History in the Making

Quite literally.

For those of you who may not follow Middle Eastern/African news very much, there is a lot going on. A lot. I mean, there's always a lot going on, but right now there are so many significant changes happening, the region is transitioning into a new period of its history.

For starters, Tunisia.  In a very simplified nutshell, the Tunisian people took to the streets and forced their president/dictator Ben Ali to leave this past Friday. The new "unity government" is now having troubles of its own, and the next few months are going to be a very interesting time for Tunisia. (Click here for a quick synopsis.)

How interesting for Tunisia! You might say. But it's not Vegas, what happens in Tunisia does not stay in Tunisia... The entire Middle East/North Africa region is being affected by this.  Seeing the Tunisian people overthrow their dictator makes others want to force out their own. The political atmosphere is very tense in the MENA region right now.  Word on the street is that Egyptians are planning their own demonstrations and protests against the government next week Tuesday, on their national holiday Police Day. (Don't worry - our program has basically ordered us to stay in our apartments, and I am already planning on cooking all day.) I've already seen riot police in Mesaha Square, because any crowd now is seen as potentially volatile. A string of self-immolations-as-protest has started in Egypt, Algeria, and other countries, copying what was done in Tunisia. (Click here to see more about it.)

But the haps in the Middle East doesn't stop there. The Sudan is going through a major transition right now - polls just closed on the referendum of southern secession. Should everything go according to plan with the vote, southern Sudan could be an independent country by July of this year. The votes are on their way to Khartoum right now where they will be counted soon, insha'allah. (Al-Jazeera's take on it is here.)

Lebanon also. Hariri's coalition government collapsed and the government is up in the air. It's kind of interesting that even though this is recent and important, there are so many more recent and important events happening that it's been pushed to the side on most news sites. There is an interesting article on it here though. I admit I don't know much about it.

And then as I was planning on writing this article and signed on to google news, I find out that an hour ago, southwestern Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan, there was a 7.2 magnitude earthquake (some say 7.4, so I'm not sure yet, seeing as it only happened one hour ago...). There were no casualties reported in initial news stories, but I'm sure by tomorrow we'll know more. Considering the earthquake there that caused so much damage in 2005 was 7.6.... I think it's very possible that this caused some major damage.

The second article that was headlining on google news was that there was another suicide bombing in Iraq that killed over 60 Iraqis that were in line for a job with the police there. According to Al-Jazeera, "It's the deadliest such strike since the nation's new government was formed."


Moral of the story is, keep watching the news, listen to NPR and what they have to say about it, read Al-Jazeera English online, and keep in mind that all of these things will in some direct or indirect way affect me while I am in Cairo!