In this edition: major team news, our recent publications, our Bitcoin research, Ramy and Khalid's new artistic releases, and our event at RightsCon and an event in Oslo.
Below the paywall: our take on the DOGE controversy, and Musk/Trump's plans for the US state over the next 4 years...
Razan Saffour departs Kawaakibi Foundation
We extend our congratulations to our former Head of Communications Razan Saffour, who is now an advisor to the Syrian Foreign Minister and Communications and Media Director in the Foreign Ministry of the new Syrian government.
Helping to rebuild the capacities of a post-revolutionary state is a major undertaking, and Razan carries our hope and ambition to see a Syria which is independent, strong and free - a country which secures its citizens' dignity, holds human rights as sacrosanct, and provides its citizens the opportunity to heal and flourish.
Other News
We’re conducting research on financial obstacles and Bitcoin adoption by civil society in the MENA region. Our survey for regional activists and CSOs is available here - please help us to distribute it in your spaces.
We have a panel at the global digital rights conference RightsCon tomorrow, discussing how authoritarian disinformation affects MENA-based causes - if you’re in Taiwan, please join us!
We're also being hosted at Det Norske Teatret in Oslo on 6th March for an event titled Songs of Liberation, with Ramy Essam. After listening to his revolutionary protest music, there will be an after-talk with members of our team.
Insights
We have published a few commentary posts in the last few weeks. First, Iyad El-Baghdadi's detailed analysis of what the next few years will bring for Palestine, and the evolution of the Trump-Israel axis:
Iyad El-Baghdadi
Second, a republishing of our 2016 article on the dynamics behind rise of global populism - which dynamics have evolved, and which have stayed the same?
Iyad El-Baghdadi
Finally, Ahmed Gatnash on 16 years of Bitcoin, and what this technology means for human rights:
Ahmed Gatnash
Arts
Ramy Essam released a new song Ra7 Nelte2i (We Shall Meet Again) commemorating the 25th January Egyptian uprising. It's hauntingly beautiful, and the lyrics are by Galal Beheiry, who continues to languish in prison, where he has been held on national security charges for nearly 7 years in retaliation for his poetry.
If we part, we will meet again, even after a while
The people's conscience will return to the squares
The land’s rightful owners will reclaim what is theirs
Prison walls will no longer hold the captives
If we part, my love, we will meet again.
Khalid Albaih's sculpture was installed in South Africa. It's called parenthesis - a term to describe the period between the fall of a dictator and the rise of a new one.
The Zoom Out
Elon Musk’s DOGE is not about cutting costs
The "DOGE" project is really a concentrated assault on the administrative state. We know this because they explicitly said so. It's designed to dismantle established bureaucratic structures with a goal to create a state machinery that's more pliable and more directly under the control of the executive.
The Trump administration wants to dismantle an entire network of institutions which they believe supports and produces the American establishment. They’re going to place this network - including the civil service, the military, courts, nonprofits, think tanks, the media and universities - under a concentrated assault for the next 4 years, and want to so undermine it to the extent that it completely stops producing, funding or even ideologically legitimating the political establishment that want to destroy.
The following are quick notes on what we've observed, and what we're expecting to unfold: