the next president? It burns my heart.”

Sayed Ahmed has protested in Tahrir every Friday since the Battle of the Camel. His best friend was killed when he took a bullet to the neck. He voted for Khaled Ali in the first round, but he is boycotting the vote this weekend. “If Shafiq comes it is exactly like Hosni again,” he said.

Although the majority of Egyptians protesting in the square Friday were against Shafiq, most say they think he will end up winning. Kirolos Nagy, a revolutionary and a Copt, said he voted for Shafiq in the first round and will vote for him again this weekend.

“I saw a presidential candidate who said what I was saying. He is the only one who talked about the Nubians, about the Bedouins, and about all the minorities,” Nagy said. “He is the best choice. So I will vote for Shafiq.”

Egyptians will head to the polls Saturday morning to choose their next president. Despite the elections moving forward, several revolutionary Egyptians said they think the transfer of power to the president will be delayed because the country does not have a parliament or a constitution, which will be written in the coming weeks.

“I don’t think the constitution will look too bad under SCAF leadership. I wish the civil and the Islamic community would have gotten together. It basically fell apart,” Yaccoub said. “So now SCAF is probably going to write a decent constitution that is going to seem relatively secular that includes guidelines for all Egyptians. The application is going to be the problem.”

As Yaccoub noted, the majority of power will remain in the hands of SCAF. A law passed this week allows the military to assume responsibilities normally left to police. Yaccoub said various reports surfaced Thursday and Friday of joint military checkpoints searching and seizing vehicles randomly.

“It is all just flexing muscle,” he said. “This is the situation that we are going to be in now. To hell with the president. This is what really matters in the next few weeks.”

To learn how to contribute to Passport, email Patricia Nealon at pnealon@globe.com

Supporters of the National League for Democracy rally in advance of Sunday's by-election. Reuters photo by Damir Sagolij

By Akshan de Alwis

Akshan de Alwis is a sophomore at the Noble and Greenough School

I visited Myanmar in March, during a time of historic change: the runup to a by-election that features Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Price winner released from 20 years of house arrest 18 months ago.
The National League for Democracy (NLD), the party she leads, are competing for 48 of 664 seats in parliament in Sunday's election.
On March 13, Suu Kyi addressed a transfixed nation in her first televised broadcast since she was arrested. For many, this was the first time they had heard her speak.
I met with several enthusiastic democracy activists -- who still refer to Myanmar by its former name, Burma -- who rejoiced that their beloved “national hero” called for the military members of parliament to step down. Currently, 25 percent of the seats in parliament are reserved for the military.
Ms. Soe and Ms. Pyae Phyo are excited about Suu Kyi's argument that such a parliament, consisting of unelected representatives, is not a democracy.
They are cautiously optimistic about Suu Kyi’s call for strengthening the twin pillars of democracy: increased rule of law, and an independent judiciary.
The military has ruled for decades, despite the fact that the National League of Democracy (NLD) had won 82 percent of the vote in the 1990 election.
Two years earlier, the country had been consumed by protests calling for the end of military rule under Ne Win.
Capitulating to the calls for free elections, countrywide polling was held in 1990.
Leading up to the election, Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest, charged with threatening national security.
The military ignored the NLD's landslide victory and student leaders of the 1988 rebellion were either forced into exile, spending the next few decades in India or Thailand, tortured, or imprisoned.
Ms. Shwe recounted that in a recent meeting with the president and the leader of parliament, Suu Kyi was told that if she were to be elected to parliament, she would have to remain in Naypyidaw, the parliamentary complex, when parliament is in session. Dr. Nyo Nyo Thin, an opposition member of parliament, said she would like Suu Kyi to have the freedom to reach out to the people, rather than being sequestered.
Myanmar is slowly inching toward democracy. Those I spoke to predicted that Suu Kyi will easily win in the Kawhmu district and if the election is free and fair, the NLD will win in a landslide.
But a young banker-turned-activist said she feared that "ghost votes" might mar the election.
Ms. Soe, an advocate for nation building, is hopeful that the ruling junta will allow Suu Kyi her rightful place in parliament denied to her for over two decades. But many fear that she will not have the power to pass legislation necessary to move the country toward real democratic change.
While the government's decision to allow a small by-election hints to the international community that the junta is ready for change, Ms. Soe warned, "Things have changed from the outside but remain the same from the inside.”
Under the guise of change and development, she said that people are being forcibly evicted from their land. She said that government officials are appropriating land from private citizens at a fraction of its value and selling it at inflated prices to developers.
Ms. Soe introduced me to Daw Dr. May Win Myint, who is a central executive committee member of the NLD party. Win, along with Suu Kyi, are the only two women on the committee. She heads the women’s wing of the NLD.
A medical doctor who was part of the 1988 insurrection, she was rearrested in 1997 for trying to meet with Suu Kyi. She had her hands broken and was imprisoned for more than 11 years.
She said that despite concerns about the legitimacy of recent reforms, the NLD must be a forceful presence in parliament.
She said that the NLD’s vision is founded on three pillars: national reconciliation, justice for all, and a referendum to amend the constitution.
“This is an urgent call to reform a constitution that reserves 25 percent of the seats in the parliament for the military,'' she said.
Despite years of imprisonment that saw some of her comrades die in jail, Win, like her friend and leader, Suu Kyi, remains inspired by the promise of democracy and is determined to transform her beloved country.
Ms. Soe, whom I now call Ma (or big sister), has invited me to return to meet with Myanmar's youth groups, long isolated from young people around the world.
A former banker with Citibank in Singapore, she returned to Myanmar, eager to be part of this first wave of civic engagement.
At Citibank she worked in a culture where "the bank never sleeps," chuckling that she brings that same perspective to her work here. “Surely," she said, pointing to the small sofa in her office where she snatches two hours of sleep a night, "I cannot sleep while Burma struggles to awake."
To learn how to contribute to Passport, email Patricia Nealon at pnealon@globe.com

The Little Museum of Dublin is designed to acquaint Dubliners with their history. Photo by Briana Palma.

By Briana Palma

Briana Palma is a freelance writer and editor living in Dublin.

It’s a Sunday afternoon at The Little Museum of Dublin and a tour of the homey, two-room space has just ended. The guide, a college-aged woman, has stepped aside to allow the handful of visitors to take a closer look at the artifacts but lingers in the doorway in case any questions arise. The people move toward the walls to examine the historic posters, photographs, and advertisements on display, while one man approaches the woman.

“Now, are you certain John Lennon ate at the Russell Hotel?” he asks in a friendly tone, pointing to a 1950s menu from the posh establishment. “Because I think it closed down before the Beatles were famous.”

The museum’s development director, James Harold, steps in to confirm the facts and soon the inquisitive man is sharing memories of John F. Kennedy’s 1963 visit to Ireland’s capital, breathing life into the two black-and-white photographs that depict the event.

The Little Museum of Dublin, which opened on October 21, was established to provoke moments just like this, to foster exchanges and discussions around its collection of 20th-century artifacts.

“We’re trying to create a bigger sense of community,” Harold explained. “With the economy we’re all a bit down, so it’s something to bring people together.”

Anyone can tour the collection, but at its core, The Little Museum is for Dubliners by Dubliners. The institution aims to boost civic pride in a country where the tone of the news seems overwhelmingly negative as it continually focuses on austerity measures and budget cuts.

In the museum’s first month, 95 percent of its visitors were locals, according to Harold. Outside, a sandwich board with the tagline, “The story of you,” entices them to step into the Georgian townhouse, while inside they can discover a collection of artifacts primarily donated or loaned by their fellow citizens.

The Little Museum is part of a dual, not-for-profit project supported by the Irish government. It operates alongside and serves as the base for City of a Thousand Welcomes, a greeting service that leverages Ireland’s famous hospitality and arranges meetings between first-time visitors and Dubliners. While the initiative benefits tourists by giving them an authentic and friendly experience, its founder, Trevor White, conceived the project as a way to infuse locals with pride and engage them with their city.

