DEARBORN — College campuses have always been bastions of free speech and open political discussions, and the University of Michigan-Dearborn’s College of Arts, Letters, and Sciences building was the site of one such event on Tuesday, Feb. 8 as the topic of recent uprisings in the Arab world was discussed.

UM-Dearborn professor and author Ron Stockton moderates a panel of professors from the university during the discussion on the recent Arab uprisings. From left to right are Hani Bawardi, Cam Amin, Michael Twomey, and Ara Sanjian. PHOTO: Nick Meyer/TAAN

A faculty forum titled “A new era? Or just a false start?” was held by the Arab Student Union, the Humanitarian Organization for Palestinian Equality, the Political Science Association, and Amnesty International at UM-D, with the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and the resulting “domino effect” as the focus.

Various aspects of the uprising were covered from a multitude of angles by five UM-Dearborn professors.

Communications professor Tim Kiska spoke about the novel aspects of journalism, including from citizens, during the revolutions.

“The use of bloggers and social media has been fascinating to watch, it’s kind of like if during the French Revolution, someone was tweeting from the Bastille,” he said.

Kiska showed a particular site he had been following called Nawaat.org which has posted numerous raw videos and reactions from the Tunisian revolution including tense scenes of clashes and graphic videos and pictures of protesters killed in the streets.

He also noted that many mainstream media outlets have joined in on the blogging craze.

“Before when you had asked me what I thought of bloggers I would have pictured some disaffected guy in his basement blogging about how he hates Obama, now you’ve got the New York Times sending a two-time Pulitzer winner like Nicholas Kristof to Cairo to blog.”

Tunisian blogger and activist Slim Amamou was another example of the power of social media leading the revolution according to Kiska. Amamou was imprisoned and tortured by the government but managed to use his computer skills to post a GPS link of his location to his tens of thousands of Twitter and Facebook followers, inspiring them in their fight. After being released on Jan. 17, 2011, he was appointed Secretary of State for Sport and Youth in the new government.

History professor Cam Amin also spoke about the Green Movement in Iran, especially in comparison to Egypt.

He said that the movement failed because of the state-led opposition; it was “unable to coerce or coax key state institutions to their side or find a crack in the political army to work with them,” he said.

In comparison, Egyptian protesters have garnered much sympathy on the streets from army officers and other important factions, making it much more successful.

Other speakers at the event included Hani Bawardi, a history professor and scholar of Arab American history who gave his perspective talking about the resurgence of Arab pride in relation to the events in Egypt that he said hasn’t been seen since the days of Gamal Abdel-Nasser. He added that there had been a general sense of malaise, deep frustration, and hopelessness surrounding the continued siege and occupation of Palestine by Israel before recent uprisings gave hope back to the people in the region.

Also speaking was Michael Twomey, an Economics professor who gave his subject’s perspective on events in the Middle East.

UM-Dearborn Political Science professor Ron Stockton moderated the event and also spoke. He said the discussion was a productive one in line with the professors’ duty as educators.

“This was a great event, the students were very engaged and it was very informative,” he said.

“This is the kind of thing academics should be doing to help university students understand complex issues by bringing their expertise to the public…we have some good, knowledgeable people here with different perspectives.”

Kristen Braun was among the students who agreed and enjoyed the informative nature of the event.  She became interested in the politics of the region after taking an Arabic language class at Schoolcraft College before transferring.

“Being from a conservative American background and getting the normal media perspective and particularly always getting one side of things, especially from a pro-Israel point-of-view, it’s good to hear different perspectives,” she said.

“After studying with Hani Bawardi and Ron Stockton, my views have changed on the Middle East in quite a few ways,” she said.