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  Srđa Popović, jedan od osnivača "Otpora", našao se na listi 100 "Globalnih mislilaca" magazina "Forin polisi", zbog angažovanja u "Arapskom proleću". To je priznanje srpskoj nenasilnoj revoluciji kao brendu, ocenjuje Popović. Jedan od najuglednih američkih spoljnopolitičkih magazina, Forin polisi treću godinu za redom objavljuje listu takozvanih "Globalnih mislilaca", ljudi koji su svojim idejama ili radom doprineli promenama u svetu. Ove godine, na listi se našao i jedan od osnivača pokreta "Otpor" u Srbiji, Srđa Popović.

VAŠINGTON - Izvršni direktor Centra za primenjenu nenasilnu akciju (CANVAS) Srđa Popović, koji se našao u vrhu liste 100 globalnih mislilaca čije ideje utiču na svetsku javnu i društvenu scenu, jedan je od osnivača "Otpora" koji je u Srbiji 1998. godine započeo kao studentski pokret. Popović je, zajedno sa Slobodanom Đinovićem, takođe iz grupe CANVAS, krajem prošle godine dobio i prestižnu nagradu za ljudska prava i demokratiju, danskog fonda "Paul Lauricen", za "doprinos demokratiji i njenu promociju širom sveta.

 

Early in 2008, workers at a government-owned textile factory in the Egyptian mill town of El-Mahalla el-Kubra announced that they were going on strike on the first Sunday in April to protest high food prices and low wages. They caught the attention of a group of tech-savvy young people an hour's drive to the south in the capital city of Cairo, who started a Facebook group to organize protests and strikes on April 6 throughout Egypt in solidarity with the mill workers. To their shock, the page quickly acquired some 70,000 followers. But what worked so smoothly online proved much more difficult on the street. Police occupied the factory in Mahalla and headed off the strike. The demonstrations there turned violent: Protesters set fire to buildings, and police started shooting, killing at least two people. The solidarity protests around Egypt, meanwhile, fizzled out, in most places blocked by police. The Facebook organizers had never agreed on tactics, whether Egyptians should stay home or fill the streets in protest. People knew they wanted to do something. But no one had a clear idea of what that something was.

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) -- It was carried through the streets of Cairo during the revolution that ousted president Hosni Mubarak: a black flag emblazoned with a clenched white fist.The symbol of resistance originated in the most unlikely of places for an Arab uprising - the Serbian pro-democracy movement that overthrew dictator Slobodan Milosevic.The peaceful sometimes fun-loving tactics of the Balkan student revolutionaries were so successful that they opened up shop mentoring other protest movements in eastern Europe, plotting strategy for successful uprisings in Georgia and Ukraine.

Cairo:  As protesters in Tahrir Square faced off against pro-government forces, they drew a lesson from their counterparts in Tunisia: "Advice to the youth of Egypt: Put vinegar or onion under your scarf for tear gas."The exchange on Facebook was part of a remarkable two-year collaboration that has given birth to a new force in the Arab world -- a pan-Arab youth movement dedicated to spreading democracy in a region without it. Young Egyptian and Tunisian activists brainstormed on the use of technology to evade surveillance, commiserated about torture and traded practical tips on how to stand up to rubber bullets and organize barricades.

Sudanese police have beaten and arrested students as protests broke out throughout Khartoum demanding the government resign, inspired by a popular uprising in neighbouring Egypt.Hundreds of armed riot police on Sunday broke up groups of young Sudanese demonstrating in central Khartoum and surrounded the entrances of four universities in the capital, firing teargas and beating students at three of them. Police beat students with batons as they chanted anti-government slogans such as "we are ready to die for Sudan" and "revolution, revolution until victory". There were further protests in North Kordofan capital el-Obeid in Sudan's west, where around 500 protesters engulfed the market before police used tear gas to disperse them, three witnesses said."They were shouting against the government and demanding change," said witness Ahmed who declined to give his full name.

Egyptian authorities have blocked internet and mobile services in a bid to quell anti-government protests, but the measures may have come a bit too late. Activists spread the word online about Friday's protests, detailing the list of public squares where people should gather.Calls for action circulated on Twitter and Facebook since early on Friday morning.Twitter user rassdwda wrote: "#Egypt protests begin from mosques & churches, #Muslims #Christians 2gether#Jan25".Another user named eacusa tweeted: "#Jan25 #Egypt Good news, morale in Cairo still high, veteran activists from 60s & 70s r spreading knowledge of predigital ways 2 coordinate."

Patience is a virtue – maybe even the supreme one in Egypt's popular hierarchy of values, but patience also has its limits and, now, at last, it seems as if we've arrived at ours. And fittingly, it's the young of the country who are leading us. They've had enough of unemployment, deteriorating education, corruption, police brutality and political impotence.As is now well known, they organised Tuesday's protests over Facebook and in closed virtual and actual meetings. Talk about grassroots! "They" is some 20 groups that have sprung up over the last five years. The question has always been how and when will they coalesce? They did on Tuesday; they fused, and with them multitudes of Egyptians young and old – inspired by what happened in Tunis.

The internet has galvanised dissidents, but the key events that fuelled the uprising happened offline Middle-class, urban, web-savvy – the archetypal media image of the young protesters who have shaken Egypt's dictatorship this week captures only part of the reality.This generation of dissidents, most of whom have lived their entire lives under the three-decade rule of President Hosni Mubarak, have rejected the moribund landscape of formal politics that has ensnared many of their liberal elders since Nasser's 1952 revolution.

Anonymous flyers provide practical and tactical advice for confronting riot police, and besieging government offices Egyptians have been urged to come out after Friday prayers tomorrow and demand the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak's government, along with freedom, justice and a democratic regime.Anonymous leaflets circulating in Cairo also provide practical and tactical advice for mass demonstrations, confronting riot police, and besieging and taking control of government offices. Signed "long live Egypt", the slickly produced 26-page document calls on demonstrators to begin with peaceful protests, carrying roses but no banners, and march on official buildings while persuading policemen and soldiers to join their ranks.