muslim

"For the first time what we're seeing is people on the rise and they can no longer be ignored, by their own governments or by the United States," says Phyllis Bennis. And those people are saddened by the U.S.'s action against Osama Bin Laden, but more importantly are demanding that their voices be heard, not the voices of their dictators that the U.S. has relied on for so long. Phyllis checks in with us from Amman, Jordan, and tells us about the reaction of people there to Bin Laden's death. She also gives us the latest from Cairo, Egypt, where she was before traveling to Jordan.

"What we are seeing is nothing less than an Egyptian Tiananmen Square," says Khaled Fahmy of American University in Cairo. He watched today as bands of armed men descended on peaceful protesters in Cairo, heading for Tahrir Square. Some of the people, who Fahmy called "thugs" rode through crowds on horseback and camelback, trying to drive them back. Mubarak "has burned all his bridges with his people," Fahmy notes via phone from Cairo, and the violence today was a last gasp for the regime. "The one predictable thing about revolutions is that they are unpredictable," notes Benjamin Barber, fellow at Demos and author of Consumed and Jihad vs. McWorld. Barber points out that as revolution rocks the Arab world, each country will find its own solution and destiny. The important thing to note, he says, is that autocratic regimes hollow out their states' civil society, leaving little infrastructure in place for citizens to use to govern themselves. Benjamin joins Laura in studio to discuss the situation in Egypt and to update us on the conflict he wrote about in Jihad vs. McWorld years ago, between consumer capitalism and Islamism. Why can we picture no alternative to the two extremes, when revolution comes? "If Internet freedoms have to be secured with policy then as far as I'm concerned there are no Internet freedoms," says Douglas Rushkoff, author of Program or Be Programmed. He notes that what we've learned from the Internet shutoff in Egypt is that there is too much centralization on the Web, and when people like Joe Lieberman can call Amazon and knock WikiLeaks off their server or convince PayPal not to process their payments anymore, there's too much control. Doug joins us from his home via Skype to talk to us about the problems with the Internet we have, government control over it, and how we can create a 'Net they can't shut down. Distributed by Tubemogul.

Last fall, we spoke to a group of young hip-hop activists who were part of a groundbreaking trip to Palestine with Native American youth. The Narcicyst was one of those activists, and his new video is all about breaking borders. Created as a collaborative effort by 10 photographers from all over the world, the video shows the faces of people: DJs, MCs, poets, architects, teachers, doctors, parents and children.The song is "Hamdulillah" by The Narcicyst with Shadia Mansour, and the video was directed by Ridwan Adhami.

Mooz-lum is a new film, directed by Qasim 'Q' Basir and starring Evan Ross, Nia Long, Danny Glover, Roger Guenveur Smith, Summer Bishil and Dorian Missick. Focused on the story of a Muslim family living in the United States, it illuminates not only the usual coming-of-age issues, the struggle of parents and children to understand one another, but the unique struggle of a Muslim family to retain their identity in a country where fear and hatred for their religion is increasingly commonplace. Laura is joined in studio by Qasim Basir and actor Roger Guenveur Smith checks in via Skype to talk about the film, its intended audience, and what it's like dealing with the current political climate, where new angry anti-Muslim rhetoric seems to be around every turn.