Egyptian blogger Eman AbdelRahman aka LastoAdri. Courtesy of Oso on Flickr.

Why did the Mubarak regime turn the internet off?

That was the question I asked the attendees of a gathering recently at the Oxford Internet Institute looking at the role of the internet in the revolutions sweeping the Middle East. The question gives us, I suggested, a route into understanding the other side of the equation, ie. How authoritarian regimes maintain their power. It therefore connects us to a long standing debate that has encompassed media studies, cultural anthropology, political science and more.

My provisional response was to suggest that turning the internet off was more than anything a gesture of power that shed light on how an authoritarian regime perceived its ability to exercise control. Yes, turning off the internet was an attempt to stop activists using free publishing tools online to organise protests and share information. Yes, turning off the internet worked to prevent information reaching the outside world and so perhaps preserved for one more day alliances with powers who were not going to like the violence and repression that had to be meted out to protect regime interests. But perhaps more importantly, turning off the internet was a gesture of a power relation. We can do this. You cannot stop us. We are in power, you are not. Targeting the internet as a way of stating the existence of a relationship of power just goes to show how embedded the internet had become in Egyptian society, and that its long term role had been to help render the tools of authoritarianism far less effective. In a paradoxical way then, the Egyptian government’s decision was a statement of its powerlessness in the face of the long term impact of the internet.

A number of caveats are necessary. A revolution depends on many factors coming together at the same time: the fuel of long term economic grievances and repression, a cadre of young people willing to die, the fuse of a revolutionary setting – in this case that incredible moment broadcast on Al Jazeera and other satellite networks when President Ben Ali fled Tunisia in the face of the unstoppable force of public protests. Perhaps more importantly for this debate is the caveat that illiteracy and poverty exclude many millions of people from social media in Egypt. Despite these caveats, and without wanting to be trapped in the eddies of the causality debate, social media was influential enough for it to be worth discussing. According to statistics shared by the impressive Noha Atef – founder of a blog documenting torture and Twitter user extraordinaire – there are perhaps as many as 21 million internet subscriptions in Egypt, a figure that demonstrates how the internet has come to play an important role in the country. A middle class phenomenon perhaps, but powerful in its reach.

In taking the longer term view, rather than focusing on the immediate examples of how social media were used in the protests, we can look at the role of social media in helping to undermine the tools of authoritarianism. Three areas are of particular interest: 1) the ways in which authoritarian states obstruct the Freedom of to assemble, 2) the way in which authoritarian regimes control public space with propaganda, objects of fear and the cult of personality, and 3) the ways in which repressive regimes attempt to block critical thinking and freedom of expression.

Freedom of Assembly

Many of the protest movements sweeping the Middle East have gathered pace in towns outside the capital. Sidi Bouzid, Suez, Daraa, Benghazi. But in each case, the protest movement needs to also take hold in the capital, and more specifically in a symbolic location and central gathering place. Only that way could the protest take on the regime in a national sense – a blow to the heart. The best example of this was Tahrir Square which became effectively proto-liberated space for the protesters. It represented what you might describe as ‘sacred national space’ where peace and fraternity reigned amongst those committed to the revolution and both Muslims and Christians could pray alongside one another. A junction at the heart of the capital city, Tahrir became the beating heart of the revolution, so much so that Al Jazeera and other news networks had to broadcast the scene there almost continuously to all corners of the country and beyond. By reclaiming Tahrir Square and fighting every regime attempt to clear it, the Egyptian protesters reclaimed the heart of Egypt for themselves.

Facebook pages and Twitter hashtags provided similar gathering places. These were assembly points that attracted the focus of the many (in the case of Twitter the focus of the most active activists and international networks). On Facebook Kulina Khaled Said and the April 6 Youth Movement were prominent throughout. So too was the January Revolution Day against Torture Poverty Corruption and Unemployment. On Twitter, the hashtag that gathered most attention was #jan25. To be prominent, hashtags and Facebook pages necessarily required wide community participation – just as holding Tahrir required a big number of dedicated protesters in it for the long haul. The impact and attention of these gathering places forced the regime to acknowledge the protesters. Unlike regime media that could largely ignore the protests at the start, to interrupt these gathering points either required using them – thereby acknowledging them – to spread the regime line, or removing access to them altogether (by blocking the service or turning the internet off).

