Middle East Feature: Why are Arab Journalists The "Unknown Soldiers" in Battle for Truth? (Al-Nassrawi)

After a career of nearly forty years in journalism, including assignments and newsroom work for some 30 years with Western news organizations, I can say with a clear conscience that there is nothing to compare with the knowledge and courage of some Arab journalists who work with foreign media and whose input to the Middle East coverage has been invaluable.

Yet, these journalists have remained "unknown soldiers" in the raging battle for truth and accuracy, in a crude manifestation of denial and prejudice. Those who are familiar with what I am talking about know pretty well that this is a phenomenon which speaks volumes about the kind of reporting the Middle East receives in the Western media.

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Tunisia Feature: Islamists, Faith, and Democracy (Shadid)

An Ennadha Party Supporterjani, a senior member of the Ennahda Party:

The epiphany of Said Ferjani came after his poor childhood in a pious town in Tunisia, after a religious renaissance a generation ago awakened his intellect, after he plotted a coup and a torturer broke his back, and after he fled to Britain to join other Islamists seeking asylum on a passport he had borrowed from a friend.

Twenty-two years later, when Mr. Ferjani returned home, he understood the task at hand: building a democracy, led by Islamists, that would be a model for the Arab world.

“This is our test,” he said.

If the revolts that swept the Middle East a year ago were the coming of age of youths determined to imagine another future for the Arab world, the aftermath that has brought elections in Egypt and Tunisia and the prospect of decisive Islamist influence in Morocco, Libya and, perhaps, Syria is the moment of another, older generation.

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Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Two More Anniversaries

Protest in Benghazi, Libya, 17 February 2011

See also Syria Audio Special: A Resident of Homs Speaks to EA Worldview

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2123 GMT: Perhaps the Bahraini police did not know that two prominent Western activists heading a peaceful protest towards Lulu Square would be a well-documented event --- but if they read EA, they would have guessed. Here are just a few of the pictures, which complement the videos that we posted below. We'll be following up on this story very soon.

A woman in Qadam challenges police with a peace sign, before the teargas and arrests.

Flash grenades (sound bombs) are thrown at these women, at close range.

Medea Benjamin, after she was arrested.

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From Libya to Bahrain to Syria: Anthony Shadid on Conflict, Protest, and Humanity

Anthony Shadid has died on assignment for The New York Times in eastern Syria.

Shadid was one of the international correspondents whom we most admired. In November, we posted a report from his previous undercover travels in Syria, "The Spectre of Civil War in Homs". In September, he had analysed, "Ankara Offers Itself as the Answer in the Middle East". And in October, he had interviewed people in Sitra in Bahrain --- including an EA correspondent to offer their thoughts, "We Are Still Here. We Are Demanding. We Exist."

This was Shadid's last despatch, "Libya Struggles to Curb Militias as Chaos Grows", published by The Times on 8 February:

As the militiamen saw it, they had the best of intentions. They assaulted another militia at a seaside base here this week to rescue a woman who had been abducted. When the guns fell silent, briefly, the scene that unfolded felt as chaotic as Libya’s revolution these days — a government whose authority extends no further than its offices, militias whose swagger comes from guns far too plentiful and residents whose patience fades with every volley of gunfire that cracks at night.

The woman was soon freed. The base was theirs. And the plunder began.

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Syria Feature: The Spectre of Civil War in Homs (Shadid)

An anti-regime demonstration in the Qosour section of Homs last night

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A harrowing sectarian war has spread across the Syrian city of Homs this month, with supporters and opponents of the government blamed for beheadings, rival gangs carrying out tit-for-tat kidnappings, minorities fleeing for their native villages, and taxi drivers too fearful of drive-by shootings to ply the streets.

As it descends into sectarian hatred, Homs has emerged as a chilling window on what civil war in Syria could look like, just as some of Syria’s closest allies say the country appears to be heading in that direction.

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Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Noticing Homs

People run for shelter from gunfire in Homs in Syria on Monday

See also Middle East Video: From Media Battle in Syria to Imprisoned Egyptian Blogger to Video Games
Monday's Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Open Protest, Open Repression

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2120 GMT: Back from an academic break to find this footage of people protesting in Barzeh outside the Syrian capital Damascus:

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Syria Special: The Assad Regime's PR Campaign with British Journalists

Andrew Gilligan of The Daily Telegraph talks about his interview with Syria's President Assad

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Amidst the continuing violence in Syria, with more than 60 people reportedly killed in the last 48 hours, we note a move by the Assad regime on the public-relations front.

Access by foreign journalists has been restricted since the uprising began in Syria, with those who do get in, save exceptions such as Nir Rosen and Anthony Shadid, closely monitored by government officials. This does not guarantee presentation of the regime line --- the recent despatch by Liz Sly in The Washington Post, mentioned in EA this week, is highly recommended --- but it does restrict coverage of the protests, clashes, and military operations.

However, President Assad and his advisors have apparently decided this is not enough, as tensions and casualties escalate in cities such as Homs and Hama. In what is far more than a coincidence, they have set out their case to two British journalists, Robert Fisk of The Independent and Andrew Gilligan of The Daily Telegraph.

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Turkey Feature: Ankara Offers Itself as the Answer in the Middle East (Shadid)

President Erdoğan at UN, 22 Sept 2011 No one is ready to declare a Pax Turkana in the Middle East, and indeed, its foreign policy is strewn this year with missteps, crises and gains that feel largely rhetorical. It even lacks enough diplomats. But in an Arab world where the United States seems in retreat, Europe ineffectual and powers like Israel and Iran unsettled and unsure, officials of an assertive, occasionally brash Turkey have offered a vision for what may emerge from turmoil across two continents that has upended decades of assumptions.

Not unexpectedly, the vision’s center is Turkey.

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Syria Diary: Return to Aleppo "The Opposite of Silence" (Hanano)

This summer, I was able to completely shed previous beliefs that had been slowly unraveling for years. Growing up in Syria, you learn to keep your eyes down when you walk in the street to avoid the catcalls, lewd remarks, and hissing that every girl is subjected to by men and boys. Keep your eyes down, your ears shut, and ignore. But after becoming old enough that I could care less (or perhaps should care more) about these harmless yet annoying practices, I began not only looking up but straight into the eyes of these men on the street. I saw them for the first time, there was pure pain in their idle desperation; they were doomed in the graveyard of dreams. Now, I watched them everyday on my laptop screen. Their painful beauty is unparalleled; they are driven by their conscience, driven by their belief in death before humiliation.

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Syria 1st-Hand: Debating the Future in Homs (Shadid)

Clock Square in Homs, 15 May 2011Syria is awash in such stories of solidarity these days, bridging traditional divides that have colored the country’s politics for generations. But far from disappearing, the old divisions of geography, class and, in particular, religious sect are deepening.

Syrians offer different explanations. Protesters blame the cynical manipulation of a government bent on divide and rule, and the government points to Islamist zealots seeking to impose a tyranny of the majority.

Which prevails — new loyalties born of revolution, or old rivalries entrenched in smaller identities — may decide the fate of Syria’s four-month revolt.

Colliding along the front lines of the uprising, and especially here in Homs, these forces suggest a grim reality of the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad: the longer his government remains in power, the less chance Syria has to avoid civil strife, sectarian cleansing and the kind of communal violence that killed at least two dozen people in Homs last week. Unlike in Egypt, and despite the protesters’ hope and optimism, time is not necessarily on their side, a point that some of them admit.

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