Declaring Internet access a human right would dilute the rights that matter more, says Internet pioneer Vint Cerf. Photo: Veni Markovski (Wikimedia)

Get real: The Internet isn't a human right.

That's the message from a man often credited with inventing the Internet, Vint Cerf. Writing in The New York Times yesterday, Cerf, who now works for Google, argued that human rights are "things we as humans need in order to lead healthy, meaningful lives":

At one time if you didn’t have a horse it was hard to make a living. But the important right in that case was the right to make a living, not the right to a horse. Today, if I were granted a right to have a horse, I’m not sure where I would put it.

Today's Internet—publicly developed but privately owned and financed—is a key tool in toppling kleptocracies and enriching millions of poor farmers. So Cerf's position is provocative. But it's a reminder that those of us who believe in markets' power to help solve poverty shouldn't cling too tightly to any single "market-based solution."

That wouldn't be market-based at all.

A flourishing economy has enabled many Chinese citizens to climb the socio-economic ranks. Photo:xiaming (flickr)

The spirit of 1989’s Tiananmen Square is alive in China, except the swarm of charged students has been replaced by a disgruntled, expanding middle class.

Inadvertently, an economic boom has resounded with cries for change.

2011 has been an exceptionally rough year for government officials trying to maintain social complacency across China’s far-reaching borders. Perhaps inspired by the Arab Spring, Chinese civilians took to the streets in February to enact their own “Jasmine Revolution” (taken from the Tunisian movement of the same name), demanding greater accountability and transparency from their current one-party system. At least 54 activists, including lawyers and intellectuals, were arrested, and, the New York Times reports, the term “jasmine” was blocked on internet search engines. In recent months, labor strikes have swept the People’s Republic, resulting in street rallies filled with middle class voices expressing their frustrations with meager wages and unhealthy work conditions.

However, the butterfly effect of protests—originating from the Arab Spring and expanding into the Occupy Wall Street movements—reaches beyond income inequality. Much of the Chinese middle class will no longer play the passive bystander to haphazard industrialization. On July 23rd, a high speed train collision, killing 40 passengers, moved government-backed news broadcasters to risk publicly questioning the Chinese Communist Party’s ability to provide the public with safe, accessible infrastructures.

In early August, more than 12,000 people converged in the city of Dalian to stop the re-opening of a paraxylene plant (a toxic chemical used to make polyester) after a storm had exposed citizens to chemicals known to cause leukemia and birth defects. The plant’s closure provided a significant win for the protesters—the government agreed to the shutdown despite a reported $1.5 billion invested in the industry.

In a land where censorship and submissiveness are ingrained in the cultural psyche, why are so many compelled to take a stand now? It’s a complex question, but part of the explanation lies in the problem itself: the rise of China’s economy.

Globalization, specifically global export trade, has upshot China into a leading economic powerhouse. Now the fulcrum of production in the globalized world, many Chinese workers are finally transitioning from poor to middle class (defined by The Brookings Institution as households that spend $10 per person daily).

By 2015, the Brookings Institution estimates that for the first time in 300 years, "the number of Asian middle class consumers will equal the number in Europe and North America. By 2021, on present trends, there could be more than 2 billion Asians in middle class households. In China alone, there could be over 670 million middle class consumers, compared with only perhaps 150 million today.”

The Chinese Communist Party has come to rely on the middle class for support; in the past they have served as a relatively quiet buffer between a populous but powerless poor class and a power-driven rich minority. The Economist observes that China has “kept themselves to themselves as a result of the implicit social contract offered by the Communist Party: you let us rule and we will let you get rich.”

China's middle class wants to renegotiate this contract, demanding more environmental and wellness security from their political leaders. “As many previously poor people adopt middle-class lifestyles in the decades ahead,” Brookings researchers observe, “they may find themselves not only consuming more but also more forcefully advocating for less pollution and lower emissions.” In other words, more money means more demands.

If the party chooses to reinvest its money into the people’s pockets through increased incomes, subsidized health care, lowered taxes, and environmental protection, the middle class is expected to grow by leaps and bounds in the coming years. However, one only needs to look back at China’s Great Leap Forward to see that blind fixation on economic prowess can result in a neglected, damaged social sector. Looks like China will need to take a middle-road approach if it hopes to flourish.

Cafes in Tunisia have become a common hangout for unemployed college graduates, but now that educated youth may be able to get back to work. Photo: Flickr (clurross)

Sitting in cafes all over Tunisia are unemployed youth with college degrees and nothing better to do.

Tunisia's recent revolution left it with skyrocketing unemployment and an economic collapse. Libya, Tunisia’s neighbor, finds itself in a similarly precarious situation. Their crucial difference is that while Tunisia is relatively developed, Libya has no working infrastructure. And ironically, it is this lack of infrastructure that provides the solution to both countries' problems.

