Yansoon

by Mohammad Talat

Last February 5^th, I helped organize a march and rally in San Francisco in support of the popular uprisings in the Arab world with a focus on Tunisia and Egypt. Some 8,000 people turned out from across the Bay Area, Santa Cruz, and Sacramento. Three weeks later, I helped organize another march and rally in San Francisco with a focus on Libya, which was facing much greater repression at the time. Hardly 1,000 turned out, mostly Bay Area Arabs. The bulk of organizing for both days of action came from progressive Bay Area individuals and organizations. Aside from fatigue and relatively shorter notice, why did the turnout ebb so much, and what does a quick comparison say about the universality of human values within the American anti-war left?

The first march took place after Ben Ali had left Tunisia and the interim government he’d left in place was teetering under the sustained pressure of mass protests; the Mubarak regime was collapsing as its use of violence against the pro-democracy movement had backfired, the Egyptian army was on the street and had clearly indicated that it was not going to fire on its own people; Yemen, Bahrain, and Algeria were witnessing the beginnings of uprising as well. Libya and the other Arab countries were calm.

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