The focus here on date and time is particularly interesting. Why use a date for a revolutionary hashtag? Many other protest movements have used a date on Twitter too – Tunisia, Libya, Bahrain, Syria. So the trend is deeply rooted. A date is important because it suggests rupture. Although – as Noha Atef pointed out – the revolution began many years before in the gradual activism of a new cohort of web-savvy young people, the symbolic date of rupture was January 25 in Egypt. Before this date, Mubarak reigned supreme. After this date he was effectively ruined. The date announced the rebirth of the nation, the narrative moment in which Egyptians took history into their own hands, purging themselves of the past ills imposed on them by a corrupt regime. This date of rebirth was in many ways more significant than the date on which Hosni Mubarak stepped down – as the continued use of the hashtag attests.

Dates, landmarks and national narratives are deeply interrelated in Egypt, inscribed as they are into the history books and the geography of Cairo. Many of the bridges and major thoroughfares are named after important historical dates (October 6, May 15, July 26). The hashtag had a similar connection to Tahrir. It was both a space, a landmark and a new national narrative, written by the community outside of the control of the regime. In using it, Egyptians broke through the atomization enforced on them through years of Emergency Law preventing them from freely assembling to demand their rights and influence policy. Just as the community collectively broke through the barrier of fear by taking to the streets in such numbers on 25 January, numbers so large that individually the Egyptian protesters faced a greatly reduced risk of reprisal from the regime, so Egyptians took courage in collectively joining Facebook pages and contributing to the #jan25 hashtag on mass.

Propaganda and the Cult of Personality

Authoritarian regimes flourished in the days of old media in large part because the one-to-many paradigm of radio, television and print favoured central control on the distribution of information and ideas. Just as public space could be cluttered with the paraphernalia of the ruler (statues, portraits, banners, insignia on cars), so public media could be cluttered with the propaganda of the regime. This helped to spread fear and furnish the idea that everyone else was wildly supportive of the ruling regime (a process in sharp focus in Bashar Al-Assad’s speech to parliament on 30 March 2011). Some scholars have suggested that the effectiveness of this propaganda quickly wears thin with the people; it is not so much then that Egyptians believed everything Mubarak said or Al Ahram told them, rather they had no power to prevent this propaganda intermediating between their lives and the lives of their fellow citizens. Rather, propaganda acted as a code for describing acceptable behaviour and denied the viability of alternatives to regime rule. As political parties, syndicates and other public bodies are quickly co-opted by the regime, so ‘independent’ mass media are co-opted to distribute regime messages and sideline challenges. Public debate largely ceases to exist or is marginalised, so there is little opportunity to take part in public debate. The regime flourishes in this environment.

But what happens when you have publishing tools that provide for dense inter-connected networks? Egyptian use of Twitter is the perfect example of this. Twitter is the fruition of trends in the web that emphasize networked inter-linked information where everything is social. Everything is linked: users are hyperlinks, topics (hashtags) are hyperlinks, tweets are hyperlinks, replies are connected hyperlinks. Moreover, Twitter is a gateway to other content through traded links. So tools like Discus allow you to see all the users gathering around a particular url on Twitter. Retweets and suggested links broaden and enrich the connections users are willing to take part in between one another. Egyptian activists took this opportunity to build their own web of people and information which was integrated over time into the global link economy.

The point here is not to eulogize the brilliance of Twitter, but to show that its functions – which are the result of evolving trends in the social web – and the breadth of its global community provide for a dense network of people and information which is a direct threat to the stability of regime propaganda through old media. In their own way, Wordpress, Facebook, YouTube and all the other popular web services do a similar thing. In a multi-polar networked paradigm that crosses barriers of location, culture and ideology it is much harder for any one set of interests to take full control. The atomizing effect of regime propaganda is sorely undermined. Simply put, social tools escape the authoritarian suppression of sociability (unless you turn the internet off).