Following the wake of Tunisia’s President Ben Ali stepping down and the death of Libya’s Qaddafi, the nations’ new governments are hoping to set up more open ways of conducting business. Previously full of government corruption and theft, transparent business practices will allow both countries to allow the creation of companies that address the people’s interests rather than the government’s. Tunisia and Libya’s citizens are taking advantage of this change, and are already creating businesses aimed at building the desperately needed infrastructure in Libya that Qaddafi never developed. This will, in turn, relieve the strain on Tunisia’s hospitals and other infrastructure, which are currently working at double capacity. According to Tunisian economist Moncef Cheikhrouhou, the rebuilding of Libya could provide jobs for 250,000 Tunisians, all while developing lasting economic ties between the nations and creating the building blocks for Libya’s economy to sustain itself.

The new opportunities for growth and economic connection also have a broader appeal. In the post-Arab Spring Middle East, the example these two struggling countries provide sets the pace for a region full of economic growth potential.

Prior to the Arab Spring, the Middle East economy neglected to build privatized business connections within the region. Ben Ali aligned Tunisia with Europe and Qaddafi kept Libya isolated. When regional investment did occur, it was often corrupt. Libya and Tunisia are both poised to set the example for regional cooperation in an area where business connections are rare, and their timing couldn’t be better. Recent Citibank rankings have placed two other Middle Eastern countries—Egypt and Iraq—as nations with the greatest potential for growth in the next 40 years. Investment in these growing economies would benefit all involved. This closer connection with up-and-coming neighbor economies is particularly important as Tunisia’s long-standing ties to faltering economies like those of Italy and Greece seem to be deteriorating.

With a lot of work cut out for them in the months and years ahead, it looks like as many as a quarter of a million Tunisians could finally leave the cafes and get back to work. Jobs, opportunities, and examples for their Middle Eastern neighbors may follow.

Tunisia becomes the first country of the Arab Spring to hold a general election. Photo: Gwenaël Piaser (Flickr)

While the world's eyes are fixed on violence in Egypt and Libya, the Arab Spring’s most important step yet will depend not on blood shed, but on votes cast.

Tunisia becomes the first country of the Arab Spring to hold general elections on Oct. 23. Voters will elect 217 members to a general assembly charged with drafting the country’s constitution over the next year. The voting will take place in a system of proportional representation, with parties providing a list of their candidates.

At least half of all listed candidates will be women, per the election’s rules. Though for Tunisia, this is not so surprising. 'Tunisia is considered one of the most liberal Arab countries, with high levels of female participation in public and political life,' according to BBC News.

There are three major political parties vying for votes. The most widely supported is Ennahda, an Islamist party that was banned under Tunisia’s former president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. The two other contending parties are both secular. Each party has said it'd be open to a power-sharing coalition, depending on the results of the election.

Tunisia’s economy is expected to see the highest growth rates out of any country affected by the Arab Spring, and that is due at least in part to peaceful politics. 'We expect activity to continue improving in the coming months particularly if the elections and the political transition thereafter take place in a smooth manner,' said Alia Moubayed, an economist at Barclays Capital who was quoted in Bloomberg Businessweek.

These elections represent the closest any of the Arab Spring countries have come to a full transition of power. As other countries continue to rise up against corrupt regimes, pay close attention on Sunday as 3.9 million Tunisians head to the polls. The fate of the Arab Spring may depend not on how revolutions are started and waged, but on whether they can culminate in new and stable regimes.

Ben Osborn is a 2011 graduate of Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Read his other contributions to Global Envision.

This has been reposted from the Mercy Corps blog.

On March 1, I entered Libya from Egypt with the Mercy Corps emergency response team. The situation at the border was chaotic. Thousands of foreign migrant workers were trying to cross into Egypt to escape the violence in Libya. Many of them were stranded in the no-man’s land area between the two countries, waiting for transportation and permission to enter Egypt.

The customs house, the duty free shop — literally every building at the border — had become temporary shelter for the thousands of people who were stuck there. More were camped out on the sidewalks and parking lots. Most of them had only the belongings they could carry by hand and very little money or resources to cope. Fortunately, the majority of the people were Egyptians and so they did not have to travel too far to reach home and the Egyptian government was assisting their people in getting back there.

Since the unrest and violence began in Libya there is the refugee crisis as the migrant foreign workers try to flee the violence. More 170,000 people have fled from Libya — thousands are still stuck in the border of Tunisia without adequate financial resources, shelter or food.

The situation on the Tunisia border, where Mercy Corps has another emergency team deployed for this ongoing regional crisis, is much worse than on the Egyptian side. The people fleeing into Tunisia are also largely Egyptian, but they have to get transportation on planes or boats to get home. The numbers are massive and they are forced to wait several days for transport. There are also reports that, as they come through Libya, they being harassed by pro-Gaddafi forces and some have been forced to pay bribes and give away the few possessions they brought as bribes to pass.

The United States and other governments have sent planes and boats to help the people evacuate, and the border situation has improved in the last day — but thousands are still waiting.

