Democracy and Technology
Democratic changes have been popular these days. Last year there were
numerous protests in the Middle East and one of them was in Egypt. Revolution
began before the protests. Lots of arrests of journalists, students and any other
rebellions made people became angry. But there is a question why it was not 30,
20 or 10 years ago. Why now? Mubarek’s regime was ruling Egypt more than 30
years and during those years Mubarek did nothing for their nation other than
arrests, executions, and punishments. Roughly to say, people of Egypt have been
awakened up by Web 2.0 technology as the users of facebook and twitter increase
day by day.
Was revolution in Egypt started in Social web pages? I would say yes. The
writer Giglio, has
noted this in his own article called "The Facebook Freedom Fighter”. As he
mentioned in his article “On Jan. 14,
protests in Tunisia felled that country's longstanding dictator, and Ghonim was
inspired to announce, on Facebook,
a revolution of Egypt's own. Each of the page's 350,000-plus fans was
cordially invited to a protest on Jan. 25. They could click ‘yes,’
"no," or "maybe" to signal whether they'd like to attend. In
the space of three days, more than 50,000 people answered yes” (2). As you see from this article that
revolution was organized on Facebook pages and you can still find those pages
online and see the reality. Also in this
article the author argues that, American NGOs were trying to help them. The
relationship between social media and democratic changes are obvious. Journal
called “Clicks, Cabs, and
Coffee Houses” which wrote about relationship of social media to uprising in
Egypt early in 2011. It notes that “To deepen our
understanding of the relationship between social media and political change
during the Egyptian uprising of early 2011, events in Tahrir Square must be
situated in a larger context of media use and recent history of online activism”.
One of the professors mentioned this “At a time when teen pop star Justin
Bieber has cruised to worldwide popularity with the help of social networks, it
is refreshing to witness this new communications technology serving a purpose
higher than product marketing. I am referring, of course, to the recent
revolution in Egypt, during which the demonstrators' use of social networking
platforms such as Facebook and Twitter as organizing tools received as much
attention in the news as the actual grievances of the Egyptian people”. Sandra
L. Suarez is an associate professor of political science at Temple University,
who argued that “Social media can help speed up the process of recruiting
members and activists, of disseminating a message and organizing supporters, and
mobilizing voters. But there is only so much that can be accomplished, even
with the assistance of social media, when the restrictions that have prevented
parties from organizing have not even been lifted yet”. The professor greatly
explains the way how it looks. I did not now that BBC has already made a
documentary film about “How Facebook Changed the World: The Arab Spring. The
Arab Spring refers to a wave of revolutionary protests and historic political
upheavals that swept through the Arab world starting on December 18, 2010 in
Tunisia”.
First of all, I would like to mention
factors that have helped rebellions to win. The factor of relationship has
helped rebellions to win. As you know, Mubarek had lots of money, and he paid
to soldiers and police to defend him and calm down the situation. As the fact
rebellions won and they did a revolution it was because of relativity that
soldiers and police had faced with their best friend and even family members
that is why they could not stop them. The tanks of Mubarek turned back to him
rather than to population. Of course, through social media most of superpower
countries have announced that if rebellions could not handle the situation the
NATO will help rebellions to win as it happened in Libya. Actually, the Libya
matter is really difficult to understand. Personally, I was not against of
Gaddafi’s regime. It happened after Gaddafi cut the UN constitution book and said
that non country fulfills the laws of UN. As the facts, people did not pay for
schools, universities, hospital, and so forth. Even any kind of businessman
wanted to begin his business career government were paying $20.000 as a gift.
Students who wanted to study abroad were getting full scholarship from their
government. I think Libya matter is hard to understand.
There are some questions about Syria that why
NATO, USA, Russia, and others are just watching and doing nothing. The answer
is clear because there is no any natural resource in that country nobody cares
about that country. There is only the military army of Russia and through this
Syria is under influence of Russia. Iran also has bought several army guns,
tanks, helicopters from Russia and nuclear industry of Iran was built by
Russian a scientist that is why Iran is also under the influence of Russia. The
“Cold War” that was begun after the World War 2 between Soviet Union and USA
still remains its own power. I will explain it in this way. The “Cold War” from
1945 till 1968 was really aggressive but afterwards people bothered from waste
of money for showing the nations that we are the best and protests has launched
through the world on China, Soviet Union, USA and France. Students at Berkley,
Sorbonne, Moscow State University and “Red guards” in china have protested
against similar situation that you have seen in Middle East. This argument
comes from one of my favorite writer from Jeremi Suri who is working at
Wisconsin University as the history professor. He argues that in 1968 “Leaders
of superpower countries did the détente which means “calm down”. This “calm
down” happened in international and mostly in domestic way. Those times there
was not social media as good as today but through newspapers political
activists were getting the information. Actually, in 1960s and 1970s most of
the news was working for governments but the rebellions were trying to connect news
to another and get the average opinion they were analyzing news. Suri mentions
in his book that “Events
in 1968 precipitated a crisis of political authority for the most powerful
national figures” (Suri,4). Through the détente governments recognized each
others’ presidency as it was the only way to make “friendship” as Suri writes
“As détente alienated citizens, it offered leaders what they craved most:
Western recognition of their legitimacy” (Suri,5). Suri at the end of his
chapter 6 argues that the cold war did not end it just calmed down. I will be
clear to say why I wrote about it.