When the call went out for volunteers in March, White and General Manager Simon O’Connor found themselves inundated with responses. They expected about 1,000 applications, but to date they have received more than 2,500, which have yielded 400 active ambassadors rather than the 100 they had hoped for, according to O’Connor.

The enthusiasm for White and O’Connor’s project manifested itself again in April, when the duo began to spread the word about the need for objects to build the museum’s collection. More than 450 pieces flooded in as residents felt compelled to contribute to the new institution dedicated to their city.

“I would think around Ireland particularly, everybody’s attic has something in it,” said David Casserly, who loaned a lemonade bottle from 1918. “If The National Museum of Ireland asked people to start donating artifacts they’d be overrun with them.”

After learning about The Little Museum, Casserly thought his old-school bottle would suit it perfectly, as the pop culture item carries with it some significant local history. Casserly found the object about 20 years ago while diving upon the wreckage of the RMS Leinster, a mail steamer from Dublin that was sunk by a German submarine in the final weeks of WWI. Five hundred people died and the event played a major role in delaying the armistice by a few weeks, but, according to Casserly, it never got its proper place in the history books because just three months later, Ireland found itself in the midst of a new war, this time fighting for its freedom from Britain.

Despite its significance, the lemonade bottle sits humbly in the museum with no plaque to tell its story. Still, none of the objects are highlighted with text or explained on an audio track, because the experience is meant to breed human interaction and conversation.

“That is what it’s all about,” said Harold. “We promote the idea of oral history and people adding in what they know, and even what they think they know.”

Though The Little Museum presents history, that history is not carved in stone. Rather, it is like a mound of clay, slowing taking shape as more and more Dubliners stop in and share their personal tales, leaving fingerprints on the collective story of their city in the 20th century.

To learn how to contribute to Passport, email Patricia Nealon at pnealon@globe.com

FARC-EP, one of the oldest revolutionary movements in the world, continues as a force in Colombia. Photo by Steven Lydon

By Steven Lydon

Steven Lydon is a PhD candidate in German philosophy at Harvard University

On Sunday, Colombia will choose governors, mayors, and city councillors across the country in elections already marred by violence. Last Friday, 10 soldiers were killed in an ambush near the Ecuadoran border in what the army said was the deadliest attack this year. It was attributed it to the FARC-EP, one of the oldest and most dangerous insurgent forces in the world.

FARC-EP is a leftist revolutionary organization that purports to represent the rural poor in a struggle against Colombia's wealthier classes. It was established as a military wing of the Colombian Communist Party in the aftermath of La Violencia in 1964. They oppose United States influence in Colombia and the monopolization of natural resources by multinational corporations.

From 1999 to 2008, the group was estimated to control up to 40% of the territory in Colombia, with the largest concentrations of guerrillas in the southeast. There are different estimates for the organization's membership. From about 18,000 in 2007, President Juan Manuel Santos claimed the number had diminished to 8,000 in 2011. Other sources report up to 11,200 members.

In 2008 the Colombian military killed Raúl Reyes, FARC-EP's second-in-command. This was soon followed by the killing of Ivan Rios, another member of FARC-EP's seven-man Secretariat, by his own bodyguard. More recently, Colombian authorities announced the death of Mono Jojoy on September 23, 2010. These deaths were considered the biggest blow against the group in its four decades of existence.

Yet attacks against security forces have increased every year since 2005: in the first 6 months of 2011 an estimated 1,115 attacks were launched against the army and police. In 2010, 460 soldiers were killed.

FARC-EP is described as a terrorist organization by the Colombian, US, and EU governments. It receives most of its funding from the illegal drug trade, ransom kidnappings, bank robberies, and extortion of large landholders, multinational corporations, and agribusiness. Its total revenue has been estimated to average $300 million per year.

Such methods have alienated those who might support its ideals. Jason Suarez, a Bogotán resident, said, "The FARC-EP's initial idea of equality is lost and gone. Now it's just about raw economic profit for these people, though they still try to present themselves to the public as being about revolution and social equality."

The group has employed improvised mortars made from gas canisters, and according to the ICBL Landmine and Cluster Munitions Monitor, they are "the most prolific current user of antipersonnel mines among rebel groups anywhere in the world." Human Rights Watch says this displays the "group's flagrant disregard for lives of civilians."

FARC-EP is responsible for most of the ransom kidnappings in Colombia. According to the Fundación País Libre, an estimated 6,778 people were kidnapped by FARC-EP between 1997 and 2007. In 2009, Fondelibertad reviewed 3,307 officially unsettled cases.

Initially targeting the families of drug traffickers, the wealthy upper class, and foreigners, the group later expanded its kidnapping and extortion operations to include the middle class.

During the 1984 peace negotiations, FARC-EP pledged to stop kidnapping. However, hostage-taking actually increased in the following years. In 1997, Commander Alfonso Cano argued that some guerrilla units continued to kidnap for "political and economic reasons" in spite of the prohibition issued by the leadership.

Margarita Santiago is a student in Bogotá. In 2000 her father, who owned a small pharmacy, was kidnapped by the FARC-EP. "My opinion of the FARC-EP has changed over the years," she says. "They began with an ideal that many could agree with, namely to fight for the rights of the people. Over the years that ideal has changed. The group became a business subsisting on war, kidnapping, and drug trafficking. My father suffered greatly." He was returned after a week once the family paid a ranson of 500 million Colombian pesos, or about $268,500.

Despite this, the Venezuelan, Brazilian, and Argentinian governments view the FARC-EP as a military rather than a terrorist force. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez stated in January 2008 that these were "real armies" and called for recognition of the guerrillas as a "belligerent force." This would, he argued, oblige them to renounce kidnappings and terror acts.

Chávez strongly stated his disapproval with the FARC-EP strategy of armed struggle and kidnapping. "If I were a guerrilla, I wouldn't have the need to hold a woman, a man who aren't soldiers," he said. "Free the civilians who don't have anything to do with the war."

Fidel Castro publicy demanded the unconditional freeing of "all the hostages and prisoners still under their control," and denounced the practice as "cruel."

According to a 2006 U.S. Department of Justice indictment, the FARC-EP supplies more than 50 percent of the world's cocaine. A 2007 UN World Drug report says the bulk of drug trafficking is controlled by professional drug-smuggling groups, while FARC-EP focuses on the cultivation and processing of coca.

In 2001, the Bush administration expanded Plan Colombia, aimed at curbing drug smuggling, with about $380 million in funding. It is worth remembering that as of 2004, Colombia was the fifteenth largest supplier of oil to the United States and could potentially rise in that ranking if extraction could be conducted in a "more secure environment."

In June 2000, Amnesty International criticized Plan Colombia as "seriously flawed" because of its "drug-focused analysis of the roots of the conflict and the human rights crisis." They claimed it ignored both "the Colombian state's own historical and current responsibility" and the "deep-rooted causes of the conflict and the human rights crisis."

Authors Doug Stokes and Francisco Ramirez Cuellar argue that the main intent of Plan Colombia is not drug eradication but the routing of leftist guerrillas. They say peasants are also a target due to their calls for social reform that would hinder international exploitation of Colombia's resources.

Furthermore, a United Nations study reported that elements within the Colombian security forces, which have been strengthened due to Plan Colombia, continue to maintain intimate relationships with right-wing death squads that either participate in abuses and massacres directly or deliberately fail to take action to prevent them.

With the recent election of Juan Manuel Santos, who was elected on the basis of crushing FARC-EP, it seems clear that the group could better reach its own goals by renouncing its violent methods. But it doesn't seem able to stop.

