TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2011
WWW.KANSAN.COM
VOLUME 123 ISSUE 94
WORLD
Egypt's revolution fueled by the 'kids'
BY ALEX GARRISON agarrison@kansan.com
This is not a tremor, it's an earthquake. This is not "just" a movement, or "just" a popular uprising. It's a revolution, and it's world history, made by the young.
That's the view of Mohamed El-Hoderi, professor of economics, who was born in Egypt long before this revolution, in 1937. El-Hoderi spoke to about 50 students, faculty and Lawrencians Monday night at the Lawrence Public Library, competing, he admitted, with both Valentine's Day and the men's basketball game against Kansas State. But the audience was attentive, spending more than an hour asking questions, fascinated by the revolution — the 18 days of protest in Egypt that ended 30 years of rule by the now-former President Hosni Mubarak, who stepped down Feb. 11.
The event was organized in just a few days by El-Hoderi, Josh Anderson, a senior from Perry, and Marwa Ghazali, a doctoral candidate with family in Egypt. Ghazali said she planned to organize another similar event, this time on campus, in the coming week. El-Hoderi's Monday night question and answer session was, perhaps fittingly, publicized only through e-mail and social media.
"We knew we had to act fast, if we missed out on the interest in the revolution, we'd regret it," Ghazali said.
El-Hoderi spoke energetically, proudly even, of "the kids" — the thousands who flooded Cairo's Tahrir Square with the aim of removing Mubarak from power beginning Jan. 25. This revolution
he said, is historic in that its participants bridged sociological divides such as class and religion. But it was "the kids," he said, who sparked the dramatic organization of the past few weeks. It was "the kids" who represented the sentiment of 82 million people from "every corner of Egypt," but who were socially and technologically connected enough to "spark the kindling."
"This wasn't out-of-the-blue," he said, "but the kids, what they did to start this was they killed the fear."
And they organized.
"This is the Facebook revolution," El-Hoderi said. The status quo was taken down by thousands of protesters — and perhaps millions upon millions of Facebook statuses and tweets.
The cheap availability of the internet as a tool for organization is reverberating across North Africa and the Middle East, El-Hoderi said, and after such highly-seen protests in Egypt and in Tunsia, with more cropping up in Iran, Bahrain and Yemen, only more will come.
"It's a medium you cannot shut down, once information goes viral, change happens," he said.
Chris Bronson/KANSAN
Robert Halloran, a sophomore from Lawrence, said recent events in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East were interesting to college students thousands of miles away partially because of this connection to the "youth movement" that's leading the charge. But Halloran, who studies Arabic and the politics of North Africa, said even he was surprised by one thing El-Hoderi mentioned the idea of "an American ethos of the anti-Muba-
- the idea of "an American ethos of democracy" within the anti-Mubarak movement.
KU faculty member of the Center for Global and International Studies, Mohamed E-Hoderi, lectures on the issues in Egypt Tuesday night at the Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vermont.
"Here's 82 million people who want to see what they see in the
El-Hoderi, who has lived in many places across the world and visits Egypt once per year, spoke of huge economic concerns now facing the country and the worries that the military, which has now taken power, will keep its promises. But, he said, the movement is still powerful and, despite what he says many in the media say, powerfully democratic.
blew me away."
"It's not an Islamic revolution, it's a people's revolution from some people who respect Islam," he said. "People stood up and said, 'I want to determine my future.'"
Edited by Tali David
NO PARKING HERE
BY MAX LUSH mlush@kansan.com
Last fall, mo-ped drivers had to adjust their routes to class after they were no longer allowed to park in the bike racks on campus. This spring they will have to adjust once more.
The KU Parking Department will remove various mo-ped parking stalls that often go unused throughout the school week. Mo-ped stalls were created last year by splitting parking spots into two separate spots.
Donna Hultine, director of parking and transit, said in an e-mail that the department first noticed in November that the stalls in lot 90, west of the Ambler Student Recreation Fitness Center and Lot 72, in front of the Burge Union were never used and then removed to make more space for cars.
Hultine said for the most part that she has heard little reaction from the moe-pe community.
Initially, the department created 262 mo-ped stalls out of 112 car parking spaces and once the reduction is finished, 56 car parking spaces will be recreated.
For the 113 students like Daniel Goldschmidt, a senior from New Hope, Minn., who bought mo-ped parking permits this year, all the changes are frustrating.
"I was disappointed, I feel like we (mo-ped drivers) are a lot like bicycles and they can do pretty much whatever they want," Goldschmidt said of last fall's changes.
Goldschmidt admits that a lot of mo-ped parking stalls go unused on campus, however, one spot selected for removal will affect his schedule.
"As a music therapy major, I spend a lot of my time in
Murphy Hall and they are getting rid of a spot next to the Military Science Building (east of Murphy Hall),"Goldschmidt said. "Now I will have to find a new place to park."
Hultine said students who drive cars were the most vocal about problems with parking.
"Some folks complained about lot 90 because it was a shaded area and they liked to park their cars there," Hultine said. "Others in different areas complained in general because we removed car stalls."
Though many mo-ped spots were being removed, Hultine said, the department does listen to where mo-ped drivers want to park.
"We've had requests to add mo-ped parking in the scholarship hall area, on west campus, and near Learned Hall so we'll be looking for locations to add some back." Hultine said.
Check Kansan.com for information on where the changes are taking place.
Edited by Tali David
NUMBER OF MO-PED PARKING SPOTS
INDEX
Classifieds...
^A
Crossword...4A
Cryptoquips . . . . 4A
Opinion. . . . . 5A
Sports. . . . . . .
Mostly Sunny
WEDNESDAY
THURSDAY
72 36
Partly Cloudy
The case of the missing cat
LAWRENCE | 3A
All contents, unless stated otherwise, © 2011 The University Daily Kansan
A bobcat carcass seen on Bob Billings is now missing.
ADMINISTRATION
Policy lengthens GTA time limit
BY ANGELIQUE MCNAUGHTON
amcnaughton@kansan.com
For years,graduate students put serious pressure on the administration to change the policy determining the length of time a
student may serve as a graduate teaching assistant. Jake Rapp, a doctoral student from Lawrence, said the previous policy hindered students that completed both their master's and doctorate degrees at the University.
The original policy put a 10-semester limit on the time a
student could serve as a GTA
激
In an effort to fix that problem, University officials recently approved an update to the policy allowing a 12-semester limit on GTA appointments.
SEE GTA ON PAGE 3A