Governments can’t be ‘social’ – only people in communities can. The US Defence Department is surely learning this. So the Mubarak regime’s efforts to insert itself into the evolving online network was doomed to failure. Just as it could not stir enough people onto the streets to counter the revolutionary demonstrations, so it could not tackle the weight of community action online when the floodgates truly opened (#jan25). The regime’s decision to send threatening text messages through the Vodafone network are a case in point. They did not stem the tide of the Egyptian Revolution. Similarly, Mubarak’s televised addresses had the feeling of watching history, literally. This is how the regime treated Egyptians for so long. It was captivating for western audiences to see a dictator in the act of dictating. The content of those speeches could never have met protester expectations precisely because protesters called for Mubarak to go, and in the absence of any meaningful progressive political platform from the regime (was there ever one?), the televised addresses were surely designed simply to show who was in power. But they actually worked the other way. They provided fuel for the community to enervate its critiques and lampoon a dictator. The addresses enhanced the sense of the clumsy powerlessness of the regime, its crass ineptitude, its emptiness. The display demonstrated that the regime’s power had long since evaporated. Suddenly the idea of ruling a country for 30 years looked something incredible and unlikely.

Freedom of Speech

When I was living in Egypt in 2006, I came to know two middle class female bloggers (muhagabat) in their early twenties who blogged anonymously. My interest in their blog stemmed from the fact that they were not tackling overtly ‘political’ topics, but nevertheless their blog was deeply political. They used the blog as a critique of their family life, and particularly to vent against their parents and wider social norms. Why can’t we live in a place of our own outside the family home? Why are we expected to get married and have children? Why won’t my dad let me come back to the house when I want? Around this agenda gathered a community of peer bloggers who offered support and self-affirmation. This small community worked to take on bloggers with opposing world views who stumbled across the blog from the wider public.

The interesting point here was that by blogging and gathering anonymously in this way, the group began to formulate and disseminate a social critique that previously could not have been propagated in public space. So the blog acted for them as a node of critique. This kind of interaction was being repeated among the young educated Egyptian middle class right across Egypt, creating new avenues for free expression and debate, though largely ignored by the media pundits interested more in activists fighting torture. The long term repercussions of this evolution in the Egyptian public sphere cannot be underestimated. Though gradual in terms of the life span of social media, this change is rapid and profound in the broader social history of the Middle East, and surely its impacts will be felt for a long time to come.

Conclusion

We cannot boil revolutions down to a simple equation such as [social media + young people + grievances = revolution]. But then nor can we ignore social media use as an important and growing trend that has direct implications for the way in which authoritarian regimes exercise power. We should be cautious about many aspects of social media – linguistic hegemony, increased status competition, the erosion of privacy protections. Nevertheless, we should celebrate the long term impact of social media use that has created a more networked, community-led, editable public sphere.

What do the next ten years hold for creativity, innovation and intellectual production in the Middle East? Among the presentations to the Arab Thought Foundation’s ninth annual conference, FIKR9, were broadly two competing narratives for how the region should evolve.

Enthusiasm for the future: The young participants of FIKR9 Youth Program with HRH Prince Khalid Al Faisal in Beirut. Picture Courtesy of Hibr on Flickr, Licensed CC Attribution Share-Alike NonCommercial 3.0.

The dominant narrative suggests that the region can harness its ‘youth bulge’ to create a knowledge economy. This can happen from within the existing political structures, and will fuse Gulf oil wealth and investment expertise with the ever growing pool of human talent from across the region.

This narrative likes to focus on STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine). Educational achievement in these areas can create hi-tech industries and cutting edge research centres that will underpin innovation in areas such as renewable energy, petrochemicals, and nanotechnology.

You can see the mechanics of this strategy already taking root. Gulf money is being invested to build truly world-class research infrastructure, such as laboratories and libraries. Qatar’s Education City or the King Abdullah City for Science and Technology are two good examples. Foreign talent from outside the Arab world is being hired at a premium to train local talent, stimulate new research and foster a productive learning environment.

