Regional instability The Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions sparked a
wave of uprisings, with demonstrations spreading across the
Middle East and North Africa.
Algeria,
Bahrain,
Iran,
Jordan,
Libya,
Morocco,
Yemen and
Syria witnessed major protests, and minor demonstrations occurred in
Iraq, Kuwait,
Mauritania,
Oman,
Saudi Arabia, Somalia and
Sudan. The Egyptian protests were not centred around religion-based politics, but nationalism and social consciousness. Before the uprising, the best-organised and most-prominent opposition movements in the Arab world usually came from Islamist organisations with members who were motivated and ready to sacrifice. However, secular forces emerged from the revolution espousing principles shared with religious groups: freedom, social justice and dignity. Islamist organisations emerged with a greater freedom to operate. Although the cooperative, inter-faith revolution was no guarantee that partisan politics would not re-emerge in its wake, its success represented a change from the intellectual stagnation (created by decades of repression) which pitted modernity and Islamism against one another. Islamists and secularists were faced with new opportunities for dialogue on subjects such as the role of Islam and
Sharia in society, freedom of speech and the impact of secularism on a predominantly Muslim population. Another journalist,
Shlomo Ben-Ami, said that Egypt's most formidable task was to refute the old paradigm of the Arab world which sees the only choices for regimes repressive, secular dictatorships or repressive theocracies. Ben-Ami noted that with Islam a central part of the society, any emergent regime was bound to be attuned to religion. In his view, a democracy which excluded all religion from public life (as in France) could succeed in Egypt but no genuine Arab democracy could disallow the participation of political Islam. Since the revolution Islamist parties (such as the Muslim Brotherhood) have strengthened in the democratic landscape, leading constitutional change, voter mobilization and protests. This was a concern of the secular and youth movements, who wanted elections to be held later so they could catch up to the already-well-organised groups. Elections were held in September 2011, with Liberty and Justice (the Muslim Brotherhood party) winning 48.5 per cent of the vote. In 2014 in Upper Egypt, several newspapers reported that
Upper Egypt wanted to secede from the rest of the country to improve its standard of living.
Alexandria church bombing Early on New Year's Day 2011 a bomb exploded in front of an Alexandria church, killing 23
Coptic Christians. Egyptian officials said that "foreign elements" were behind the attack. Other sources claim that the bomb killed 21 people only and injured more than 70. Some Copts accused the Egyptian government of negligence; after the attack, many Christians protested in the streets (with Muslims joining later). After clashing with police, protesters in Alexandria and Cairo shouted slogans denouncing Mubarak's rule in support of unity between Christians and Muslims. Their sense of being let down by national security forces was cited as one of the first grievances sparking 25 January uprising. On 7 February a complaint was filed against Habib al-Adly (interior minister until Mubarak dissolved the government during the protests' early days), accusing him of directing the attack.
Role of women Egyptian women have been participating actively in the revolution, in the same way that they played an active role in the strike movement in the few last years, in several cases pressurizing the men to join the strikes. In earlier protests in Egypt, women only accounted for about 10 per cent of the protesters, but on Tahrir Square they accounted for about 40 to 50 per cent in the days leading up to the fall of Mubarak. Women, with and without veils, participated in the defence of the square, set up barricades, led debates, shouted slogans and, together with the men, risked their lives. Among those who died was Sally Zahran, who was beaten to death during one of the demonstrations.