To read more from Steven Lydon www.stevenlydon.com.

To learn how to contribute to Passport, email Patricia Nealon at pnealon@globe.com.

Candidates for the presidency of Ireland recently took part in a radio debate. AP photo/Julien Behal-pa

By Steven Lydon

Steven Lydon is a recently-disenfranchised Irish PhD candidate in German Philosophy at Harvard University.

The upcoming presidential election has once again drawn international attention to Ireland, but this time in a more positive light.

This is in large part due to the exciting nature of the contest: among the candidates are Michael D. Higgins, a gifted orator, poet, and social activist; David Norris, the charismatic flag-bearer of James Joyce and gay-rights; and Martin McGuinness, former IRA leader and principle orchestrator of the peace process in Northern Ireland, draw the bulk of media attention.

But the presidential campaign has also thrown some light on an issue of increasing importance: the voting rights of Irish citizens abroad.

Under Irish electoral law Irish citizens cannot cast a ballot if they live outside of Ireland. If you attempt to vote, you've committed electoral fraud and could face two years in prison.

This is no insignificant fact given that at least 60,000 Irish citizens have emigrated in the last three years, in large part due to the economic catastrophe that took place under the former Fíanna Fáil-led government.

According to the Central Statistics Office (CSO) emigration mushroomed by 81% in the period from 2006-2010, bringing net outward migration from Ireland to its highest level since the late 1980s. An estimated 3.1 million Irish passport holders live abroad, 800,000 of whom are Irish-born.

"As an Irish citizen abroad, I neither have the right to vote in my adopted country nor the country of which I am a citizen. I have effectively been removed from democracy," said Tim Mac An Airchinnigh, an Irish emigrant living in France. "The Irish government is terrified of giving its emigrants the vote precisely because those emigrants have such a vested interest in voting. This is the real human fallout of the current system's immense failures, and no government wants (to give) such people access to democracy. They know too well the answer they'll get."

Hugh McCafferty has been living in Japan for two years. "I intend to return to Ireland in July 2012. By that time, I will have missed a general election (2011), a presidential election (2011), and a referendum (2009, Lisbon II). I will return to a country very different to the one I left and a political landscape that I was given no opportunity to shape," he said. "If Ireland wants to attract its best and brightest back home, it must give them some stock in Irish society and allow them to remain engaged meaningfully in political and social affairs."

This situation is becoming ever more unusual in an international context. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IIDEA) reports that a total of 115 countries provide their citizens with voting rights in national elections to varying degrees, including Germany, Spain, France, and Australia.

The Irish president cannot constitutionally implement change in this area. In terms of political power, it is a limited, largely symbolic office. However, presidents can and do call attention to specific political issues, making use of the platform afforded them. Over the course of the current campaign, candidates have commented on the issue during speeches abroad.

Higgins is the only candidate to support general election voting reform. He suggested in a recent speech to Irish emigrés in London that “one formula that I believe is worthy of consideration is that those who were on the electoral register, or would be entitled to be on it, should be able to retain the right to vote in some, or all, elections for a specified period, perhaps five to 10 years.”

Norris has come out in favor of emigrant voting rights, but only in presidential elections.
His stance on the issue of general elections is less clear, claiming that "the old saying of 'no representation without taxation' may apply."

Norris's position on this issue is unusual, as it is one normally voiced by conservative commentators,who invert the rallying cry of 18th century American revolutionaries. However, the argument is seriously undermined by the fact that no other nation links expat voting with expat taxation.

The U.S . is the only developed nation that requires its citizens abroad to pay taxes on money earned abroad, but it required the payment of taxation on foreign-earned income long before it granted voting rights to expats, and voting is not conditional on the payment of taxes. Likewise, the payment of taxation is not required for voting rights for Irish residents.

Some object to emigrant voting because they fear that voters who live in Ireland would be outnumbered by the number of people who would be eligible to vote from abroad. However, most proponents of emigrant voting limit their proposals to only Irish-born people living abroad. Furthermore, international experience would suggest that only a small proportion of those would be interested in voting.

Others suggest that Irish people abroad quickly lose touch with the country, and can’t stay informed enough to vote responsibly. But that argument is weakened by the numerous news sources available online. Indeed, voters within the country are not required to demonstrate their knowledge of Irish affairs.

Few are willing to take a concrete stance on this issue in the Dáil, Ireland's parliament. The Minister of Agriculture Simon Coveney is an exception. During the last election campaign he is on record as saying that the exclusion of recent Irish emigrants from the general election was “obscene,” and said his position had not changed since becoming a minister.

However, he also noted that the legal advice received on emigrant voting “hasn’t been overly positive to date. If extending the franchise to expats requires a constitutional referendum, that could not happen until next year at the earliest." No consitutional referendum on the issue is currently scheduled.

To read more from Steven Lydon: www.stevenlydon.com

To learn how to contribute Passport, email Patricia Nealon at pnealon@globe.com

Charles Huschle photo.

By Charles Huschle

Charles Huschle is a senior associate with the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, an international human rights organization based in Cambridge. He recently traveled to Haiti, where UUSC is leading a program to bring volunteers from the United States to help rebuild the lives and livelihoods following the devastating January 2010 earthquake.

Two of my UUSC colleagues and I led a group of 11 youth and young adults on a work trip to Haiti’s Central Plateau to build houses. UUSC works with the Papaye Peasant Movement (MPP) there on sustainable agriculture and housing for earthquake survivors.
As we prepared for the trip, we planned for hurricanes and closely monitored the track of Hurricane Irene. “We’ll be safe,'' we assured those waiting at home. "The buildings we’re in are of solid concrete brick.”
Our host and founder of MPP, Chavannes Jean Baptiste, was unconcerned. “At most we’ll get some rain,” he said.
We didn’t mind the rain, but because all the roads around us were dirt, rain meant mud, mudslides, and washed-out roads. We watched the dirt develop into a creamy, thick, slippery yellow-brown mud. For a day, we couldn’t work outside; instead we stayed in the MPP compound learning about peasant organizing, trauma recovery, and women’s issues in the countryside. We learned and sang a song in Kreyol: “Makonen fos nou/Kontinye lite pou Ayiti,” which means, “We put our strength together to fight for Haiti.”
After Irene passed, grazing Haiti’s north coast, we worked hard the rest of the week to help lay the foundations of 10 houses for earthquake survivors, city dwellers from Port au Prince who had relocated to the Central Plateau to start new lives. The experience was profound.
We drove in battered 4x4’s over roads with potholes and ruts that would have swallowed a truck. We saw naked children filling water jugs at the roadside wells. We visited a four-room mud-walled house that was home to 10 people (no electricity, no running water, the norm in rural Haiti). One of our team, a 19-year old college freshman from Connecticut, remarked, “This house is as big as my room back home.”
We walked through local markets where you could buy mirrors for a dollar and long machetes for four. We visited a local medical clinic that looked like your grandmother’s cluttered garage. The doctor there had studied in the United States. We looked over his tired equipment and a closet that functioned as a pharmacy. “I want to give all of myself to this work. It breaks my heart to try to treat a patient and not have the materials to do so,'' he said. He needs microscopes, antibiotics, drugs for hypertension, cough syrup, antacids. “Everything?” I asked. He nodded. “Everything.”
But whenever I’ve talked about Haiti in the past few days, I keep getting the feeling that some people here see Haiti as a hopeless case, pitiable and impossible.
“Poor Haiti,” a friend said, shaking his head. When I told him of the smiles I’d seen, he kept shaking his head. Haiti is beyond repair, he was hinting, Haiti is a hopeless case, the people of Haiti are fatalistic.
Why bother?
I’m coming to think it's as if we're somehow invested in seeing Haiti as poor and want to keep it that way.
Everywhere we went, there were smiling people. I saw light and hope and happiness, even in the most desperately poor situations.
There were singing people. We were greeted warmly with “Bonjou – ki jon ou ye?—(Hello, how are you?)” There was music, life, activity, energy, hustle and bustle.
The men and women who had moved to the Central Plateau after the earthquake literally shook with gratitude at their new opportunity to live in the country, grow their own food, be part of a sustainable community.
In Port au Prince, there was fantastic art being created by young Haitians. I visited a place called Camp Oasis, where 40 girls, aged 4 to 18, were being housed, cared-for, and educated after being rescued from their camps. Their smiles and laughter were bright and full of hope.
Yes, the government palace remains in ruins nearly two years after the earthquake. And opposite the palace is a huge tent settlement of earthquake survivors. The country doesn't have the infrastructure or the government or the wealth it needs. And maybe there is a sense of fatalism among some of people.
But I feel a sense of possibility. Haiti wants to grow and thrive, and we could feel that in the people, in their voices, in their amazing energy.
We came away from Haiti happy.

