For the brave students of Sudan, the 30th of January was not a normal Sunday. It was a day that could enter history. Inspired by the Tunisian and Egyptian revolution, thousands of Sudanese students dreamt of their own version of a Facebook revolution.

For Sudan though, the story has its unique complications with a regime that managed to take dictatorships into a new low. The regime, which is a military dictatorship that has overthrown democracy since 1989 , has a long history of misbehavings: The civil war with the south and the Darfur conflict are much publicized in the Western media but some of the less publicized crimes include dragging thousands of teenagers into the frontlines of a civil war in the nineties, hosting Bin Laden and his Jihadis for several years in mid-nineties, and last but not least the so-called Ghosts Houses where thousands of students, professors and activists were regularly tortured and killed. The head of the regime – Omer Albasheer – is being prosecuted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, he’s the first head of state to be prosecuted while in power. For the president and his regime, sticking to power is inevitable. The brave Sudanese students are faced by one of the worst kind of dictatorships: a cornered one.

On January 30, the first attempt for protests was brutally confronted by security forces. A student was killed by security men wearing civil clothes, he’s not the first student to be killed during this 22 years dictatorship nor the last I am afraid. Hundreds were detained for days, some of them still missing and reported to be under continuous life-threatening torture. Several attempts to gather and reorganize the lines of protesters has been made, but the major obstacle was that the fight – admittedly – hasn’t caught much momentum outside of universities.

The turning point – though – might prove to be a young brave Sudanese girl called Safia Ishag. She is a fine arts student who was raped by 3 officers from the criminal National Security Bureau for her role in organizing the 30th of January protests. She bravely decided to confront the regime with its crime in an emotional video. Safia’s bravery managed to unite people behind her, for the first time, the students’ calls started to make it outside universities’ walls. Several groups decided to take on the streets starting the 4th of March and they are seeking new ways to organize their lines against the density and brutality of security forces.

So how can we help? Believe it or not, but a Facebook share or a Tweet could be enough. The regime – like any other dictatorship – thoroughly targets the youth’s confidence, they force media blackout in order to stop people from gaining the momentum, they’ve learned from other dictatorships’ mistakes. In North Africa’s revolutions, social media played a crucial role in giving the revolutionaries the confidence they need in their battle. Knowing that someone out there listens and sympathizes with your cause can have a magical effect.

So Tweet, Share and Tell your colleagues, friends and family about Safia and her brave friends. It’s the least we could do to honor those brave warriors.

In Egypt, you always hear a variation of this phrase: “Egypt is bigger than anything”, it doesn’t matter whether the context is as serious as regional politics or a mere football game. Egyptians truly believe and think that Egypt is bigger than anything. And this is the soul of what makes Egypt, Egypt.

Egypt – in my view – is a land of striking contrasts. Egypt, along with Ethiopia, are probably the only two countries in Africa that existed before the British and the French decided so. It is not just political borders drawn by colonialists as it is the case of most other countries. On the other hand, Egypt has not been ruled by an Egyptian for more than 3 millennium until Mohamed Naguib took power.

Egypt was the center of all political and social movement in the middle east in the past century. When Egypt embraced liberalism in the early century, the whole middle east went liberal. When it went anti-colonialist, the whole region followed. When it embraced pan-Arabism, the whole middle east was after Nassir. And when it went fundamentalist, the whole middle east went fundamentalist as well. Like it or not, it all starts in Egypt, for good or for worse. This is in contrast with an apparently very stagnant political life that – in recent history – has no mention of any revolutions, no coup d’etat and a huge number of divine leaders who ruled until death.
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Recently, I was looking for higher education opportunities around Europe when I was hit by this fact: If you’re not European, you have no chance.

Don’t get this wrong, I am not complaining about that. I wouldn’t expect a foreign country to give me what my own country didn’t. Like it or not, everything today is Money.

What hit me is that I always keep this thought at the back of my head, the thought that Europe is somehow different. I would expect to pay 20,000$ a year in the US but never in Europe. Why?

It’s about the  “Image” that Europe markets for itself. In computers’ terms, Europe is like Apple while USA is Microsoft.
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