Arab Unrest

From the Arab Spring to the current demonstrations in Hong Kong, much has been said about the power of youth movements and the impact of social media on political development in countries like Cambodia where freedom of speech, assembly, and association is often restricted.

In Asia editor Alma Freeman recently caught up with author and social media expert Beth Kanter after a talk held at The Asia Foundation’s headquarters, organized by the Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy. Named one of the most influential women in technology by Fast Company

Last week, Asia Foundation trustee and Stimson Center president Ellen Laipson joined veteran journalist Robin Wright in a discussion moderated by new Asia Foundation executive vice president, Suzanne Siskel, on “After the Arab Spring: Prospects for Change.” The panel was part of the World Affairs Council’s annual 2-day conference in San Francisco.

On March 30, Asia Foundation trustee and Stimson Center president Ellen Laipson will join veteran journalist Robin Wright in a discussion moderated by new Asia Foundation EVP, Suzanne Siskel, on “After the Arab Spring: Prospects for Change.” The panel is part of the World Affairs Council’s annual 2-day conference in San Francisco, and will examine… Read more

President Obama’s May 19 speech about change in the Middle East raises some important and enduring conundrums about politics and identity that apply to Asia as well as the Middle East. The U.S. wants to be on the right side of history, and has newly embraced the demand for reform…

Over the last months, the world has watched as uprisings and revolutions have spread across the streets and squares of the Arab world. In Egypt, entire families – mothers, wives, daughters, grandmothers, showed remarkable courage in standing shoulder-to-shoulder with their brothers, sons, and fathers…

Many observers both inside and outside China have come to perceive the country’s political system as remarkably resilient. Sustained economic growth, greater political responsiveness, and considerable public satisfaction with the status quo have seemingly created a high degree of political stability.

“Bin Laden Dead: Muslim World Reacts,” announced ABC-TV. An Afghan rickshaw driver likened him to “a hero in the Muslim world” Far from a hero, said a Pakistani professor, “he was a problem for the whole Muslim world.” “For the Muslim world,” his death was like the lifting of a curse, wrote the Islamic Society of North America.

Much has already been said about the parallels between Indonesia’s transition to democracy in the late 1990s, and protests in Egypt that led to the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in February. Both are large, Muslim-majority countries, ruled for approximately three decades by authoritarian leaders…

Journalist David Ignatius recently wrote on Foreign Policy’s website that the “Arab Spring” may be part of a “global political awakening,” a concept he borrows from former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Wael Ghonim is the 30-year-old Google marketing manager in Egypt who received considerable attention for his role in this year’s popular uprising in Egypt. At a recent TED conference, he reflected, “No one in Egypt was a hero; everyone was a hero; everyone contributed something.”

As uprisings continue across North Africa and the Middle East, Asia Foundation President David D. Arnold will speak on May 4 at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, examining what the “Arab Spring” might mean for Asia. As a governance specialist whose international career has spanned Arab and Asian societies, Mr. Arnold wi… Read more

“Revolution is in the air … and there are thousands of people demanding their universal human rights. …We are witnessing attempts to suppress the aspirations of the people and this lends an urgency to this year’s event,

While the events of the past weekend have shifted the world’s attention to Libya, there are clearly reverberations for North Korea, especially given that Muammar Qadhafi pursued, then gave up in 2003, a nuclear weapons capability as part of what seemed then like a step toward normalcy with the rest of the world. Qadhafi’s strategic decision to give up Libya’s nuclear program in return for rapprochement with the United States was held up to North Koreans as a model for pursuing diplomatic normalization with the United States.

Many are wondering what lessons the 1986 People Power Revolution in the Philippines, which ousted Ferdinand Marcos after 14 years of strongman rule (which followed two terms as elected president), might hold for the current “fourth wave” of democratization sweeping through North Africa and the Middle East.

As the world watched in wonder the phenomenal events in Egypt over the past weeks, a few solitary voices were already urging analysts and policymakers to look not toward Iran, but rather toward Indonesia for historical precedent that might help us make sense of what’s happening, and importantly, what might be to come. The Carnegie Endowment’s Thomas Carothers, in The New Republic, reminded readers that in Indonesia, in 1998, a dictator of 32 years, firmly backed by the U.S., toppled in the face of a student-led popular movement – amid similar fears that extremist forces would fill the power void.