For more information about UUSC’s Haiti program and how to volunteer, visit www.uusc.org/haiti.
To learn how to contribute to Passport, email Patricia Nealon at pnealon@globe.com.

The mural in the temple in Kelaniya depicts the Buddha mediating a dispute between warring clans. Photo by Akshan deAlwis.

By Akshan deAlwis

Akshan deAlwis will be sophomore at Noble and Greenough School in the fall.

It is Poson Poya day in June, one of the holiest days in Sri Lanka that marks the arrival of Venerable Mahinda, the beloved son of the Emperor Asoka of India (304–232 BC) bringing with him the gift of the Buddhist philosophy, or Dharma, to Sri Lanka. On this holy day, I am at the historic temple in Kelaniya. The epic Mahawamsa, or great chronicle, claims that the Buddha visited Kelaniya to mediate a dispute between two warring clans in the country.
The months of May and June also mark the second year anniversary of Sri Lanka’s defeat of the Tamil Tigers and the death of Prabhakaran, the leader of the Tigers. The anniversary is a time of retrospection, and a time to look forward to reconciliation between the Sinhalese and the Tamils, the two major ethnic groups in Sri Lanka.
But overshadowing any hope for reconciliation are allegations of war crimes lodged against the Sri Lankan government by the Tamil Diaspora and the international community.
The government emphatically denies the claims of indiscriminate killings and argues that a “zero civilian casualty policy” informed its operations and that throughout the war the Tigers used civilians as human shields.
On June 3, Channel 4 in Britain premiered a documentary called “Sri Lanka's Killing Fields.”
The government of Sri Lanka claims that the video was doctored; the documentary has stoked nationalist fury among the Sinhalese community.
I spoke to the Honorable Ranil Wickremasinghe, a former Prime Minister of Sri Lanka and the current leader of the opposition, about the way forward for Sri Lanka.
He said that the bitter history of conflict can be overcome by reclaiming the philosophy of Emperor Asoka, who embraced the Buddha’s teaching after his conquest of Kalinga on the east coast of India.
Horrified by the carnage of war, Emperor Asoka forged powerful policies of reconciliation founded on Buddhist philosophy and pursued an official policy of nonviolence, tolerance, and mutual respect that united a warring empire.
In more recent times, the Sri Lankan government was locked in a 25-year civil war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) or Tamil Tigers, a terrorist group with the goal of creating an independent state in northern Sri Lanka for ethnic Tamils.
The LTTE felt that the Tamil population could never be properly represented in a government dominated by the majority Sinhalese. The LTTE began with assassinations of Sinhalese leaders and Tamil political figures who were politically aligned with the government.
A turning point was 1983, when a Sri Lankan Army patrol was ambushed by the LTTE and 13 of the 15 members of the patrol were killed. This sparked riots throughout Sri Lanka that killed an estimated 400 to 3,000 Tamils.
After the riots, the LTTE launched a guerrilla offensive. The fighting continued until the Indo-Sri Lankan Peace accord, led by Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, when the Indian Peace Keeping Forces (IPKF) entered the north with an LTTE ceasefire.
But the LTTE refused to disarm their militants, launching a full-scale conflict with the IPKF. In 1991, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a Tamil suicide bomber.
The war in the north continued until 2002, when there was a temporary ceasefire. But it fell apart after the 2004 tsunami.
In 2007, the Sri Lankan army began a new offensive, which swept through the east and then the north, and by 2009, it had captured the de facto capital of the LTTE, Kilinochchi. On May 18 of that year, Prabhakaran, the leader of the LTTE, was killed, officially ending the war.
But reconciliation has been difficult. An international think tank report this week said that Sri Lanka's postwar policies are a hindrance to reconciliation between the country's embittered ethnic communities, two years after the end of the civil war, according to the Associated Press.
Belgium-based International Crisis Group said in a report published Monday that "the government's intransigence and triumphalism" after defeating Tamil Tiger rebels "has meant the country is yet to see any semblance of compromise or inclusiveness."
The group said that after the war, President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government "has refused to acknowledge, let alone address, the Tamil minority's legitimate grievances against the state."
It also urged authorities to end the state of emergency, revise powerful anti-terrorism laws, and stop repression of media and political opponents.
I visited Sri Lanka to retrace my roots and reclaim my own history and the rich history of the home of my ancestors.
The history of Sri Lanka is much more than the ethnic strife that has defined it in recent decades. It is a 2,500-year-old civilization and culture of magnificent architecture and art and spiritual enlightenment. It is a country of dream-like elegance, of which Mark Twain once said, “Dear me, it is beautiful! …. (it) quivers and tingles with a thousand unexpressed and inexpressible things, things that haunt one and find no articulate voice….”
All Sri Lankans are spiritual heirs of Emperor Asoka and his friend, King Devanampiyatissa of Sri Lanka, to whom Asoka sent his own son as an emissary of the Buddhist Dharma nearly 2,500 years ago.
When the king adopted Buddhism, he created an inclusive socio-legal system founded on kindness to all to ensure the triumph of human dignity and spirit.
It is these ideals that can help Sri Lanka move forward. On this Poson Poya Day, I was reminded of his legacy of good governance and at Kelaniya, the temple of legend, my spirits soar at the sight of the magnificent mural of the Buddha mediating conflict between two clashing tribes through the force of truth and compassion.
To learn how to contribute to Passport, email Patricia Nealon at pnealon@globe.com.

Young women studying at public universities are prohibited from wearing the hijab head covering, despite living in a Muslim country. Photo by Katie Kriz.

By Erin Kelly

A group of 19 Northeastern University journalism students – 13 writers and six photographers -- is traveling through Jordan and Turkey as part of the school’s Dialogue of Civilization program.

ISTANBUL, Turkey – Turkey is a country with a population that is 99 percent Muslim. Yet the women who wear a hijab, or headscarf, still struggle for acceptance at universities.

Sedya Kinaci, a student at Istanbul University, wears her hijab at all times as a fundamental part of her Islamic practice and her personal identity.
Yet some professors demand that Kinaci and other women like her remove their scarves before entering the classroom.

“The first time I had to remove [my headscarf] for a lesson, I was angry,” Kinaci said, speaking through a translator. “I cried... At the beginning of the situation, I felt guilty, but as time passes, I got used to it.”

To emphasize Turkey as a secular state, headscarves are legally banned from public places, including government buildings and public universities. Though traditionally viewed as a sign of religious expression, an ongoing battle between secularists and fundamentalists has turned the hijab into a political symbol, representative of a push to turn Turkey into an Islamist state.

The recent victory of the Justice and Development Party, or AKP party, in the 2011 parliamentary elections, may change the legal status of the hijab.

The Islamist party has publicly relaxed the headscarf ban in the past, and its leader, Tayyip Erdogan, is a pious Muslim. His wife Emine wears a hijab. Though an official lift on the ban is sure to ignite rage and opposition from secularists, it is still unclear what will happen.