It is a strategy that gels well with the existing political institutions of the region, as the conference made clear. In his introductory notes, Arab Thought Foundation President HRH Prince Khalid Al Faisal, member of the Saudi royal family and governor of Makkah Province, said that the Arab world needed to lead global society toward a ‘sustainable future’ by ‘accelerating development in Science and Technology’.

With their immense resources and access to human capital from the wider Arab world and Asia, the Gulf states can build hi-tech industries and the talent pool needed to power them – a strategy that would replace oil and gas, and bring many wider infrastructure and economic benefits to society – without needing to change the way in which society works in any fundamental way.

That’s where the second narrative comes in, most prominently displayed here by Professor Burhan Ghalioun, Director of the Center for Contemporary Oriental Studies at the Sorbonne. The fact that he works from France is testament to the fact that his views are unpalatable in the Arab world. No one said it, but these views are also incompatible with the ‘knowledge economy’ thesis.

This narrative says that the notion of a knowledge economy is impossible without a fundamental change in the way in which Arab elites view critical thinking. For Ghalioun, critical thinking is inseparable from the notion of a knowledge economy. But for critical thinking to take root depends on elites relinquishing power. So the nub of it is that building a knowledge economy depends on building democracy.

Ghalioun’s thesis is not new – it notably draws on the ideas of Hisham Sharabi’s Neopatriarchy which was written in the 1980s – but it is still deeply challenging to hear the case being made so passionately at an elite Arab forum from within the Arab world. It is an ironic inversion of the very title of the event – Arab Thought Foundation. Ghalioun is saying, “Arab thought” is a contradiction in terms, and you the elites are the reason why this is so. He also poured scorn on the title of the event (Shaping the Future .. Arab’s role?), suggesting that the Arab world has no positive future to look forward to. But one thing is for sure, no non-Arab could make this case so boldly without being labeled an out-of-touch Orientalist. We certainly have to respect the Arab Thought Foundation for inviting him. It is not easy to welcome someone to a conference when you know his purpose for being there is to question the very forum you have established.

No other presentation elicited so much feedback from the audience, both positive and negative, so clearly Ghalioun’s words had hit a chord. Moreover, he spoke in high classical Arabic with a rhetorical eloquence that resonated with the audience, a further irony in a presentation that on face value to a western outsider might look like an unhelpful polemic rant. Let me quote from my notes:

In the Arab world we have a multifaceted crisis. No one is interested in the future, young people don’t have a future. All our policies are built on ignoring the future. Private interests trump public ones. We need many more jobs than we are creating. We have focused on closed nationalisms. We count on foreign protection for security. We are paying the price for nationalism rather than supporting each other. We need cooperation. We have feudal systems, we have princes. No one is asking the people. We have closed political regimes where political interests are linked to financial interests. We have great potential. But instead of asking people to think and criticize we have a system of tutorship. We have packaged people like sardines. This is why the Arab world has no more value than Hungary. The people are marginalized. A very small minority has control. We have deprived ninety percent from human resources. A small group has monopolized power. We need the blood of the Arab body to circulate, not just flow to one limb. Otherwise it will die.

Clearly, Ghalioun’s suggestion that Arab countries do not think about the future of their societies is wrong. Arab countries from Syria to Saudi Arabia think the future of the region is a knowledge economy, built from within the existing political structures. Much as China has built a powerful export economy from within the structures of the existing Communist regime, so the countries of the Middle East believe they must work from where they are, not a fantasy democracy land. The alternative to the current regimes they believe is the sectarian bloodshed of Iraq or the erratic theocracy of Iran.

But the ‘knowledge economy’ thesis is also fraught with challenges. As Parag Khanna argued, the countries of the region have high barriers to mobility which limit trade and the free flow of talent. Daniel Warner, former the chief of human resources at Apple, argued cogently for greater mindshare and investment in entrepreneurship in the region as a strategy for building human capital. Jordanian social entrepreneur Maher Kaddoura asked how the region would make more intellectual production available to wider Arab publics online in light of the fact that many do not speak English. Privately friends noted that the unwillingness of some countries to grant citizenship impedes the long term development of scientific communities needed to build the knowledge economy. There were also calls at the conference for improved legal frameworks and training that could underpin a successful rejuvenation of trade and business growth in the region.