In his book chapter 6 he talks about the
Moscow Summit. Leaders signed a contract that has divided the world into two
parts Communists and Capitalists. Some scholars argue that it has ended in
1991. Yes, the Communist countries turned to “capitalists” but the influence still
remains. Eastern Europe and part of Middle East, central Asia is under the
influence of Russia, Western Europe, Australia, central and Latin America and
part of Middle East are under the influence of US. We cannot deny this as there
are lots of facts. So I talked about it because before 2011 spring there weren’t
any influence of Western Europe and US over the Middle East but now they
“captured” economically some of the Middle East countries as they are the
members of OPEC (most important oil trading company that tries to keep the cost
of oil stable). So the factor of other countries is also important but the
reason that Syria cannot get a freedom is not only the foreign situation.
As you saw in Egypt
people got their freedom without any help of other country. The most important
reason is social media. The leader of Syria kills journalist and disables the
internet in this country. Asad’s father killed more than 30.000 of people and
the average per day Asad kills 112 people. Asad is clever person he is fighting
first with social media because he knows that if there is no social media then
there is no chance of people to win me. Maybe he will get a “success” by
killing people but he will repent for his actions in the future for sure.
Social media played
a big role in revolution in Egypt. Facebook's importance was much more than
symbolic, of course. Prior to the revolution, Facebook was used as early as
2008 to organize support for the April 6 youth movement in support of striking
workers in an industrial town called El-Mahalla El-Kubra. 'The "April 6 Youdi Movement" Facebook
page now has over 120,000 members. At its height in early 2009, it was the site
of robust debate that was, for many younger Egyptians, the first time they
became involved in political debate at all. "EoUowing the April 6 strike,
a wave of protests swept across Egypt centered mostly on Israel's policies
toward Palestine. Many of the organizers of these protests, and one of the
administrators of the Facebook page, would go on to be key organizers of the
revolution.
In addition, I would
like to mention that some Egyptians call their victory as the “25th
January Tahrir square freedom Facebook” (Giglio,1). Of course as the Mubarek’s
regime were controlling the movements on Facebook but he could not do nothing
as Giglio notes that "The Mubarak regime was closely monitoring Facebook
and they were certainly watching every move made by recognized activists,"
Naila Hamdy says. "They knew that Jan. 25 was going to take place but they
under estimated the numbers and certainly could not predict the momentum that
would follow" (Giglio,1). I liked the last passage of his article it makes
everything cleat. He mentions that “The lessons we can draw from the Egyptian Revolution
clearly show that, as organizers, we should not underestimate that power,
either. But neither should we let social media replace any of the organizing
work we're already doing on the ground” (Giglio,1). The Author called Hauslohner,
Abigail shortly in his article agrees what I am tiring to say. He argues that “Egypt's
uprising is similar to the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia, which was encouraged
by posts on social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter”.
On the other hand,
each coin has two sides. There were lots of limitations for rebellions during
organization their freedom plan on the internet. In the most of the countries
as Iran, Syria and others can still keep their dictatorship regime because
government disabled internet for people they cannot enter to Facebook, Twitter
and even to YouTube. As the Walt writes “With the media center destroyed, the
closest Internet connection
to the new hideout was a hazardous 10-minute walk through Bab Amr, which was
ringed with government snipers.”(Walt1). Walt also writes that “adding to the
limitations on Syrian users were the high costs of purchasing a computer and
connecting to the Internet, and the country’s inferior communications
infrastructure” (Walt1). So, it means that Syrian and other undemocratic
governments just disable the internet or they just increase the rate of the
internet that people can’t get access to it because it is expensive. If world
is doing nothing then we, humans should take a step forward and fight against
Asad and help citizens of Syria. Blanford illustrates this in his article “we
are telling the regime that if you shoot and kill people the pictures will be
online and on television five minutes later."
Throughout my research I come to
conclusion that the most important role in revolution in Egypt has played the
social media. As Sandra L. Suarez mentions “the Mubarak regime will be the
first of many to be felled with the help of social networks is far from
certain.” And as the Ghoim writes “This revolution started online. This
revolution started on Facebook. This
revolution started in June 2010 when hundreds of thousands of Egyptians started
collaborating content. We would post a video on Facebook that would be shared
by 60,000 people on their walls within a few hour s. I've always said that if
you want to liberate a society just give them the Internet” (Giglio2). Of
course, there are still lots of dictators in the world, but time will come for
everyone every nation has its own passion so if the passion is over then
dictators has to face with the situation as Gaddafi did. I want peace and
prosperous life with the help of Web 2.0 technology!
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University of Minnesota
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