NASA reportedly planned to name one of its
Mars exploration spacecraft in Zahran's honour. All four
Egyptian presidents since the 1950s have a military background. Key Egyptian military personnel include defence minister Tantawi and armed forces chief of staff
Sami Hafez Enan. The Egyptian military numbers about 468,500 active personnel, plus a reserve of 479,000. in response to the protests As head of Egypt's armed forces, Tantawi has been described as "aged and change-resistant" and is attached to the old regime. He has used his position as defence minister to oppose economic and political reform he saw as weakening central authority. Other key figures (
Sami Hafez Anan chief among them) are younger, with closer connections to the US and the Muslim Brotherhood. An important aspect of the relationship between the Egyptian and American military establishments is the $1.3 billion in annual military aid provided to Egypt, which pays for American-made military equipment and allows Egyptian officers to train in the US. Guaranteed this aid package, the ruling SCAF is resistant to reform. One analyst, conceding the military's conservatism, says it has no option but to facilitate democratisation. It will have to limit its political role to continue good relations with the West, and cannot restrict Islamist participation in a genuine democracy. The military has led a violent crackdown on the Egyptian revolution since the fall of Mubarak. On 9 March 2011 military police violently dispersed a sit-in in Tahrir Square, arresting and torturing protesters. Seven female protesters were forcibly subjected to
virginity tests. During the night of 8 April 2011 military police attacked a sit-in in Tahrir Square by protesters and sympathetic military officers, killing at least one. On 9 October the Egyptian military crushed protesters under armed personnel carriers and shot live ammunition at a demonstration in front of the
Maspero television building,
killing at least 24. On 19 November the military and police engaged in a continuous six-day battle with protestors in the streets of downtown Cairo and
Alexandria, killing nearly 40 and injuring over 2,000. On 16 December 2011 military forces dispersed a
sit-in at the Cabinet of Ministers building, killing 17. Soldiers fired live ammunition and attacked from the rooftop with Molotov cocktails, rocks and other missiles.
Impact on foreign relations Foreign governments in the West (including the US) regarded Mubarak as an important ally and
supporter in the
Israeli–Palestinian peace negotiations. According to Juan Cole many Egyptian youth felt ignored by Mubarak, feeling that he put the interests of the West ahead of theirs. The cooperation of the Egyptian regime in enforcing the
blockade of the Gaza Strip was deeply unpopular with the Egyptian public.
Online activism and social media The
6 April Youth Movement (Arabic: حركة شباب 6 أبريل) is an Egyptian Facebook group begun in spring 2008 to support workers in El-Mahalla El-Kubra, an industrial town, who were planning to
strike on 6 April. Activists called on participants to wear black and stay home the day of the strike. Bloggers and citizen journalists used Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, blogs and other media tools to report on the strike, alert their networks about police activity, organize legal protection and draw attention to their efforts.
The New York Times has called it the political Facebook group in Egypt with the most dynamic debates. In March 2012 it had 325,000 predominantly young and members, most previously inactive politically, whose concerns included free speech, nepotism in government and the country's stagnant economy. Their Facebook forum features intense and heated discussions, and is frequently updated. According to political scientist Shingo Hamanaka (2020), social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter did not act as isolated triggers of the 2011 Revolution but as mobilizing tools that connected pre-existing activist groups like 6 April Youth Movement to a broader audience. Hamanaka's analysis of two data sets show that individuals who were already highly engaged online, were significantly more likely to join street demonstrations. The study distinguishes between two groups, "early movers," who organized protests through digital platforms, and "late followers," who were influenced on digital platforms when widespread mass demonstrations began.
We are all Khaled Said is a Facebook group which formed in the aftermath of Said's beating and death. The group attracted hundreds of thousands of members worldwide, playing a prominent role in spreading (and drawing attention to) the growing discontent. As the protests began, Google executive
Wael Ghonim revealed that he was behind the account. He was later detained for a few days until the government was able to get a hold of certain information that they needed. Many questions were left around that subject, no one really understood what had actually happened or what has had been said. In a TV interview with SCAF members after the revolution, Abdul Rahman Mansour (an underground activist and media expert) was disclosed as sharing the account with Ghonim. Another online contribution was made by
Asmaa Mahfouz, an activist who posted a video challenging people to publicly protest. Facebook had previously suspended the group because some administrators were using pseudonyms, a violation of the company's terms of service.
Social media has been used extensively. Internet censorship has also been extensive, in some cases to the extent of taking entire nations virtually offline. Facebook, Twitter and blogging helped spread the uprising. Egyptian businessman Khaled Said was beaten to death by police in June 2010, reportedly in retaliation for a video he posted showing Egyptian police sharing the spoils of a drug bust. Wael Ghonim's memorial Facebook page to Said grew to over 400,000 followers, creating an online arena where protestors and those discontented with the government could gather and organise. The page called for protests on 25 January, later known as the "Day of Wrath". Hundreds of thousands of protestors flooded the streets to show their discontent with murder and corruption in their country. Ghonim was jailed on 28 January, and released 12 days later. Egyptian activist and 6 April Youth Movement member Asmaa Mahfouz posted a video urging the Egyptian people to meet her at Tahrir Square, rise up against the government and demand democracy. In the video, she spoke about four protesters who had immolated themselves in protest of 30 years of poverty and degradation. On 24 January Mahfouz posted another video relating efforts made in support of the protest, from printing posters to creating flyers. The videos were posted on Facebook and then YouTube. The day after her last video post, hundreds of thousands of Egyptians poured into the streets in protest. Since 25 January 2011, videos (including those of a badly beaten Khaled Said, disproving police claims that he had choked to death), tweets and Facebook comments have kept the world abreast of the situation in Egypt. Amir Ali documents the ways in which social media was used by Egyptian activists, Egyptian celebrities and political figures abroad to fan the protests.
