Inspired by Mideast Youth

I recently came across a very interesting, informative, and inspiring website (thanks to my aunt and my sister sharing links on facebook). MideastYouth.com is a youth-run website created by Esra’a Al Shafei which is a grassroots network and platform for people in the Middle East and North Africa to discuss the struggle against oppression and serve as an alternative media. In an interview on TED.com, Esra'a Al Shafei explains that she began this MideastYouth.com in 2006. "At that time I was really just exploring how to use the Internet. I realized right away that it was going to be the tool, the weapon, with which we can advocate for change." (This makes me think of the inspiring youtube call to action that started the protests in Egypt). The authors are from many places, including Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Kurdistan, Libya, Jordan, Syria, Palestine, Israel, Pakistan, Tunisia, and Morocco. Their message is peace, solidarity, tolerance, and freedom from oppression. "Listen to us now, because soon ours will be the generation in charge."


MideastYouth.com covers a variety of topics that we do not hear about in the mainstream media. I am certain that I will spend many, many hours on this website and the many offshoots of this website. It discusses the Arab Revolution, the desire for peaceful coexistence between Palestine and Israel, homophobia in Middle Eastern and African countries, ignorance, extremism, and so many other topics. Okay, so I'm linking a lot. That's because I want you to really check out this website! Those are just some examples.

There are many projects stemming from MideastYouth.com. I will highlight a few. CrowdVoice is a user-powered service that tracks voices of protest from around the world. Apparently it has been censored in Bahrain, but it has documented many of the recent people uprisings. I was unaware until I came across BahaiRights.org that in many countries people of the Baha'i faith are denied human rights, as basic as the right to live. KurdishRights.org focuses on the need for basic human rights of Kurds, the uprisings in the Middle East, and preventing further genocide of Kurds in the Middle East. FreeKareem.org is focused on pressuring officials to free Kareem Amer, an Egyptian blogger who has been sentenced to 4 years in prison merely for expressing his opinions on his personal blog. There is MigrantRights.org, Israelis for Palestine, and many more. A new website they have started is Ahwaa.org. It is a place for discussion within the LGBTQ community in the Middle East and North Africa. This is a topic that is not only taboo in many places in the Middle East and Africa, where in many countries homosexuality is illegal and sometimes punishable by death, but it is also a topic that has been ignored by mainstream media (I'm talking BBC, NPR, Al Jazeera, and so on).

Here is a fun one: MideastTunes.com. It supports underground activist musicians in the Middle East! Here are a few interesting songs I found...

History of Mother's Day: Mother's Day for Peace!

Did you know that Mother's Day began as a Mother's Day for Peace? Read Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclomation here:
Arise, Then, All Women Who Have Hearts! | Common Dreams
This article points out that Americans spend $14 billion on flowers, chocolates, and trinkets for Mother's Day. Oh, capitalism. The Common Dreams article by Abby Zimet provides some alternative ideas of where to put your money--organizations that help mothers around the world. More on that here: www.mothersdaymovement.org.

In 1870, Julia Ward Howe published the Mother's Day Proclamation, a manifesto against the the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. Julia Ward Howe believed that women have a responsibility to shape our societies at the political level. Her manifesto called for an international congress of women:

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.


Here is a beautiful prayer calling on the spirit of Julia Ward Howe in this time of war.  
...Mother Julia, remind us
that every life has inherent worth,
that each person had a mother somewhere.
Help us to use this moment for self-reflection,
that we might grow and evolve...


Left is a photograph of Jane Addams and another woman upholding Julia Ward Howe's vision of Mother's Day for Peace.

Here is an article from National Geographic on Anna Jarvis, Julia Ward Howe, and the history of mother's day.


This tradition still carries on in some communities. Yesterday in Dorchester, Massachusetts, thousands joined in the Mother's Day Walk for Peace.

CodePink calls for the U.S. to pull out of Afghanistan (here is their petition to the president) and provide their modern interpretation of Julia Ward Howe's proclamation.

Another Mother for Peace was founded in 1967 in opposition to the Vietnam War. Here is their proclomation, A Pax Materna:

I join with my sisters in every land

In the Pax Materna--

A permanent declaration of peace

That transcends our ideological differences.

In the nuclear shadow, war is obsolete.

I will no longer suffer it in silence

Nor sustain it by complicity.

They shall not send my son

To fight another mother's son.

For now, forever, there is no mother

Who is enemy to another mother.

 Gloria Steinem, Vanessa Williams, Felicity Huffman, Fatma Saleh, Alfre Woodard, Ashraf Salimian, Christine Lahti and Mother's Day for Peace talk about the origin of Mother's Day by Julia Ward Howe as a protest against war. www.mothersdayforpeace.com

Disarm, Disarm! 

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