Dear friends and followers,

a couple of weeks ago I started helping out an initiative called "adopt a revolution". They are raising money and directly support local communities trying to improve the situation for the people in Syria.

Although my main task there is translating reports and articles and writing blog posts the work is very fulfilling for me, because it gives me some kind of feeling that I am not totally powerless in facing the Syrian civil war that my own family is suffering from.

To give you an idea what the raised money goes into we are cooperating with local comitees in Syria that have taken on many tasks that were prior to the war fulfilled by local administration.  For example we are supporting local commitees to restore the functionality of damaged hospitals and schools.

To get an idea of te projects that are supported you can visit their blog too.

I have felt heplpless and powerless in face of the disastrous and ongoing crisis in Syria but through the work with adopt a revolution I feel that at least I can contribute to imüroving the situation for some people in Syria and hopefully help to rebuild the intl pressure through their advocacy work. in this the main aim of adopt a revolution is to focus doners and policy makers on supporting the civilians and improving their daily lives in face of the ongoing conflict.

I think adopt a revoultion is an organization worth supporting. Everyone can contribute something. So go to there website and if you care about what happens to the people in Syria and you feel that the projects supported by adopt a revolution are worth it support us and support a free Syria!

On Dec 17th I was in Zürich to receive my masters degree from ETH Zürich.

I had a great time in Zürich especially at the Center for Comparative and International Studies at the ETH. The year in Zürich was hard work but I probably learned more during that year than in all four years during my undergrad. The workload was immense but I think it was worth it.

On top of that I also fell in love with the city that is so much more than the glittering facades at Bahnhofsstrasse. I got to know some amazing people and Zürich will always be a second home for me.

On Decemeber 1st Mr Hamadi Jebali the former Tunisian prime minister gave a keynote speech at the campus of the Free University of Berlin.
The topic of the talk was an analysis of the current situation of Tunisia.
Unfortunately Mr Jebalis picture of the situation in Tunisia remained very superficial. On the contrary he went on at length about the international environment around Tunisia and the imminent dangers and problems connected with it. His sometimes involute speech (maybe this was also due to the translators) Mr Jebali painted a picture of Tunisia as an isle of democracy in the middle east that is endangered from all sides (geographically) and dimensions (political, economic, security). the notion of terror triangles situated close to Tunisian boarders was the highlight of this talk (see foto).

The whole story telling finally concluded in Mr Jebali teklling teh audience at the FU that Tunisia is in desperate need for support from Germany & Europe and it could not cope with the challenges it is facing without European support.

To be honest I would have preferred a keynote focussing on the primarily domestic issues and ongoing political developments in the post-revolutionary Tunisia. The challenges do not only lie at Tunisias boarders as implied by Mr Jebali but also in the very heart of Tunisias capital and its constitutional assembly. Three years after the ousting of the cleptocratic autocrat Ben-Ali Tunisia is still struggling to give itself a new jurisiticial foundation for its new polity. Alongside this long lasting process political violence against members of the non islamic political elite is growing. None of these challenges were sufficiently addressed in Jebalis speech.