Sunday, December 25, 2011

NotOccupyButWhereThen?

A. "Every day the inhabitants seemed more worn down by the monotonous ritual of ... life: the faded clothing strung along tent-wires to dry; the queues at the feeding tents. ... they gathered around, wrapped in synthetic, flower-patterned blankets that had been handed out by ... volunteers."

(Tunisia-Libya border) from "Flee" by Nadia Shira Cohen, Granta #116 "Ten Years Later"

B. "While ... have a vocational sense of mission, there are perfectly ordinary people in (Obama's America) who find themselves wandering into a life of activism, as if by accident.

... 'Whom can I turn to? The state authorities would not help me. I felt I could only count on people, and so I made a video address and put it up online. ... And we gained even more support. ...'

... she had no illusions about the fate of the (movement). ... Fortunes would (still) be made. The real importance of the movement was its very existence and what it represented. 'Civil society is very young,' she said. 'The ... movement has united people of different kinds to stand up for their rights. That influences other movements and other people.' "

Resistance to Putin, The Civil Archipelago, by David Remnick, The New Yorker, Dec 19 and 26, 2011.

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