Like many people, I’ve spent the day glued to Al Jazeera English’s coverage of the protests that have taken place all across Egypt. Egyptian friends had made it clear to me that today would be pivotal – the day the revolution took place, or failed to catch fire. I’m stunned by the bravery of the people who took to the streets, knowing they’d face police willing to use tear gas and rubber bullets to drive them back. I’m fascinated at how effectively protesters mobilized with communications (not just internet, but mobile phone and SMS) cut. And I’m deeply moved by the photos that show protesters praying in the middle of demonstrations, sometimes with police joining them, sometimes, as above, with water cannons trying to disperse them while they pray.
And like everyone else, I’m waiting to hear Mubarak speak… or to hear the news that he’s disappeared and that the military has taken charge of the country. It’s too early for analysis, of how the protests managed to be so massive, of the role (or lack of role) of social media, of implications for the broader region. Or maybe it’s the right time for more nimble pundits than me. All I can do is share my outbox with you – here’s some email I’ve sent to friends and colleagues answering questions that have come in today:
In response to a reporter’s question about the importance of Internet to the movements in Egypt and Tunisia, and whether internet access is a human right:
Both Tunisia and Egypt have experienced broad-based popular revolutions. The people who’ve taken to the streets aren’t just the elites using social media – they’re a broad swath of society, heavy on young people, but including a wide range of ages, incomes and political ideologies. It’s a mistake to link the protests too tightly to factors like Facebook, Twitter, Wikileaks – at the root, these protests are about economics, demographics and decades of autocratic rule.
But because they’re popular movements, it’s very much worth asking how they’ve been organized, and what’s convinced people to take to the streets. In both Tunisia and Egypt, it’s pretty clear that these protests have not been organized by existing political parties. (The Brotherhood in Egypt helped turn people out for the protests today in Egypt, but they are not the core organizers, and have been very careful not to claim leadership.) What motivates tens of thousands of people to take to the streets, knowing that they’re going to face severe reactions from security forces.
Media plays a role here. In Tunisia, protests started with the immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, and initially were confined to Sidi Bouzid, a small and relatively disconnected city. The protests got attention across the country and throughout the Arab world via Al Jazeera, which aggressively covered the protests, despite the fact that the network’s reporters had been banned from the country. Al J leaned heavily on social media, reproducing images and video from Facebook, which is widely used (19%+ percent of Tunisian population uses Facebook) in the country. Al Jazeera is widely watched in Tunisia, and images of people taking to the streets in Sidi Bouzid helped spark the protests that spread throughout the country and eventually to Tunis, where they toppled the government. I don’t think social media was the prime actor, but social media amplified by broadcast helped tell Tunisians that their fellow citizens were taking
to the streets...
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Ethan Zuckerman @'my heart's in accra'
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