Now I Know Who My Comrades Are: Voices from the Internet Underground

by Emily Parker

Overview

“An essential read.” —The Los Angeles Review of Books

“One can practically overdose on the levels of intrigue at play in this account of "netizens," bloggers turned social crusaders turned Internet rock stars.” —Boston Globe

In China, university students use the Internet to save the life of an attempted murder victim. In Cuba, authorities unsuccessfully try to silence an online critic by sowing seeds of distrust in her marriage. And in Russia, a lone blogger rises to become one of the most prominent opposition figures since the fall of the Soviet Union. Authoritarian governments try to isolate individuals from one another, but in the age of social media freedom of speech is impossible to contain. Online, people discover that they are not alone. As one blogger put it, "Now I know who my comrades are."

In her groundbreaking book, Now I Know Who My Comrades Are: Voices from the Internet Underground, Emily Parker, formerly a State Department policy advisor, writer at The Wall Street Journal and editor at The New York Times, provides on-the-ground accounts of how the Internet is transforming lives in China, Cuba, and Russia. It's a new phenomenon, but one that's already brought about significant political change. In 2011 ordinary Egyptians, many armed with little more than mobile phones, helped topple a thirty-year-old dictatorship. It was an extraordinary moment in modern history—and Now I Know Who My Comrades Are takes us beyond the Middle East to the next major civil rights battles between the Internet and state control. For example, Parker charts the rise of Russia's Alexey Navalny from ordinary blogger to one of the greatest threats to Vladimir Putin's regime. This book introduces us to an army of bloggers and tweeters—generals and foot soldiers alike. Even as they navigate the risks of authoritarian life, they feel free. Now I Know Who My Comrades Are is their story.

“Parker . . . argues that online communication can undermine authoritarian rule even when its effects don't make their way to the streets.” —The New Yorker

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374535513
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	02/03/2015
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Emily Parker is the digital diplomacy advisor and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. Previously, she was a member of Secretary Clinton's Policy Planning staff at the State Department, where she covered twenty-first-century statecraft, innovation, and technology. Before joining the State Department, she was an op-ed editor at The New York Times and an editorial writer and op-ed editor at The Wall Street Journal.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

Introduction

Part I: China (Isolation)
"Now I know who my comrades are"
"Chinese people don't read personal stories"
"I support the Party . . . but what about other people?"
"My world was so small"
"I thought, I can really control the world"
"Put any good guy in a bad system, and he will act very bad"
"Nothing is impossible to a willing heart"
"The people won't forget you, history won't forget you!"
"Who are our enemies? Who are our friends?"
"I tried to organize"
"I speak in complicated sentences that my comrades can understand"
"I express what they want to say but cannot write down"
"I've been scared all my life"
"Just like in jailbreak, there's a hole in the wall"
"We are like plants without roots"
"I caused a lot of fights on the Internet"
"They wany to know they are not so lonely on this planet"
"This is how I imagine the feelings of the guards"
"You have to play by certain rules"
"I'm a journalist and I know not to call for action"
"Twitter is everything about me:
"If I don't stand up for Zhu Ling, who will stand up for me?"
"Nobody knows the whole picture"

Part II: Cuba (Fear)
"You never know who is who"
"Resignation became my only comrade"
"The world knows the name and face of dissidence"
"You see agents or informers everywhere"
"I comport myself like a free man"
"I knew everything was bad, but I had to write that everything was good"
"The fear of those who learn their lessons through the trauma of others"
"People have to search for their own voice because they never had one"
"I want my lawer, and nada mas!"
"When someone is detained, everyone knows about it"

Part III: Russia (Apathy)
"People were silent and kept the constitution over their heads"
"You have to propose to people the comfortable way of struggle"
"We have our own words"
"The problem is that people don't search for it"
"In Russia, change never comes from the bottom"
"You can keep silent, you can emigrate, or you can stay here and fight"
"We didn't apply to the authorities, we appealed to the people"
"Rights are not given, they are taken"
"Bloggers have nothing to fear from publicity"
"No one, including me, believed this was possible in Russia"
"You cannot be a hero for a long time on the Internet"
"My country and my life are dependent on what I do"
"I want to thank you for considering yourself citizens!"
"So, is it you who is organizing this revolution in Russia?"
"We exist!"