Democracy Now! journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous provided live coverage and
tweets from
Tahrir Square during the protests, and was credited with using social media to increase awareness of the protests. The role of social media in the Egyptian uprising was debated in the first edition of the
Dubai Debates: "Mark Zuckerberg – the new hero of the Arab people?" Amir Ali has argued that, based in part on the Egyptian revolution, social media may be an effective tool in developing nations. Critics who downplay the influence of social networking on the Arab Spring cite several points: • Fewer than 20 per cent of Egyptians had internet access, and the internet reached less than 40 per cent of the country • Social-networking sites were generally unpopular in the Middle East, • Such sites were not sufficiently private to evade authorities • Many people did not trust social networking as a news source • Social-networking sites were promoted by the media • Social-networking sites did not involve non-activists in the revolution Some protesters discouraged the use of social media. A widely circulated pamphlet by an anonymous activist group titled "How to Protest Intelligently" (Arabic: كيف للاحتجاج بذكاء؟), asked readers "not to use Twitter or Facebook or other websites because they are all being monitored by the Ministry of the Interior". Television, particularly live coverage by
Al Jazeera English and
BBC News, was important to the revolution; the cameras provided exposure, preventing mass violence by the government in Tahrir Square (in contrast to the lack of live coverage and more-widespread violence in Libya). Its use was important in order to portray the violence of the Egyptian government, as well as, building support for the revolution through several different mediums. On one front was social media giving minute by minute updates via YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and in the other hand was the use of the mainstream media to report to a wider audience about the overall developments occurring in Egypt. The ability of protesters to focus their demonstrations on a single area (with live coverage) was fundamental in Egypt but impossible in Libya, Bahrain and Syria, irrespective of social-media use. A social-media expert launched a network of messages with the hashtag #jan25 on 11 February 2011, when Mubarak's resignation was announced. Social media helped secure solidarity for the revolutionaries from people outside of Egypt. This is evident through movements like the "March of Millions", "Voice of Egypt Abroad", "Egyptians Abroad in Support of Egypt" and "New United Arab States", who had their inception during the revolution inside the realms of Twitter and Facebook.
Role of media disruption on 28 January 2011 During the early morning hours of 28 January the Mubarak regime shut down internet and cell phone networks in the whole country. This media shutdown was likely one of the reasons why the numbers of protestors exploded on 28 January. While the regime disrupted the media, people needed to engage in face-to-face communication on a local level, which the regime could not monitor or control. In such a situation it is more likely that radicals will influence their neighbours, who are not able to see the public opinion displayed in social media, therefore these people are then more likely to also engage in civil unrest. This vicious circle can be explained through a
threshold model of collective behaviour, which states that people are more likely to engage in risky actions if other people inside their networks (neighbours, friends, etc.) have taken action. Radicals have a small threshold and are more likely to form new networks during an information blackout, influencing the people. Disrupting the media and communication had 2 main results: it increased the local mobilisation of people and empowered radicals who influenced their surroundings, which resulted in an increase in protests. During 28 January the increased local mobilisation pushed a large amount of apolitical Egyptians into action, either to look after their friends and family in the absence of mobile communication or to complain about the shutdown, resulting in large protests not only in Cairo. Meanwhile, the Mubarak regime was unable to communicate a possible threat to the protestors via social media and was therefore unable to dissuade the crowds through this mean, which spread the protests further. "the revolution triggered a new public culture". Since its beginning, artists played a significant role in the protests;
street art and music (
electro or ''techno sha'bi'') were used to craft a public culture. Artists documented and captured the essence of the revolution, distributing their art through online and face-to-face social networks. == See also ==