Absher 1 Bradford Absher Instructor: Malcolm Campbell English 1103 17 September 2012 Topic Proposal Arab Spring versus

Silent Spring: How Technology Gives Voice Introduction/Overview The potential of social networking interests me with its positive and negative capacities; technology has the power to connect people globally like never before at the speed of light. I will be examining how social media has been used in Arab Spring uprisings. People in the Middle East have taken to the streets in protest of their government; this energy has been impacted by social networking. Additionally, people of the western world, such as Bradley Manning and Julian Assange, have used social networking as a tool for their own agendas. The call for democracy and the overthrow of governments in the Arab world have surfaced and proliferated through technological advancements. Since December 2010, when Mohamed Bouazizi sat himself on fire in protest of Tunisian bureaucracy, till present day Syrian civil war, sites like Twitter and Facebook have served as catalyst and connecting tools for uprisings and for global awareness. I familiarized myself with this topic by reading The Economist, The Washington Post, and online magazine Foreign Policy. This recent call for democracy, along with its propensity to give voice to the individual and collective masses, has met mixed reactions in both the middle-eastern and western worlds. An illustration of mixed reactions can be

Absher 2 shown in the comparison of uprisings in Bahrain and Syria. The US governments response to Bahrain was pro-government supportive but anti-governmental in Syria. While Bahrains protests were crushed by Saudi forces, supported militarily by the US, Syrias protests were condoned by the US as its government supports Free Syrian Army with non-lethal aid. Primarily, my understanding of this topic has been driven by self-interest as I have read about it since the beginning of the Arab Spring. However, I did take note, while in chemistry class as a junior in high school, of how my peers and I were affected by our limited knowledge of the Arab Spring. We would humorously yell Rebels! when our instructor disciplined our friends as in moving someone to another desk location in order to suppress their talkativeness. The complexity of my topic involves political, cultural, and religious entities from around the world. Entities such as Sunni terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, Shia terrorist groups like Hezbollah, western governments, protestors in the street (the common man), and the individual regimes fighting for their survival are all intertwined in a giant imperfect storm of change and censorship, or lack thereof. From the halls of the State department and the CIA to news channels such as CNN and Al Jazeera to the rebel bases in Syria an protest camps in Yemen, the conversations are endless in their varied opinions and perceptions. In response to the issue of censorship, Julian Assange, the editor and creator of WikiLeaks, says, Large newspapers are routinely censored by legal costs. It is time this stopped. It is time a country said, enough is enough, justice must be seen history must be preserved, and we will give shelter from the storm. Whether the consequences of their use bring about awareness or death, technological tools bring

Absher 3 individual and collective voices to the surface, and the impacting repercussions bring about change that is simultaneously destructive and enlightening. Initial Inquiry Question How may social media/networking serve the greater good by eradicating delusion; how may it rise above political, cultural, and religious ideologies to bring about global peace as opposed to global strife? My Interest in this Topic Im interested in international affairs because it seems to be a driving force as I make future plans for a career. I want a job whereat I may travel frequently and experience the news firsthand. I believe extreme ideology presents the main obstacle that holds civilization back from reaching a peaceful plateau in the history of humanity. I probably know more than the average person about this topic since Ive read many articles in The Economist, Time, and other internet publications, yet I am still intrigued and want to know more. What I hope to learn is whether the Arab Spring is really a force for secularization in the Middle East, or is it a force that is pushing the region back by giving the extremist Islamists more power for controlling society. Next Steps I will be visiting various news sites such as the Small Wars Journal and Globalpost for information and current details on the issues surrounding this topic. Also, I plan on using Reddit.com to network for contacts to provide me information of what it is like to actually be in one of the protests on the ground and additional information from their experiences in close proximity to actions and technological use in combative zones.