BROADCASTING EGYPT: WHY EGYPT’S REVOLUTION IS A SOCIAL MEDIA PHENOMENA AND WHY IT MUST NOT BE TAKEN AS SUCH

 BY: Paola Ivanova

 

When today everyone is following the latest developments in Egypt on television and mostly, on social media, very few of us are realizing we’re actually facing a true revolution here! It may seem to you unrealistic or even as just another multimedia application. That’s because of the way this revolution is being broadcasted – tweeted, youtubed, facebooked … In this sense how many of us are realizing the pictures of beaten people are real, the shots on Tahrir square do happen and the tanks on the Cairo streets are not a Photoshop collage of the Tiananmen square from some decades ago?  How many of us, expressing “deep concern” with statuses, posts, wall posts to local friends, tweets are aware of the fact that the people there are really defending their homes with bats and sticks, that the National museum was really a victim of the demonstrations? As much as the Egypt revolution is a golden mine for the media and the (social) media explorers, as much as it is a demonstration for the power of the internet nowadays, as much as it is another uprising in the long line of riots organized via the world wide web, it still is a revolution! Its real, happening now, in front of your eyes, there are living creatures involved, there are killed people, there is army on the streets, there is a person unwilling to step away for the sake of nothing! Egypt is a great example for the influence of the nowadays information sharing methods and to me personally just writes my PhD (which is on the same subject).

Yet still, this is not an IPhone news app, Photoshop work, Facebook or Twitter debate! It is real and it lasts, with many sacrifices, for the last week. And we must face it as real! It will bring a change that will influence our lives as well. This may seem vague to you, but it will!  Which is why I’m not afraid of calling it “revolution” and I don’t think its inappropriate – it changes the way we see, respond and react to the world today if even only with its development.

The Egyptian revolution has been upraised following a line of similar revolutions in more or less oppressed societies like Moldova, Iran and Tunisia, all organized in the same manner. The way you organize it doesn’t actually matter – what matters is will it happen, for how long and what will bring as an outcome. You can write revolutionary texts and lines against the government or the state situation in the internet as much as you wish, you can have tons of followers and likers … But if none of your words or actions actually become reality, then you just lost your time , the time of the others and turn into another barking dog. The Iranian, Tunisian and now the Egyptian revolutions brought people on the streets NOT because some of them made a group on Facebook against Mubarak or Ahmadinejad, but because the people needed this last push to do it! In all these cases the last drop in the full glass of tension was needed to make it explode – this last drop were the social networks. They weren’t the reason, just the last ground. And this is why none of us, staying save in their homes with proper 24/7 access to internet, must think of the Egyptian revolution as something that happened on the internet and is so trendy to follow on Twitter. 

We must see the real thing behind it – the least because it teaches us how things must NOT happen in a free world. None of us, living in the so-called modern, democratic societies cannot imagine a minute without internet or phone – when this happens every now and then, we immediately and really angry call our providers accusing them in all deadly sins insisting on our right of information. Well, now imagine to NOT have Facebook, to NOT know when will you have again, to NOT have mobile phone (scandalous!!!) … Egyptians, modern contemporary people, live like that for 3 days already! We consider our Facebook/Twitter profiles and cell phones as something really private ... well, they’re not, at lest not everywhere, they can be cut any time!  

So much about our “free people” perception – the lessons here must be learned by ourselves, to be a logical addition to our informed understanding for democratic society.

Still the truth for the information resources is this - cut or not, it really doesn’t matter, this cannot stop the people. Not only we must not approach this situation as a social media phenomena, the government of Egypt must not do it on first place. Because by doing so, they work much more against themselves then with any other action!

Since Thursday last week I haven’t seen a single post by none of my Egyptian friends living there. Their internet access and phones are cut. What kind of government this is to do that in a secular country that is among world’s top touristic destinations and major part of world’s history? One that must leave! Freedom of information is universal human right, like it or not. Cutting down the internet will cause exactly what it actually causes – violation of human rights and major opposition worldwide. A change in the government yet still governed by the same person that does these violations, is not the answer. It only makes it worse. This cannot stop people from gathering and protesting for the simple reasons I mentioned above - because this revolution is not based on social media shared ideas! As long as they still have two legs, they’ll gather and protest no matter what you do! This revolution and the wave of revolutions happening in the Arab world today,  have the same grounds as the revolutions some 20 years ago in Eastern Europe. Any Czech, Polish, Romanian, Bulgarian older then 23 can understand it, because any of them remembers the street riots and the governments restrictions, the wave of protests in the entire Eastern Block that eventually led to the fall of the communism. Back then the internet wasn’t existing. Back then there wasn’t even a hint for social networks. And back then people were gathering and protesting, writing their own history. No government or authority must expect to keep their position after cutting down information resources for another simple reason – when you do so, it only means you have something to hide...from the whole world. Because today the whole world will understand in a second you did that!  And worse – in the 21st century of modern technologies this is a demonstration of unprecedented oppression over the people that will not be left unanswered – by the people themselves and, let’s hope, by the international community too.  If people don’t want you, they’ll make you leave now or later, one way or another!

Social networks, media and internet in general are not only a suitable platform for organized actions – they go way ahead, they keep the whole world up-to-date and basically work against anyone who wants to stop them, react within milliseconds! Because now we live in a new millennia, because now there are people who can tell something to other people as fast as the light goes – for example, “you must not allow this government to treat you like this” , “you have rights that are universally recognized”, “you must do a change because you are repressed”. And this happens if even the communicating parties are thousands of miles away from each other. The revolutionary waves 20 years ago in the Eastern Block were much tougher due to the lack of these nowadays info resources – we only had national televisions managed by the same governments we were trying to get rid of, that for no reason in this world would show us protests or opposition. And these revolutions still happened, because the people wanted them to happen. Today’s Egyptian and other revolutions will also happen. The difference now is that they’ll happen much faster!

And, by the way, this same scenario we witness today applies for any government or head of state, thinking they will last forever by not providing their people with freedom of information – all the way from Cuba to China and DPRK. Such governments naturally fear the free information flows because they won’t be able to control it. What they don’t understand is that the flow exists and is created by the common people, therefore they will find the way to express themselves.  It’s just a matter of time.