Afterword
Notes
Acknowledgments

Editorial Reviews

One can practically overdose on the levels of intrigue at play in this account of "netizens," bloggers turned social crusaders turned Internet rock stars.” —Boston Globe

“It is [Parker's] tracing of the more subtle, psychological effects the internet has had on activists, regular folks, and authorities that makes this book an essential read...if one is restricted to a few voices, oh what voices Parker has chosen.” —The Los Angeles Review of Books

“Parker's reporting...captures well the online activists' pervasive feeling of being constantly monitored.” —The Wall Street Journal

“One of the merits of Parker's work is to have captured these characters not just glued to their keyboards...but also in their intimate reality, in the cafes or pubs where they seek refuge, in their families, in the political rallies they support or in the hiding places they seek out when persecuted. That fills this book with color and life...Some of the personalities in Parker's book stick to memory with the same vivacity and dynamism of a Joseph Conrad or Andre Malraux character.” —The New Republic

“Now I Know Who My Comrades Are" is a valuable reminder of social networks beyond Facebook and Twitter...The book also succeeds in introducing readers to the wilds of Chinese, Spanish and Russian webs unexplored by English-speakers” —The Economist

“Parker's work is a shining example for women writers around the world; this book is a clear showing of her prowess as both writer and researcher.” —The California Journal of Women Writers

“Parker...argues that online communication can undermine authoritarian rule even when its effects don't make their way to the streets.” —The New Yorker

“Emily Parker's book Now I Know Who My Comrades Are: Voices from the Internet Underground is a rigorously researched and reported account that reads like a thriller...It's been a while since I have read a book that is so entertaining, not to mention one so encouraging for the culture of liberty.” —Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel Prize–winning author of The War of the End of the World and The Time of the Hero

“Now I Know Who My Comrades Are is a timely and necessary book. Story by story, Emily Parker shows how the Internet has changed lives and social realities in three oppressive countries. The clarity, honesty, and intelligence of her writing make this book both admirable and enjoyable.” —Ha Jin, National Book Award–winning author of Waiting and War Trash

“Emily Parker tells us enthralling and beautifully detailed stories about bloggers and Internet activists in China, Russia, and Cuba, showing us the power of human connection even as she describes and analyzes it. The combination of her humanism and keen insight illuminates dimensions of the Internet that we so often miss, the ways it can create the personal ties and trust that are the foundation of collective action. A great read for both the nightstand and the scholar's shelf.” —Anne-Marie Slaughter, president and CEO of the New America Foundation, and Former Director of policy planning for the U.S. State Department

“The heroes of this terrific book are ‘Internet foot soldiers,' not the usual foreign ministers and businessmen, and those soldiers are changing Russia, China, and Cuba...and the world. Emily Parker is among a handful of the most promising new foreign policy commentators who weave together technology, culture, society, and politics with hard facts and clear analysis.” —Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations

“This book is a must read for anyone interested in how the Internet and social media serve as instruments of change in societies where information has been tightly controlled by authoritarian regimes. Through a wealth of personal anecdotes enriched by judicious commentary, Emily Parker deftly shows both the possibilities and limitations of the Internet's ability to promote greater political openness.” —J. Stapleton Roy, former U.S. ambassador to China, Singapore and Indonesia

“This book is about twenty times better reported or written than any book ever written about the Internet, period.” —Tim Wu, author of The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires

“In this fascinating book, Emily Parker shows that the Internet affects politics by affecting the psychology of its users. Now I Know Who My Comrades Are demonstrates how much it can matter for citizens to have a voice, and to discover that they are not alone.” —Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations

“Parker's book is clearly written, well researched, and contextualized. Her long-lasting relationships—she meets Chinese dissident Michael Anti for the first time in 2004, for example—allow her to create a narrative history of these bloggers' personal evolution as potential reformers, of Internet activism as a whole as seen through their experiences, and of government responses to it.” —The Brooklyn Rail

From the Publisher

In this fascinating book, Emily Parker shows that the Internet affects politics by affecting the psychology of its users. Now I Know Who My Comrades Are demonstrates how much it can matter for citizens to have a voice, and to discover that they are not alone.

author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of O Clay Shirky

This book is about twenty times better reported or written than any book ever written about the Internet, period.

author of The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall Tim Wu

The heroes of this terrific book are 'Internet foot soldiers,' not the usual foreign ministers and businessmen, and those soldiers are changing Russia, China, and Cuba...and the world. Emily Parker is among a handful of the most promising new foreign policy commentators who weave together technology, culture, society, and politics with hard facts and clear analysis.

president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relat Leslie H. Gelb

Now I Know Who My Comrades Are is a timely and necessary book. Story by story, Emily Parker shows how the Internet has changed lives and social realities in three oppressive countries. The clarity, honesty, and intelligence of her writing make this book both admirable and enjoyable.

National Book Award–winning author of Waitin Ha Jin

12/02/2013
Parker, a former Wall Street Journal columnist and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, draws on interviews with dissident bloggers in China, Russia, and Cuba to measure the impact of the Internet on the growth of a public presence for democratic opposition. Despite the varied systems of censorship she details, there remain in each country ingenious avenues for shoring up the Internet’s free-flow of information. This communication is having a decisive effect, Parker argues, on counteracting the misinformation, alienation, apathy, and self-censorship relied upon by authoritarian regimes. She takes as her guides some leading bloggers: China’s dissident journalist “Michael Anti”; Cuba’s Laritza Diversent, Reinaldo Escobar, and Yaremis Flores; and Russia’s attorney-activist Alexey Navalny. As in Egypt in 2011, Parker stresses, online communities of “netizens” are hardly “virtual” if they translate into successful calls to public assembly, spur demands for reform, and produce a sense of common cause and action. This informative book cleaves somewhat narrowly to a handful of individuals and political activities in three very different, if generally authoritarian, regimes with restive online populations. There is no substantive discussion, however, of the Internet’s role in non-democratic movements in such countries, for example, or of its place in ongoing battles over communication in open societies like the United States. Agent: Mel Parker, Mel Parker Books. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

2014-01-04
An American journalist delves into the fringes of Internet activism in three countries forged from communist oppression. New America Foundation senior fellow and former Wall Street Journal writer Parker draws on her rich education in international relations and a wide range of fellowships to examine how the Internet is changing—or not changing—cultures in China, Russia and Cuba. As most readers know, the suppression of activism in these countries has a long, shameful history, so Parker uses her contacts and experience to quiz the new types of citizens emerging due to the Web. The book's fundamental flaw, however, is in couching itself as a perceptive analysis of how Web-based activists inspired change in recent revolutionary hotbeds like Egypt and Tunisia. However, Parker presents an interesting but scattered collection of profiles of postmodern activists, none of whom seem to be as effective as they would like. The usual suspects include Jing Zhao, the political blogger who aggravates the Chinese government as "Michael Anti"; Russian nationalist Alexei Navalny, who found out the hard way how serious Vladimir Putin is about uprisings; and Reinaldo Escobar and Yoani Sanchez, the married couple from Cuba who use their international connections to speak truth to power under the Castro regime. There are nuances to the situations in each country, and Parker finds China the most changed by its experience with the world online, while Cuba remains isolated. But they all seem to share the fear, apathy and isolation that Parker identifies as the tenets of suppression. "A long tradition of citizen informers has broken down the social fabric," Parker writes of Cuba. "This decentralized paranoia is what makes coordinated rebellion so difficult, and the government knows it. You never know whom to fear, so you fear everyone." A narrowly focused portrait of idealism in the face of oppression that is very nearly past its sell-by date.

Kirkus Reviews