Private universities are not subject to the ban on headscarves. And though Turkey’s Higher Education Council relaxed headscarf bans at public universities in 2010, some professors make their own rules and still vigorously enforce the ban.

“Many people, and some professors, are particularly against [the headscarf] because they see it as a political instrument,” said Kivanç Ulusoy, an associate professor of political science at Istanbul University. “They are not against religion. They are secularists.”

A similar ban on the niqab, or burqa, which is the more conservative Muslim veil that covers a woman's entire face and body except for her eyes, was implemented in France in April to preserve what legislators in that country call a strict separation of church and state. Muslims across the globe have widely and loudly complained about that ban as impinging on their religious freedom.

Kassad Loyol, a Moroccan student studying in Istanbul, has followed the issue in France.

“In France, I can accept the ban because France is not a Muslim country,” Loyol said. “But Turkey is Muslim…why do I have to take [my scarf] off?”

Ulusoy said that in the past, individuals seeking the freedom to wear headscarves in public have gone to the European Court of Human Rights, an international court based in Strasbourg, France, which ultimately ruled in favor of the ban.

However, once the issue became a national concern, the Justice and Development Party became more open to allowing headscarves in public and has since relaxed the ban, causing the Republic People’s Party (known as CHP) to follow suit. While there is no official documentation of this relaxation, both parties have publicly expressed their opinions.

“Now, both leftist parties have been thinking that it’s time to relax the matter,” Ulusoy said. “I think it’s a good decision, because the issue has been exaggerated so much.”
Most professors at public universities allow students to wear scarves if they choose, said Soli Özel, a professor of international relations and political science at Istanbul Bilgi University and a columnist at Haberturk newspaper.

It was a secular interpretation of the constitution that made the wearing of the hijab “an ideological football, or ping-pong [match],” Ozel said.

“The Islamist movement used this blatant injustice, and tamper[ed] with the freedom of education, if you will, for all it was worth,” Özel said.

Ilke Civelekoglu, an assistant professor of political science at Dogus Üniversity, an English-only institution established in 1997 on the Asian side of Istanbul, said the ban is rooted in “radical understandings of secularism,” or the separation of state and religion.
“[Secularists] think Islamists are opportunists,” Civelekoglu said. “They think that once [Islamists] are in power, they will abolish the democratic regime.”

Civelekoglu has never asked students to remove a head covering.
“[That's) discrimination, it’s unacceptable,” Civelekoglu said. “Everyone has the right to an education.”

Leynep Depirmen, a student at Istanbul University, feels compromised by the phenomenon she calls, “Islamaphobia,” or fear of Islamic fundamentalists, and finds it troubling that hijab-wearing women are the only people affected by this ideological clash between secularists and fundamentalists. She says there is no equivalent of the hijab ban for men or others who outwardly express their religion.

“The cross is a symbol of Christianity, but people can wear a cross in public areas, and in the ministry of government,” Depirmen said, speaking through a translator. “Political or not, there is a misreading of freedom in Turkey. It should be a right for a person to wear [her hijab] in a university classroom.”

Five years ago, the university administration would kick students out of class for wearing a headscarf. Today, there are no formal consequences, but Kinaci said she still feels psychological pressure to remove her headscarf from certain professors.
After taking an exam for a professor who permitted headscarves in the classroom, she was approached by another professor who observed the exam.

“She came and asked me if this was my final decision to wear [the headscarf],” Kinaci said. “...Her attitude made me uncomfortable.”

Buse, a 20-year-old student at Istanbul University who asked that her last name not be used due to the political nature of the issue, has had to remove her head scarf in the past, but has not been required to this year.

As long as the AK Party remains in power, she believes headscarf rules will remain relaxed at universities. But despite the political tension, Buse said she just cannot understand professors who ban hijabs.

“It’s the same lesson, with my headscarf, or without.”

To read more from the Northeastern students:http://northeasternuniversityjournalism2011.wordpress.com/

To learn how to contribute to Passport, email Patricia Nealon at pnealon@globe.com.

(Photo by Catherine Strong)

A group of AKP supporters celebrate the third consecutive victory of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

This report from the front lines of the Turkish election was produced by Northeastern University students traveling to Turkey and Jordan as part of the college's Dialogue of Civilization program. This Dialogue, involving 19 students and three professors, is a collaboration between the School of Journalism and the departments of Photography and International Affairs.

By Kaileigh Higgins and Robert Tokanel

ISTANBUL -- Less than 24 hours before Sunday night’s parliamentary elections, the Sultanahmet neighborhood was a campaign battleground. Flags strung between old brick buildings hung like spider webs of laundry, and motorcars blared campaign rants as minivans wound their way through narrow streets.

On election night, though, it was almost silent. At an open-air café in the historic heart of the city, Sertac Ayhan sat alone with his back to a television tuned to the polls.

The 24-year old engineering student wasn’t apathetic about the projections flashing the names and parties of candidates that had been plastered across the city for weeks. He just knew who was going to win, and he feared what it could mean for his country.

“It’s going to be a monarchy,” he said.

Ayhan’s fears proved unfounded as the ruling Justice and Development Party predictably finished as the clear victors, winning 50 percent of the vote, but didn’t score the absolute majority that would have allowed the conservative group to rewrite the Turkish constitution without opposition.

Itir Tocsoz, assistant professor of international affairs at Istanbul’s Dogus University, said the AKP’s failure to gain enough seats will force the party to work with rival political parties instead of pushing through its agenda unchecked.

“There will be more negotiations, bargaining and compromises between political parties,” she said. “There will have to be cooperation [because] if they really want to write the new constitution, they don’t have enough votes now to pass it on their own.”

FULL ENTRY

Jordan has been invited to join the Gulf Cooperation Council, referred to as the "monarchy club." Posters of King Abdullah II and Queen Raina are displayed prominently throughout Jordan. Photo by Erin Strine.

By Kaileigh Higgins

A group of 19 Northeastern University journalism students – 13 writers and six photographers -- is traveling through Jordan and Turkey as part of the school’s Dialogue of Civilization program.

