My mom is a hero!

Late last night, i noticed many of my friends had changed their profile picture to their mom for Mother's Day, and I decided to do the same. I went through my Facebook albums to find a great picture, confident that there would be lots to choose from. My mom has, after all, been there through so many things. But somehow, between not living in Halifax in since fb combined with my generally adventure-oriented albums, I realized - to my surprise - that I have few recent pictures of my mom and dad up there.There is no good reason for this and I intend to change that.

One of the pictures I did find - the one I posted - was from when mom and her sister visited me in NYC in 2009 for a fabulous adventure shopping, exploring the city by foot and visiting the US Airways plane that had just ditched into the Hudson. Another was from France when, despite being in a wheelchair, she joined us for the commemoration celebration of our great-uncle who died during the war. She was a real trooper.

But this isn't about where we have been or the adventures we have had. It is about what a wonderful person and mother she is. She is a best friend to me and a guardian angel to more people than I can count. When new families would move to our neighborhood where we grew up, she would be one of the first people to welcome them and to help them settle in. On Christmas eve for years, she would take me with her to secretly drop off presents to a family that couldn't afford to buy presents. They never found it was her. She went above and beyond the call of duty in caring for her brother Donald, a diabetic who smoked and drank his way to several heart attacks and even more strokes. She was there to support her close friends when their marriages ended. She has helped families to cope with realities of alcoholism. She has worked for years to support different charities in Halifax, including Laing House, supporting people living with mental illness and Adsum House, a shelter for battered women, among many others, earning municiple recognition for her work. She and dad have welcomed 17 relatives and friends into our home to live with us when we were growing up. She fundraised for countless charities, including the Heart & Stroke Foundation, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Parent Teachers for French, the Canadian Diabetes Association and her church. She randomly bought wool for woman in nursing home that she had never met before. She brings food to people when they are sick or when a loved one has died. She was a long-time a companion to an elderly woman whose families wasn't able to visit much. She displays saint-like patience with our lives and gives all of us (especially me) wise advice I don't take nearly enough. And despite my resistance, all the good that is in me comes from her. I am who I am today because of my mother.

These stories doesn't even really begin to scratch the surface of all the amazing things my mom does, or the people she helps, or ways she spreads hope and kindness. But it gives you maybe an idea of how lucky myself and my brothers are to have her as our mom.

I don't have enough photos of two of the most important people in my life on Facebook and I intend to change that. But photos alone can't capture how wonderful a person she is or how much she has given to us and others. And the important thing isn't the number of photos, but in acknowledging all the great things she has done for so many people, including us. I love and admire you mom. You are a hero to me and so many other people and the world is better place because of you.

acts of heroism

Today, social media changed for me once again. As some of you know, I have been researching the ways in which social media are used to impact on political authority in non-democratic regimes for the ISA conference this week. And I knew full well - given the many stories of citizens being targeted for activism and protest - that it was only a matter of time before one of my sources were targeted. I have suspected for some time that several of my Tweeps in Libya have been killed, after they suddenly stop posting following ominous messages, but not actually knowing them, its been impossible to find out for sure. Today, that changed.
When the Libyan uprising began on Feb 17, 2011, a 28-year old Libyan Oxford graduate named Mohammed Nabbous stepped up to play a key role in helping to tell the world what was happening in Libya. Twitter helped to connect me to Mo, as he was commonly known, and to Libya Alhurra TV, a private station that he created and broadcast through Livestream using proxy servers, satellites and other technology to circumvent internet blocks. He let me and many others have a window into his world so we could see what was happening on the ground in Benghazi. As the days and weeks went by, he increasingly became a source for Al-Jazeera, CBC and other news stations as well as a key symbol of the resistance movement.
When I got in last night and checked out the latest news on the siege of Benghazi, Mo's most recent video was taking those of us tuned in on a tour of a residential neighborhood called Hai al Dollar, where Gaddafi's forces had continued to attack since declaring a ceasefire. He showed burnt-out cars, the blood-stained pillows of two kids who had been killed by a blast, bullet-riddled walls covering homes, blown-out houses, and more. As he walked from home to home, he would greet locals in Arabic, get their stories, and then tell us in English what had happened.
At one point, Mo's pregnant wife Perdita, who was not with him at the time, came on to the chat and connected the us directly to Mo's cell phone. At that moment, he was walking around another residential quarter of Benghazi and filming more scenes of destruction, while describing to those of us online just what he was seeing.
Quite suddenly, we found ourselves listening in horror as gunfire erupted out of the blue. He stayed on the phone and was describing what was happened while urgently trying to get away. When the phone connection went dead a moment later, the chat room went wild as everyone desperately tried figure out what had just happened, hoping, against all odds, that Mo was ok. He wasn't. I stayed up for some time after hoping to hear more, but eventually fell asleep.
I of course didn't know Mo personally, but when I found out today that he had been killed, it was a little too much. I know very little at this time about the exact circumstances of his death, but some have claimed he was killed by government snipers, led to him possibly by his own video. I found an audio message from his crying wife who confirmed his death and called on Libyans to keep the station going and make sure that Mo's death was not in vain.
Mo played a pivotal role in telling many of us - and possibly even the world leaders who were gathered in Paris to decide on mission strategy - about the reality on the ground and affected us in many ways. He will surely be remembered as a hero to countless Libyans, to those of us who were lucky to connect with him however briefly and to anyone who is moved by his courage.
Throughout the recent Middle East revolutions, Facebook, Twitter, Livestream and other tools have played key roles in bringing people who are not on the ground closer to events than ever before. They have been used by revolutionaries to connect people, share information, coordinate protests, generate media attention and much more.
But at the end of the day, they are just tools. Their real power lies in how people engage with them for their own ends. Some have described these events as 'Twitter revolutions' or 'Facebook revolutions' but this is wrong. They are people's revolutions during which countless heroes like Mo risked and indeed lost their lives to bring these stories to the world in the hopes that their countries might one day have freedom. Mo left behind a wife and unborn child. No piece of software can do that.
Rest in peace, Mo.
Audio of final call: http://www.nowpublic.com/world/mohammad-nabbous-killed-libya-citizen-journalist-shot-video-2768803.html
His wife's message: http://www.livestream.com/libya17feb/video?clipId=pla_9745ec21-c64d-440f-abe7-a412e7db456d&utm_source=lslibrary&utm_medium=ui-thumb
Star article about his death: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/956802--libyan-citizen-journalist-killed