"THE PROTESTER" - THE 2011 TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR
December 14, 2011
(NEW YORK) – In the most anticipated issue of the year, TIME names "The Protester" the 2011 TIME Person of the Year. The issue, on sale Friday and available now on TIME.com, features a cover by artist Shepard Fairey, an essay by TIME contributor Kurt Andersen and more than 50 portraits of protesters from around the world. www.time.com/poy . #poy2011
See the cover: http://ti.me/HKI7
EDITOR RICK STENGEL ON TIME'S PERSON OF THE YEAR.
"Is there a global tipping point for frustration? Everywhere, it seems, people said they'd had enough. They dissented; they demanded; they did not despair, even when the answers came back in a cloud of tear gas or a hail of bullets. They literally embodied the idea that individual action can bring collective, colossal change. And although it was understood differently in different places, the idea of democracy was present in every gathering."
"No one could have known that when a Tunisian fruit vendor in a town barely on a map set himself on fire in a public square, it would spark protests that would bring down dictators in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and rattle regimes in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain. Or that that spirit of dissent would spur Mexicans to rise up against the terror of drug cartels, Greeks to march against unaccountable leaders, Americans to occupy public spaces to protest income inequality, and Russians to marshal themselves against a corrupt autocracy."
"For capturing and highlighting a global sense of restless promise, for upending governments and conventional wisdom, for combining the oldest of techniques with the newest of technologies to shine a light on human dignity and, finally, for steering the planet on a more democratic though sometimes more dangerous path for the 21st century, the Protester is TIME's 2011 Person of the Year."
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101745_2102139,00.html
TIME CONTRIBUTOR KURT ANDERSEN ON THE CHOICE
Massive and effective street protest' was a global oxymoron until-suddenly, shockingly-starting exactly a year ago, it became the defining trope of our times. And the protester, once again, became a maker of history....The stakes are very different in different places. In North America and Europe, there are no dictators, and dissidents don't get tortured. Any day that Tunisians, Egyptians or Syrians occupy streets and squares, they know that some of them might be beaten or shot, not just pepper-sprayed or flex-cuffed. The protesters in the Middle East and North Africa are literally dying to get political systems that roughly resemble the ones that seem intolerably undemocratic to protesters in Madrid, Athens, London and New York City."
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101745_2102132,00.html
WATCH RICK STENGEL AND KURT ANDERSEN DISCUSS THE PERSON OF THE YEAR
Video Q&A: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101745_2102134_2102355,00.html
IN AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW, ADMIRAL WILLIAM MCRAVEN TALKS WITH TIME'S BARTON GELLMAN ABOUT THE RAID THAT KILLED OSAMA BIN LADEN
McRaven tells TIME, "One of the things we made clear to the President and the national leadership was, This is what we do. We do raids. We fly in by helicopters, we assault compounds, we, you know, we grab the bad guy or whatever is required, and we get out. So admittedly that particular operation was a lot sportier, a lot further, a lot more political ramifications, a lot riskier for a lot of reasons, but basically similar to things that we do every night."
Gellman writes, "On the night of the bin Laden raid, there were 13 simultaneous operations in Afghanistan by clandestine 'special-–mission units' under JSOC, according to McRaven and Petraeus. Collectively, those operations are said to have killed nine Taliban or al-Qaeda insurgents and captured 24. The most recent internal tally counted more than 2,500 such commando missions in and around Afghanistan over 12 months.... McRaven says civilians die in fewer than 1% of the raids, a good record in close urban combat, but it still means U.S. commandos are killing noncombatants twice a month."
McRaven also discuses about the development of the secret counterterrorist unit; the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, from which he was fired in the 1980s; as well as his relationship with President Obama, among other topics.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101745_2102133_2102330,00.html
PLUS: FOR THE FIFTH YEAR, TIME NAMES A PERSON OF THE YEAR SHORT LIST: #2 Admiral McRaven; #3 Ai Weiwei; #4 Paul Ryan and #5 Kate Middleton
See the short list here:
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101745_2102133,00.html
In an exclusive interview, Chinese artist turned activist Ai Weiwei tells TIME about his adoption of social media as a political tool: "Twitter was like a poem. It was rich, real and spontaneous. It really fit my style. In a year and a half, I tweeted 60,000 tweets, over 100,000 words. I spent a minimum eight hours a day on it, sometimes 24 hours."
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101745_2102133_2102331,00.html
PHOTOS: Yuri Kozyrev: My Year On Revolution Road
http://lightbox.time.com/2011/12/14/person-of-the-year-2011-revolution
PHOTOS: Peter Hapak: The Protestor
http://lightbox.time.com/2011/12/14/person-of-the-year-2011-protesters
PHOTOS: Meet Loukanikos, Athens' Protest Dog
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2102191,00.html
The December 26, 2011 Person of the Year issue of TIME goes on sale on Friday, December 16.
Contacts:
TIME PR HOTLINE, 212 522 4800
Kerri Chyka, 212 522 3651
Vidhya Murugesan, 212 522 9906
