Daniel Lansberg Rodriguez, Gabr Fellow. June 6th 2013

“Having spent so much of the last year writing about Egypt and her constitution in a detached academic vein, I now have much more by way of context to add weight and relevance to my understanding of happenings in this land. Egypt is no longer an abstract concept to me and that makes a powerful difference in how I find myself viewing her; this was what I most wanted to accomplish in coming here, and in this respect the program has been all I could have hoped for. On a personal level, the tales from the revolution; particularly when told by a diverse assortment of bloggers, graffiti artists and our peer fellows offers a richer perspective and political scientists have at times been somewhat bittersweet given my own time as dissident and protester during the Venezuelan student movement of 2006-2007. Nominally Egypt's revolution succeeded where our movement failed yet when I met the two gentlemen from the brotherhood today, with their excuses, vagueties and platitudes I could have sworn I was speaking to Chavistas....”