AMMAN, Jordan - For the past 30 years, the Gulf Cooperation Council has remained a powerful and wealthy bloc of Arab nations with significant influence in the region and abroad.
On May 10, the GCC opened its doors a bit wider, inviting Jordan and Morocco to join its
"monarchy club."
The invitations come at a time when Arab leaders have watched their counterparts in Egypt and Tunisia, fall in the Arab spring revolts, and the Bahraini government struggle to contain uprisings.
It is unclear the exact motives behind why Jordan, a strategically positioned country that has remained relatively stable during the recent unrest, has been asked to join Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar after being shut out of the GCC bloc for decades.
But it is clear that Jordan stands to gain economically as a member of the organization. In the midst of an economic recession, Jordan, which, along with fellow invitee Morocco and other member countries, operates under a monarchy system, could gain access to the vast wealth and resources of the GCC.
"Culturally speaking, we are very similar," said Jawad Anani, a former deputy prime minister of Jordan and an economic expert. "As members we can contribute more and can benefit more."
On May 25, 1981, the six original members signed the charter of the GCC, forming a coalition of wealthy monarchies. According to their charter, the GCC's objectives are to "effect coordination, integration, and inter-connection between member states…deepen and strengthen relations" and formulate similar regulations on commerce, customs, communication, education, and culture.
"When the GCC was first created, many Arab countries who didn't join, they saw it as a 'rich man's club'," said Anani.
Though the member states share wealth and resources, they also share security forces. Situated in a region plagued with ethnic and religious conflicts, the Sunni states of the Gulf joined forces following the rise of the Shia during the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
"The creation of the GCC was prompted by security considerations," said Anani. "The main motive for creating this was to help the Gulf states join forces and act in unison against the Iranian front."
Jordan has already contributed to the Gulf defense. Jordan has one of the best-trained militaries in the Arab region, and assists GCC member states in military training and operations.
When Bahrain faced an uprising this spring, a group consisting mainly of Shias, the Council sent a force to support the king, a force that included a unit of Jordanian soldiers.
"As for security, this has always been the case," said Anani. "In a way, they have already been joining forces in Bahrain, working with the Gulf as a very strong security force."
Jordan's former Minister of Planning Tahar Kanaan said that Jordanian workers can replace non-Arab immigrants filling positions in GCC member states and sending wages back home.
"There is a lot of talent in the Jordanian labor force, immense, if Jordan becomes a full member or something like approaching a full member and enjoying movement of labor. That would be a great boost for the economy in the way of remittances that would be dispatched by Jordanians working in GCC countries, " said Kanaan, pointing out that Jordanian workers would have "more affinity than non-Arab workers."
Jordan, currently facing a $2 billion deficit, is in an economic recession. In addition, it has limited access to water and energy. Joining the GCC will hopefully allow Jordan access to the vast resources of member states.
"Major economic improvement can come," said Anani, "not only in the budget or in the deficit, but it is the shortage of water and energy resources. "
It is clear that both sides will benefit from the possible acceptance of Jordan into the GCC, but the reason behind the sudden openness of the Council is still unclear. With the recent unrest caused by the democratic revolutions, many of the monarchies of the GCC are concerned for the security of their regimes.
According to Anani, governments fall into two schools of thought regarding these sweeping democratic changes: revolutionary, which calls for regime change; and evolutionary, where reform can take place from within.
"The Gulf states, which subscribe to the second school of thought, see these countries who think like them and are joining forces," said Anani. "This ascension strengthens the forces which call for maintaining and effecting change gradually and from within."
Jordan has avoided the mass "Arab Spring" protests, although there have been some protests over economic conditions in the country.
"They want to put Jordan in a position to move out from fragility," said Kanaan.
Little has been said about how each of the member nations feels about Jordan joining their ranks. But according to Badar Al-Madi of the University of Jordan, Kuwait and Oman may have issues with Jordan's decision to support Sadaam Hussein during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
The terms of membership have not been announced yet, and it is still uncertain what type of role Jordan or Morocco will play in the GCC or if they will receive the same benefits available to current member states.
"There are the economic advantages that might happen or might not happen depending on the reading of the treaty and what provisions might emerge later on for conditions for membership," said Kanaan. "It will take a very long time for this to happen."
With this uncertainty comes the fear that the invitation is just a political ploy by the GCC, merely a symbolic show of unity among the ruling Arab monarchies against the democratic revolutions sweeping the region.
"The benefits of joining are the benefits of joining an economic union.That's what is good for everybody," said Kanaan. "If it is just cosmetics and it goes into the politics of association, then it is not serious and it will get nobody nowhere. It will be just propaganda value."

To read more from the Northeastern students: http://northeasternuniversityjournalism2011.wordpress.com/

To learn how to contribute to Passport, email Patricia Nealon at pnealon@globe.com.

A downtown revitalization project frustrates business owners in downtown Amman. Photo by Erin Strine.

By Emily Rudisill

A group of 19 Northeastern University journalism students – 13 writers and six photographers -- is traveling through Jordan and Turkey through mid-June as part of the school’s Dialogue of Civilization program.

AMMAN, Jordan -- Bazar Al Mhirat is a modest antique shop located at the Wasat al Ballad market in downtown Amman. Walking by, customers are drawn in by chunky vintage rings with pigmented stones, necklaces fit for royalty, and a collection of dusty coins.

The 45 year-old owner, who asked not to be named because of his involvement in recent protests against downtown revitalization, has been in business for 25 years. Through a translator, he explained how he packed up his store and moved to his current location when construction of the Raghadan Bus station began.

He and several other long-term business owners were asked to move to accommodate the expansion. Overall, the move cost him 50,000 Jordanian dinars – or about $70,000 -- in lost profit and expenses. “The development makes downtown worse,” said the shop owner.

Raghadan’s renovation is part of a large revitalization project that is causing great upheaval in downtown Amman. The goal of the Wadi Amman Regeneration initiative is to improve transportation, tourism, housing, and business in the 130-year-old historic valley where modern Amman originated.

The project will take place in three phases and is currently focused on the Hashemite Plaza, a former park that attracted crime, prostitutes, and homosexuals, who are considered criminals here, explained Asma’ Barakati, the head architect for the plaza project.

“People with families couldn’t come here, many areas were not very safe,” said Barakati, speaking from the onsite office.

According to Barakati, the project is designed to economically revive the area through modern tourism and business. In the 1950s Amman was a vital cultural center that attracted wealthy residents. During the ‘60s and ‘70s development in the commercial sector slowed and failed projects drove businesses to seek other locations. The rise of suburban housing continued to stifle downtown prosperity and drew wealthy residents to the outskirts of the city. The decay of old Amman began.

Plans for a new Amman include a park with gardens, a modernized “river” consisting of vertical fountains, 25 canopy structures to provide shade, three main pavilions housing coffee shops, and a media building with several televisions for visitors to check out downtown happenings.

Pedestrian walkways will regulate foot traffic and connect the park to other areas of downtown Amman including the bus station, explained Barakati, who is employed by the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM).

Mahmood Al-Amoosh, the head engineer and chief manager, estimated the project will cost 5.5 million Jordanian dinars – or about $8 million -- and will be completed in two to three months. The original proposal was drawn up by Limitless, a firm based in Dubai. GAM, along with its partners, broke ground on Hashemite Plaza construction in September 2009.

GAM is also planning to rezone several residential areas to support local businesses and encourage families to open shops. “When you have nice places to come and visit, people will come,” said Barakati.

Still, business owners in the area are worried that construction will deter foot traffic to their stores. Many have taken to the streets in a series of small protests.
Moutaz Al Ayan, owner of Al Sal Al Akhdar, a shop selling Jordanian pastries, believes the projects will bolster his business after completion because 70 percent of his customers are tourists. Although he expects the improvements to be good for his business, he supported fellow shop owners during several protests.

Mhamad Abu Shanab, of Asafour Company, sells shoes and men’s clothing to mostly local customers. He lost business during the Raghadan project because local shoppers couldn't get to his store while the bus station was closed.

Mohammad Abudala of Shamiran Bazzar, an oriental gift shop located behind the construction adjacent to the amphitheater, echoed Shanab’s sentiments, “Many people see the damage and think I am closed. Many groups don’t go to the amphitheater because of the construction.”

Even though the GAM created a set of temporary staircases for tourists to access stores in the hills, Abudala has lost up to 60 percent of revenue a month and often can't cover his rent. He is hoping his revenue will return to normal when construction is completed.

In addition to hurting local business, the project has been criticized for delays. Barakati said a July 2009 marathon event delayed construction by two months.
Barakati encourages business owners to look toward the future. Profits are often down during construction projects.

But some remain skeptical -- and angry.

“This could destroy my shop. I’m afraid I will need to move again,” said the owner of Bazar Al Mhirat.

To read more from the Northeastern students:http://northeasternuniversityjournalism2011.wordpress.com/

To learn how to contribute to Passport, email Patricia Nealon at pnealon@globe.com.

Mutaz Aljuneidi, 35, has been competitively powerlifting for seven years. Photos by Ryan Tyler Payne

By Michele Richinick

A group of 19 Northeastern University journalism students – 13 writers and six photographers -- is traveling through Jordan and Turkey through mid-June as part of the school’s Dialogue of Civilization program.

AMMAN, Jordan – With crowded streets, uneven sidewalks, and aging buildings, Jordan is not a good place to use a wheelchair or function with any physical disability. And government leaders have historically done very little to raise awareness and force infrastructure changes to accommodate people with special needs.

