I was reading my daily blogs this morning when I came across a brilliant illustration by Maya Zankoul describing alternatives to using Skype in Lebanon in the case the government bans it there, but that’s not gonna happen.
In a massive online and offline civil society movement that began exactly a week ago, some leading technology blogs started promoting a call to “stop the new internet law in Lebanon” which included clauses such as banning all VoIP (Voice over IP) services.
The list is very long where this is happening in the Middle East, starting from Morocco in the far West, to Oman in the far East and we’ve covered a lot of it. But we haven’t covered a situation where the people have actually been able to make a difference, Lebanon begs to differ.
Apparently in less than a week of the initiative the online citizens of Lebanon were able to stop putting the law into implementation for a month. The law has been sent back to the committee for revision and will be voted on in 30 days, enter opportunity.
If this law is changed to what the Lebanese people can work with, they will have set the bar for the rest of the region, proving with the right action, anything can be accomplished.
Can the Lebanese Do What No Arab Has Done Before?
Yes We Can !
;)
You also haven’t mentioned strong behind-the-scene activism where we sent emails and letters to political parties, MPs and local concil members, increasing their awareness of an issue they knew little about. We also convinced them that voting against this law is a political winner for their parties (in the emails, we included links to all the relevant blog posts, facebook pages and Twitter streams)
Thanks for the info Mustafapha. I can only cover so much of the efforts been made, that’s why I slipped in some links for people to followup on. But it’s great to hear them in the comments nevertheless. Keep up the good work, can’t wait to hear more about the results.