One thing we can be sure of though is that in any plan for building human capital and knowledge industries, critical thinking matters. This is as true for scientists as much as for researchers in the humanities. We may just find that the highly skilled science community the region seeks to build is the vanguard for other kinds of change we can scarcely begin to predict.

Al Arabiya television channel has been fined for deciding not to broadcast an interview. Courtesy Mr T. in DC.

It’s the daily trade of the television output editor, chopping what doesn’t meet the grade to maintain the daily news agenda in a time sensitive schedule.

But now an Arabic language channel in the Gulf might have to rethink its editorial chain of command after a court in Dubai slapped down a $27,000 fine for not broadcasting an interview it recorded with a Saud royal.

The decision inflicted ‘emotional, moral and social damage on the prince’s status as a royal,’ according to his lawyer.

Judge Ahmad Eisa of Dubai’s appeal court agreed, ruling that Al Arabiya had ‘breached the nobility and morality of journalism’ in refusing to air the interview with Prince Dr Saif Al Islam Bin Saud Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud.

The Prince, who sought five times the level of compensation ordered by the court, was upset that Al Arabiya failed to broadcast the interview despite having advertised it on air, according to Gulf News.

The channel had flown Prince Dr Saif Al Islam to Dubai especially to record the piece.

Al Arabiya countered that it had full rights to the interview and so could choose when to air it.

Switzerland's anti-Minaret campaign poster. Picture by rytc.

By Tom Trewinnard.

Switzerland’s controversial referendum decision to ban the construction of new minarets for Swiss mosques has caused varying degrees of concern in the Arab world, and attracted a wide ranging debate about the reasons behind the decision.

Independent online daily Nawwar reports that amongst observers, whether Swiss, Arab, or Muslims of any ethnicity “understanding the nature and significance of this initiative differs from one person to the next, some see it as a storm in a teacup, while others see it as flagrant evidence of the “spirit of religious war” persisting in the subconscious of many people in the West.”

فهم طبيعة هذه المبادرة ودلالتها يختلف من فئة إلى أخرى، فهناك من يرى أنها زوبعة في فنجان، وهناك من يرى أنها تعبير قاطع على أن “روح الحروب الدينية” لا تزال تتحكم في لاشعور فئات واسعة في الغرب

While observers playing down the significance of this vote are few and far between, this decision has left many Arab Muslims feeling angry and scared. “I don’t know what is happening in Switzeland. Islam is fought in every age by all possible means. May Allah (God) guide everyone. Oh Allah. Do not impose upon us, because of our sins, those who lack mercy and do not fear You,” reads one comment on the story, from popular Egyptian news site Al-Youm Al Sabia.

انا مش عارف ايه اللى بيحصل ده فى سويسرا ، الاسلام حظه كده فى كل عصر انه يتحارب باى شكل من الاشكال ، وربنا يهدى الناس جميعا ، اللهم لا تسلط علينا بذنوبنا من لا يخافك ولا يرحمنا

As for why the Swiss took the decision to ban new minarets, many commentators refer to a growing anti-Islam push that is taking place throughout Europe. Renowned novelist and political activist Alaa al-Aswani, in an Op-Ed for independent Egyptian daily Al-Shrouq, insists this is not the case:

“This incident proves to us that in reality not all westerners are enemies of Islam, as some of our extremist sheikhs would have us believe…. The western racist and islamophobic ideology is not new. What is new is the fact that this ideology has increased in support because of Westerners’ fear of the bloody, backwards image that some Muslims voluntarily portray of their religion. Those who signed the petition for the ban of minarets, are not necessarily racist haters of Islam, but they are afraid of a religion that they do not know and is only associated, in their minds, with murder, bloodshed and oppression of women…”