But with approximately 30 million people in the Middle East and North African region with disabilities, according to the Center for Persons with Disabilities at Utah State University, that sort of action is certainly needed.

“We have the promotion of ideas, yes, but the capabilities, surely not for everyone, especially the blind and deaf in Jordan,” said Ismail Zaghmouri, a Braille auditor for the Friendship Association of the Blind, who is blind. “We told the [government,] we need more facilities, in the environment especially.”

Eighty-five percent of people with disabilities live in developing countries, and therefore are doubly disadvantaged by poverty and disability, according to the United Nations.

“The main problem to be handicapped in Jordan is how people see handicapped people not being able to do anything, to study anything, maybe because the government doesn’t tell the population how the handicapped people can do anything. We can do everything,” said Mutaz Aljuneidi, 35, who had polio when he was 5, leading to paralysis in both legs. “This is our problem, and every time we ask our government for what we need, they say, ‘Maybe in the future we will do it.’ It’s step by step in Jordan.”

Most of the laws in the Middle East primarily focus on dealing with other issues, such as gender, said Abdel Qader, CEO of the Asian Blind Union in Jordan.

“I think most people [with disabilities] have been integrated into society, but there is still a feeling of pity,” he said.

It's been 30 years since the Jordan Sports Federation for the Handicapped (JSFH), which supervises disabled sports in the country, was established. A 1993 law affirmed disabled citizens’ rights and established the National Council for the Welfare of Disabled Persons.

But vigorous attempts to raise awareness didn't begin until 2007. The Jordanian government and the Higher Council for the Affairs of Persons with Disabilities (HCD), which acts as a liaison between the government and civil society, began working on 12 initiatives to improve the lives of the disabled, said Adnan Al Aboudy, empowerment and awareness coordinator for HCD. The initiatives dealt with higher education, family involvement, accessibility, rehabilitation, and violence awareness.

And just this week, the HCD announced that students with disabilities would be exempted from paying 90 percent of their tuition fees in graduate programs.

But there is still much to do.

“The stakeholders believe that we have a very good law, but the problem is that the law is not implemented,” said Muhannad al Azzeh, disability rights specialist for the Jordan Civil Society Program, who is blind. “The Higher Council is working at it, but they have specific limits. Their job is to propose and draft regulations to the prime minister. But the job is for the prime minister’s office to adopt these regulations and to issue them and publish them officially.”

Part of the problem is changing the way Jordanians view people with disabilities, as helpless and sad figures unable to do much.

“People in the street used to say, ‘Poor lady,’ and looked at me like I was from Mars,” said Maha Barghouthi, 48, of Amman, who has earned one gold and two bronze medals in wheelchair table tennis since 2000 at the Paralympic Games. “People know now that having disabilities doesn’t mean we have to be at home all the time. We have rights. They see me now and say, ‘She’s a hero. She’s a gold medalist.’ ”

Maha Barghouthi, 48, has won three medals since 2000 in wheelchair table tennis at the Paralympic Games

The UN adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol in 2006. Jordan ratified it in 2008, the 18th country in the world to do so, and the first Arab country. The country also introduced building codes to provide better accessibility for people with disabilities.

Taher Abuhejlih, 48, who has been in a wheelchair for more than 40 years after receiving the wrong injection for a high fever, said he started witnessing changes in society’s attitudes during the mid-1980s.

“Now there is development, especially mentally, to change the attitude of people…to understand I have a strong mind and potential,” Abuhejlih said. “The [government] is working on it and giving disabled people more power.”

The Franklin Delano Roosevelt International Disability Award was presented to Jordanian King Abdullah II at the UN headquarters in New York in March 2005 for noteworthy progress toward full and equal participation of people with disabilities in society.

“I see a very good progress in the disabilities movement,” al Azzeh said. “Some people believe it isn’t the case, but when you’re talking about changes in beliefs and rights and movements, it’s a very, very long-term process. You cannot expect a radical change within one or two years."

To read more from the Northeastern students:http://northeasternuniversityjournalism2011.wordpress.com/

To learn how to contribute to Passport, email Patricia Nealon at pnealon@globe.com

Jordan is spending nearly $1 billion to address its water problems.

Photo by Valerie Sarnataro

By Robert Tokanel

A group of 19 Northeastern University journalism students – 13 writers and six photographers -- is traveling through Jordan and Turkey through mid-June as part of the school’s Dialogue of Civilization program.

AMMAN, Jordan -- A freshly dug trench of concrete pipes snakes along the barren, dusty stretch of highway that runs from Jordan’s southwestern port city of Aqaba to its capital in Amman. Though it currently serves as little more than an expensive eyesore in an otherwise tranquil desert landscape, it will eventually act as a conduit for the country’s most scarce and essential resource – potable water.

Jordan, ranked as the fourth-most water-scarce country in the world, relies heavily on rainfall in the North and a series of dams and aquifers to spread groundwater and river water through its middle and Southern regions.

Amman averages about 180 millimeters of precipitation a year, and 90 percent of the country receives less than 200 millimeters a year. The average annual precipitation for all countries is about 1,000 millimeters a year.

As the population in Amman swells to accommodate a growing number of Palestinian and Iraqi refugees, the 2.8 million people that currently inhabit the city are left to wonder when the day will come that the water simply stops flowing.

“Their concern might be even more than anyone else,” said Raed Al Tabini, who recently co-authored a study of Jordan’s water resources. “The water only comes one day a week for people in Amman, so if that day it doesn’t come, it’s going to take two weeks.”

The Disi Water Conveyance Project, a nearly $1 billion effort started in 2008, is expected to provide Amman and surrounding communities with about 100 million cubic meters of water per year by transporting it more than 200 miles from the Disi aquifer in Mudawarra, a city bordering Saudi Arabia.

But the project, set to finish within the next two years, will only quench the city’s thirst temporarily.

“It will create another problem in the long term,” said Al Tabini. “This aquifer is fossil, it’s not replenishable, so that means the water goes down and down and down until it is finished. It’s a huge amount of water, but it will run out one day.”

The shared use of the Disi aquifer with Saudi Arabia presents a major concern for Jordan’s conservationists. The terms of the agreement between the countries allow each to use its groundwater supply, and the new pipeline is partially a political investment because it guarantees Jordan will get its share of the water before it runs out.

Phil Graham of the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, a research group based in Norrkoping, Sweden, said at a May 22 climate change conference in Amman that while Jordan has taken a lead in the Middle East in terms of concern for water resource issues, he thinks the country’s competitive relationship with Saudi Arabia has encouraged its people to use water wastefully.

“I find it a bit worrisome that cooperation between people sharing these resources is not optimal,” he said. “Both sides think they have to pump as much as possible, because [they think] ‘if we don’t, they will.’ ”

Water from the Disi aquifer has been used for public consumption in Aqaba for about 20 years, but five or six major farmers in the South have consumed the majority of its water thus far, said Marwan Al-Raggad of the University of Jordan Water Research Center.

A recent U.S. AID study estimated that agriculture accounts for about 3 to 5 percent of Jordan’s total GDP, but farmers in the country are using a disproportional amount of the available water.

“In general, about 65 percent of the total groundwater resource is consumed by agriculture, and it is producing very few amount of the total income in Jordan,” Al-Raggad said.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that farmers are planting mostly crops that require excessive amounts of water. Watermelon and tomatoes, two of the most commonly grown crops in the country, are composed of 97 and 85 percent water, respectively.

“Some farmers irrigate five or six times more than what the plant needs,” Al Tabini said.

Efforts to set quotas on the amount of water used by farmers have largely failed. While there are bylaws stating that any use beyond 150,000 cubic meters of water per year can only be pumped for a fee, enforcement is lacking.