There is also concern if there is an increase in airstrikes and violence in the west of Libya that more people will try to cross the borders to escape. If this happens, the crisis could spiral out of control.

The situation here in Libya is changing by the minute as the opposition advances from the East and then is beaten back by Gaddafi forces, and then advances again. Airstrikes are ongoing and we are preparing for the worst, but hoping for a quick end to this terrible violence.

Some of the thousands stuck at the Salloum border between Libya and Egypt. The situation on the Tunisian border is much worse. Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

This has been reposted from The Mercy Corps Blog.

I wish that I were in Tahrir Square right now. After working in the Middle East for the past five years, I’d like to see and feel this historic moment myself. Our friend Nick Kristof of the New York Times is there. He reports that the usual hustle and bustle of traffic in the heart of Cairo has been replaced by throngs of exuberant protesters. The square, he says, “has lost its menace and suddenly become the most exhilarating place in the world.” While the street demonstrations across Egypt have drawn citizens from across generations, religions, political persuasions and socio-economic backgrounds, there is no doubt that much of the energy fueling recent events has been generated by the country’s burgeoning youth population.

Two-thirds of Egypt’s 80 million people are below the age of 30. According to Money Week Magazine, 90 percent of the country’s unemployed are youth. Egyptian youth are fed up — frustrated by the lack of job opportunities, disgusted by rampant corruption and poor governance, and tired of having no voice. It appears that they are now on their way to changing their leadership — President Hosni Mubarak is on TV as I write, pledging to step down from office. Young people with similar complaints brought down the government in Tunisia and kicked off protests in Yemen. Here in Jordan, where I am now, King Abdullah responded to young protesters today by dismissing the current government and offering up other reforms.

I am humbled by the determination and courage of young people in the Middle East who are finding their voice and peacefully but defiantly advocating for change. And I am continuously inspired by the youth I meet across the region who are working on a daily basis through our Global Citizen Corps program and other initiatives to address critical challenges in their communities. Young people in this region are not the leaders of the future — they are the leaders of now.

But while this may be an exhilarating moment for people in Tahrir Square and elsewhere, the social and economic challenges facing the Middle East and its youth will not be solved quickly. Years of hard work lie ahead. Youth in the Middle East want the same thing that young people everywhere want: a sense of hope, opportunity, and a chance to be active, productive members of their communities and societies. Our job is to support them in achieving that vision. When the dust in the streets eventually settles, it is critical that governments, the private sector, and civil society organizations like Mercy Corps band together in support of youth in the Middle East, ensuring they have access to the tools and opportunities they need to build a dignified, peaceful, and productive life for themselves and their communities.

Swarms of protests have taken place in Egypt over the last several days. Photo: Al Jazeera English (flickr)

Twitter, Facebook, Myspace -- you name the social network and it's bursting with information about the demonstrations that have taken Egypt by storm in the past few days.

According to The Jerusalem Post, cell phone service and the internet have been cut in effort to make it difficult for protestors to organize. But Al Jazeera and other media organizations have been using twitter to provide live updates on the situation in Egypt, including President Hosni Mubarak's anxiously awaited public statement. Just a few moments ago, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced that he has ordered the existing government to step down with the promise that a new government will be installed tomorrow. At this point he has not said that he will step down.

This The New York Times backgrounder explains how protests in Egypt were inspired by neighboring Tunisia's overthrow of former President Ben Ali.

"The unrest in Egypt — fueled by frustrations over government corruption, economic stagnation and a decided lack of political freedom — came after weeks of turmoil across the Arab world that toppled one leader in Tunisia and encouraged protesters to overcome deep-rooted fears of their authoritarian leaders and take to the streets."

Much of the protesting has been fueled my Egypt's youth population which compromises more than 47 percent of the state's total population. Their concerns for the future and frustration with the job economy have helped propel the demonstrations.

For up to date coverage on Egypt, check out Al Jazerra's excellent live feed.

Mobile internet buses are travelling through Tunisia's tough mountainous terrain to reach remote villages. Photo: Thierry (flickr)

Buses transformed into mobile Internet centers are traveling around Tunisia’s villages, helping rural Tunisians find jobs and stay in touch with family and friends abroad.

The buses are staffed with technology experts to show people of all ages how to use the Internet, according to BBC News.

Most of the villages to which these buses travel don't even have electricity, much less Internet cafes. Most residents lack the means to get to larger towns. With little opportunities for work in areas like these, the mobile Internet buses are set up for women like Maryam, who tells BBC that on the bus she is able to search and apply for urban secretarial jobs she wouldn't otherwise know about.

Today the Economist posted a briefing on the 2008 Freedom of the World report published by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, concluding that in recent years "African countries have made negligible progress liberalising their economies."

For the most part, although not without exception, the Heritage Foundation’s correlation between incomes per head and economic freedom holds good. Seven of the ten economically most free African economies (Mauritius, Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Tunisia, Swaziland and Cape Verde) are, in fact, middle-income states. Uganda, Madagascar and Kenya, however, are very low-income countries.