ن الفكر العنصرى الغربى الكاره للعرب والمسلمين، ليس جديدا لكن الجديد أنه يكتسب المزيد من المؤيدين وذلك بسبب خوف الغربيين من الصورة الدموية المتخلفة التى يتطوع بعض المسلمين بتقديمها عن دينهم، فالذين وقعوا العريضة من أجل منع المآذن، ليسوا بالضرورة عنصريين كارهين للإسلام، لكنهم خائفون من دين لا يعرفونه يرتبط دائما فى أذهانهم بالقتل والدماء واضطهاد المرأة.. ولنا أن نتخيل رد فعل المواطن الغربى عندما يشاهد فى التليفزيون السيد أسامة بن لادن وهو يطالب بذبح أكبر عدد من النصارى والكفار أو رد فعل المرأة الغربية عندما تستمع إلى أحد شيوخ التطرف وهو يؤكد أن المرأة المسلمة يجب أن ترتدى نقابا بعين واحدة

Another interesting dimension to this debate, is the way the decision in Switzerland has led many to question how religious minorities are treated in the Middle East. One of the 500 or so comments on al-Aswani’s post asks “Why does the author bother himself with what is happening in Switzerland but does not start a campaign to eradicate the cultural roots of the repeated and ongoing attacks against Copts in Egypt?”.

لماذا يوجع الكاتب رأسه بما يحدث في سويسرا ولا يقوم بتوجيه حملة تحاول القضاء على الجذور الثقافية للاعتداءات المتوالية على الأقباط في مصر

In a fascinating blog post discussing the role of the minaret not only in religion, but also in identity and heritage, Egyptian Muslim blogger Tarek closes by voicing his dissatisfaction at the ban, “in the end I am against the Swiss decision. But I am also against the Egyptian non-decision which contributes, in one way or another, to the oppression and dissolution of a people and its culture. While in Switzerland and other places, the governments may be to blame. Here the blame lies with the people.”

ففي النهاية أنا ضد القرار السويسري. لكنني أيضا ضد اللا قرار المصري الذي ساهم بشكل أو بأخر في طمس هوية شعب و ثقافته. و إن كان اللوم في سويسرا و غيرها قد يقع على الحكومات فاللوم هنا يقع على الناس

Thanks to Tom, Rebecca, and Nouran for help with translations.

Menassat - the Beirut-based independent news source and media watchdog which closed this week

The Beirut-based news outfit Menassat has closed after its Dutch backers Free Voice withdrew funding support.

The closure brings to an end two years of quality journalism at Menassat which built a reputation for monitoring and investigating Arab media news.

In a statement posted on its website, Menassat’s staff said they were given less than 24 hours notice of the closure.

‘Our reporters were given no notice of this impending closure,’ the statement read.

‘For this, we are deeply sorry. We hope to work with you again soon.’

On Friday a visit to the news outfit’s website  produced only a holding page stating in English and Arabic: ‘Menassat is currently under maintenance. We should be back shortly.’

In a press release, media development organization Free Voice said: ‘ There are no reasons for Free Voice to terminate its efforts with regard to content.

‘We highly value the dedication and work of the editorial team and they have furthermore always enjoyed full editorial freedom.’

‘The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs has provided – through Free Voice – the initial funding until August 1st 2008.

‘It was agreed upon that efforts would made from Beirut to be financially independent after this date.

‘Because this had not been successful, Free Voice has decided to provide, from its own means, additional funds for a number of times under the agreement that additional funds would be actively sought for from Beirut.

‘Sadly, Free Voice has to acknowledge that these have not been secured and Free Voice is now forced to terminate its support, in line with these agreements.’

Despite staff perceptions of a rapid demise, funding concerns existed at Menassat for some months.

In May, staff staged a protest at the delayed payment of their salaries.

Reporters also spoke of working on a ’shoestring’ budget.

When Free Voice responded to staff demands, they in turn requested the outfit take steps to improve its editorial output over a three month period, according to Layal Haddad writing in the Lebanese Al-Akhbar.

Managing director Lina Sahab achieved strong progress with more varied editorial content and up to 4,000 hits per day.

But these successes were not enough to secure the financial future of a promising alternative media source.

The closure has already sparked conspiracy theories, but reporters were more frank.

One reporter, Rita Barotta, wrote: ”The question that haunts my conscience today is: Why do the Lebanese always believe that the solutions to their problems must come from abroad?’

‘Why assume that the basic requirement to launch a unique media platform is the presence of an external financier to support it?’