One of the hot topics in international politics lately has been the revolution or protests going on in Egypt. Several cities have experienced daily protests, mostly peaceful but occasionally violent. For those who haven’t been following the news, the movement in Egypt actually stems from a successful revolution in Tunisia which was sparked after a man burned himself alive due to the repressive police force which used frequent intimidation techniques. The main difference in the two revolutions is the fact that Tunisia’s was based around the unions and organized Islamic movements. Egypt on the other hand is solely based on the people, who refuse to accept a leader on the basis that choosing a leader should be a democratic process and they are not at that point yet.
This ground up approach is a quite amazing when taking into consideration previous revolutions throughout the last 2000 years. Through the use of social media, people have been able to mobilize on an unseen level. Initial protests were organized through Facebook events (which Egypt has now blocked), popular journalists and activists routinely release information on what’s happening in the cities via Twitter (despite similar attempts at blocking the service) and videos of the protests are released hourly for those who are interested enough to watch.
The social media aspect is most definitely the most interesting part to me. I like to keep up to date with most international politics, but the level of activity going on right now is simply amazing. In terms of Twitter, I’ve been following an award winning journalist named Wael Abbas (@waelabbas) who tweets pictures, videos and general information (in English and Arabic) a couple times an hour. For me, this is a refreshing way of getting reliable information from sources that aren’t tied to specific governments. Additionally, the Youtube channel which I’ve found to have regular updates and unbiased information, as well as extremely intense videos, is RussiaToday (http://www.youtube.com/russiatoday).
These methods not only supply interested viewers everywhere with in depth information, but they also completely undermine most government’s attempts to control their populations. While Egypt has attempted to shut down the internet and block social media websites, locals have been setting up independent infrastructure in order to organize protesters and release information to the world. As a result, the Egyptian Presidents attempts to ruin the legitimacy of protesters have backfired and popular support has continued to grow throughout the world.
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