How do you form a civil society?

There are some changes to be made in this blogging format.  Now that I am familiar with the blogging process, I am going to adjust my use of this outlet so that it is more informative for my readers.

The first change is that this blog will be used to document my Moroccan cultural observations and experiences.  I will also be creating a second blog which will document the interlinguistic phenomenon which I encounter as an active linguist in the field.  I have found that the new world of Arabic and Islamic studies presents a vast world of verbal, written, and gestured language which I feel is a learning experience for westerners.  If you can bare with my fluctuation here I am sure we will all benefit.

Today I want to point out an incredibly important revolution happening at this very moment in Tunisia.  I realize it is not exactly Moroccan culture, but the two countries are closely related in history, culture, and language.  As most of you know there have been many revolts in Tunisia across the past month.  As far as I know it is being covered in the the American press, but we all know how American media outlets tend to graze only on pop interest and rarely cover international news thoroughly.  Today I had the fortune of speaking with an American who lives in Tunisia and had just this morning fled the country in an evacuation effort through the American Embassy in Tunis.  I was made aware of facts which stunned me and I feel it is my duty to send smoke signals out to my friends and family.

To begin with, although the riots began from a demonstration on December 17th, they have been fueled since the global financial crisis began.  You see, this crisis did not just affect the middle class or those invested in wall street.  By the trickle down effects of the European market slide, the families of immigrants out of the Maghreb to France were unable to provide for their loved ones.  The lack of tourism and foreign support also aided in the crash of third world systems.  In Egypt there are millions of college graduates without jobs.  Prosperity across the middle east (except of course for Saudi Arabia) and the middle class are dwindling out of existence.  Thus, the region is ripe with agitation and rumors.  It doesn't hurt that many of the governments are in different shades of improvement.

Tom detailed for us the fear of living in a state of chaos and rioting where the police disappeared from the streets and he awoke to gunshots in the night.  He explained how on Saturday morning his neighbors flocked onto the street to form a makeshift militia of vigilantes against the rampant looters.  It reached a point where it was nearly impossible to tell who was "good" and who was "bad".  Both our guest and our professor expressed a notion that it takes extreme courage to return to ideology in a time like this, however they remain hopeful that Tunisia will not fall into an anarchic state.  They hope that a gradual reemergence of leadership will occur in the coming months.

I strongly encourage you to research this revolution.  It is poised on the idea that today's society cannot be squelched by a militia or an oppressive regime.  The government tried to shut down Facebook.  They failed.  They tried to shut down email accounts.  They failed.  They tried to cut off their revolutionaries.  They failed.  We live in an age where people will always have an outlet to express themselves until all the satellites are shot out of the sky and electricity is obsolete.  So I leave you with the question we were asked this afternoon: how do you form a civil society?