“As far as I know, they don’t have any farmers yet paying,” Al Tabini said.

Furthermore, a newly forged economic relationship with Saudi Arabia has actually caused farmers to pump more groundwater than they would have in past seasons. After 10 years of strained relationships with the Saudi government over the quality of water used for irrigation, farmers' profits have quadrupled by exporting crops to the neighboring country.

“When we opened the exporting gate, we had huge water consumption,” said Al-Raggad, who recently worked for the Ministry of Water and Irrigation.

But while farmers in the Wadi Rum and Disi region use about 60 million cubic meters of water per year, the nearby popular tourist city of Aqaba has been forced to adapt to a quota of only 15 million cubic meters. Aiman Soleiman, manager of Aqaba International Laboratories, said his company has helped the city find a variety of ways to adapt to the limitations, including desalinating water from the Red Sea.

"We fully understand the amount allocated to us on a yearly basis,” he said. “Every drip of water is being utilized, and we make sure that the wastewater is being pumped back to the station for treatment.”

Efforts such as desalination may work in Aqaba, but changes in farming practices in the region are harder to enact. Al Tabini said the number of rural families who depend on farming for their livelihood -- and the reluctance to rely on imported food -- hinders efforts to reduce agricultural water consumption.

"“If we want to just import our food from Syria, for example, and they get mad at us and close their borders, we would die from hunger,” he said. “We have more than 40,000 families whose direct income comes from agriculture … what are they going to do if they don’t have agriculture? Go to the government to ask for funds?”

While there are no easy solutions, Al-Raggad said enforcement of a stricter quota and a push for farmers to plant more efficient crops in smaller spaces will help save the most water in the long term.

“We are going toward a good water management of the agricultural activity, but in very slow steps,” he said. “When [farmers] see there is a change in water consumption and no change in the benefit, then they will change their behaviors.”

For the time being, though, the people of Amman will have to make do with the water they have, Al Tabini said. Even when the pipeline is finished, it is unlikely they will be allocated more than the 180 cubic meters a week they currently receive.

“If we talk about water consumption in Amman, there is no way that they can save water because they already receive so little,” he said.

To read more from the Northeastern students: http://northeasternuniversityjournalism2011.wordpress.com/

To learn how to contribute to Passport, email Patricia Nealon at pnealon@globe.com.

Irbaheem Awad, 28, Bashar Qaseer, 22, Ahmed Saleh, 19, and Mahmoud Khateeb,17, passionately join hands at the concert Tuesday night in support of Palestine. Photo by Lily Bahramipour

By Lorena F. Aspe and Hannah Martin

A group of 19 Northeastern University students – 13 writers and six photographers -- are traveling through Jordan and Turkey through mid-June as part of the school’s Dialogue of Civilization program.

On the Israeli border, emotional protests led to deaths and hundreds of injuries earlier this month as Palestinians protested the anniversary of the creation of Israel.
But in the Dar Al-Anda Art Gallery in Amman, a group of young activists held a decidedly lower-key demonstration of their own. They marked the “nakbeh,” or catastrophe as they term it, in a way they felt was more fitting. They showed their support for displaced Palestinians through an art show, readings, and music.
In fact, the event’s organizer shied away from the very idea of labeling their efforts as protest.
“It’s not really protest, I don’t want to call this protest,” said Leena Elias, 31, the main organizer. “For me, I just want to bring awareness, in a different way, in an artistic way.”
A specific goal of these events is to raise money for student refugees from Gaza.
Elias said what started as chitchat on Facebook and Twitter quickly evolved into a weeklong collection of events featuring artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers who use their work as a medium to remember Nakbeh and promote change for the Palestinian people. While the bulk of the events are in Amman, extensions of the effort stretch to Gaza, Ramallah, Nablus, and Haifa.
The main attraction: a selection of work by Palestinian artist Naji El-Ali, whose subversive political cartoons created the iconic character Handala and ultimately prompted his assassination in 1987. Handala, a 10-year-old-boy with his back always turned from the viewer, has become a Palestinian symbol of defiance. He will not show his face until he can return home.
More than 350 people visited the exhibit on the opening day. Many viewers reacted to the cartoons with a casual laugh or a shake of the head.
"It’s like when there is something very serious, but you laugh at it,” said volunteer, Osama Shamleh, 21. “But when you stop laughing, you maybe start crying.”
The collection, including four cartoons which had never been shown, was sold to benefit 25 Palestinian students in the Gaza refugee camps. Proceeds will enable them to continue their summer courses at universities in Jordan.
“My goal is to bring justice to the people,” Elias said, adding that the best way to preserve a cause is through remembering the struggle behind it. “We’re young social activists and we want to help other young people, especially refugees.”
The opening night featured Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish who read a selection of his works. Piecing together remnants of the Palestinian experience, he recalled stories of his own people and others who have suffered similar fates. Darwish’s reading was transmitted live through Skype to Gaza, where more than 400 people tuned in.
"To listen to the people’s stories is important to me. It’s empowerment,” Elias said. “Because people really need to be brave. Young people who were volunteering with us, they were scared. I say, ‘Don’t be scared, we need to be brave.’”
Nasser Jaber, 27, a friend of Elias’, was in Ramallah visiting his family from New York, where he now lives. By following Elias’ tweets about Nakbeh, he was able to take part in the event’s extension there. He says he later witnessed peaceful protesters shot with rubber bullets by members of the Israeli border patrol.
"Our generation is pretty apathetic right now. But the new revolution is guiding them to new struggles,” Jaber said, referring to the Arab spring uprisings in the region. “As soon as Tunis happened, everything exploded. The youth, they want to live.”
Two days into the remembrance, the gallery filled again with more than 250 people for a short story reading by Palestinian writer Ibrahem Jaber Ibrahem. He recalled stories passed down through his family and expressed the strong desire to return to his country. He also addressed other issues of oppression such as the Qana Massacre of 1996 and the more recent Tunisia uprisings.
Al Hannouneh, a traditional Palestinian folk band, took the stage next. Named after the red flower that covers Palestine in early spring, this collective of seven had its audience clapping, dancing, and singing along. Mothers twirled their children; young activists linked arms and hoisted their black and white keffiyeh into the air.
Muneer Alsaifi, 35, whose grandmother was a refugee in 1948, remembered the stories she used to tell about Palestine – the way she spoke about being forced from her home.
“We’ve been listening to these songs since we were children,” he said. “Every single song has a story about our culture, about the resistance, about our rights. Every single line counts. I believe it’s as strong as protest.”
A group of four activists, who sat in the front row, think change will demand a more radical approach. They quote an Arabic phrase that translates to “what is taken by force cannot be taken back, except by force.”
However, they are resigned that for now, peaceful means might be the only available option.
“They took Palestine by force,” said Mahmoud Khateeb, 17, “But since we cannot do anything, this is the only way we can express our support. Our hearts are with them. We feel empowered, we feel proud to be Palestinian.”
In a region that is currently roiled with revolt and a driving force of change, Elias said she understands the impetus for more extreme action embodied by the border protesters.
“The revolution – it encourages people to do anything possible,” she said. “They want to go through the border. It’s not really violent, it’s peaceful. We want Palestinians to have the right to visit Palestine. I respect their agenda but at the same time, everyone has the way they want to be resistant.”
Last Saturday, Dar Al-Anda showed the documentary This Is My Picture When I Was Dead. The film features Bashir Mraish, 32, who witnessed the assassination of his PLO activist father Mamoun in 1983.
To Mraish, Jordan is a “boiling pot,” ready to bubble over.
“Jordan is in a very critical condition right now,” he said. “More than half of the population is Palestinian. I cannot see how it will not end in war.”
To learn how to contribute to Passport, email Patricia Nealon at pnealon@globe.com.