Monthly Archives: August 2010

Social media in the Middle East: is it a real tool for (incremental) change, or merely cathartic self-expression?

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While we are on the topic of social media and political/developmental discourse, I just read this NYT op-ed by Rami G. Khouri. Khouri makes a case for a  valid point: the rift between U.S. policy on democratization in the Middle East when it comes to policies aimed at empowering young activist groups – especially and specifically with social media and technology – on one hand, and implicit or explicit American support for the the totalitarian/oligarchical/repressive regimes in question (for “strategic” reasons) on the other hand. Khouri argues that…

One cannot take seriously the United States or any other Western government that funds political activism by young Arabs while it simultaneously provides funds and guns that help cement the power of the very same Arab governments the young social and political activists target for change.

Khouri talks of the unfortunate reality of the double standards in U.S. foreign policy aimed at “democratization” , but here is my problem with the rest of Khouri’s argument. He goes on to say that…
Blogging, reading politically racy Web sites, or passing around provocative text messages by cellphone is equally satisfying for many youth. Such activities, though, essentially shift the individual from the realm of participant to the realm of spectator, and transform what would otherwise be an act of political activism — mobilizing, demonstrating or voting — into an act of passive, harmless personal entertainment.

We must face the fact that all the new media and hundreds of thousands of young bloggers from Morocco to Iran have not triggered a single significant or lasting change in Arab or Iranian political culture. Not a single one. Zero.


What Khouri is saying is that all of this social media hustle and bustle is nothing but a collective stress purge, a form of digital catharsis if you will, that has – according to him – zero impact on the the possibilities and trajectories of potential change of the societies where such new form of social discourse takes place.

I find this claim to be largely flawed. While it is true that social media does provide a purgative outlet for the oppressed, the net effects of the availability and use of such outlet is not devoid of “real” activism that could potentially bring about, or at least be part of, tangible change.

Do we have evidence of this counter-argument? Here is some.

The “April 6 Youth Movement” in Egypt and the Green Revolution of the 2009-2010 Iranian election protests are two prime examples of political activism movements that heavily relied on social media to mobilize, publicize and organize almost all aspects of their activities. Did “tangible change” come about as a result of these social media-fueled movements? Depends on how you define “tangible change”, but my answer would be yes. Khouri’s definition of change seems to be about the immediate form of it,  that of traditional coups and revolutions, and in assuming this to be his definition, it is not difficult to see why he is disappointed.

Technology-driven activism is not necessarily about short-term, abrupt change (which, histrionically, has been seen to do more harm than good), but rather about the incremental form of change. It is about the dissemination of ideas and the stirring active and inclusive societal dialogue about the requisite form of change and the means by which it should be brought about. Khouri completely misses this point when he writes:

Such activities, though, essentially shift the individual from the realm of participant to the realm of spectator, and transform what would otherwise be an act of political activism — mobilizing, demonstrating or voting — into an act of passive, harmless personal entertainment.

Which is funny, because Khouri likens the advent and usage of social media to that of one the most passive forms of media: T.V.
My impression is that these new media today play a role identical to that played by Al Jazeera satellite television when it first appeared in the mid-1990s — they provide important new means by which ordinary citizens can both receive information and express their views, regardless of government controls on both, but in terms of their impact they seem more like a stress reliever than a mechanism for political change.

Comparing ubiquitous weblogging, Facebook, Twitter, citizen journalism, cell phones and other forms of social media to what was once considered a dissenting Arabic T.V. news channel is misleading, to say the least. Where is the “social” on T.V.? To objectively judge the net effect of social media on societal and political change, it is important to understand that social media is not a tool for direct political confrontation or dissidence as it is one for putting coherence into the collective social consciousness, community building and self-expression. Could we really discount this utility as having “zero effect” on social change?

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What can social media tell you about the mainstream social discourse in Egypt?

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While I was working on my masters in International Development, I wrote a paper on how we can use social media to observe current social discourses on various themes, or what I specifically termed “grassroots developmental ethos”. In non-academic jargon, I was trying to see if it is possible to use social media to learn something of value about how Egyptians – especially young people – think about issues of change and development, and how their online interaction, from webblog posts to Facebook link shares to tweets can give telltale signs of the general direction of this ethos (which can in turn be useful knowledge for development practitioners, at least in theory).

The exact title of the paper now escapes me, and I can’t be bothered to look for it on the many USB drives in my desk drawers, but two videos that are currently making the rounds by Egyptians on Facebook, Twitter, forums and other social media channels made me remember this topic and rekindled some interest in it.

The first one is a clip from the Egyptian TV show “Al Ashira Masa’an” (which translates to “10 p.m.”), which is hosted by Mona El Shazly and garners a large and loyal viewership. In the clip, an Egyptian poet called Hesham El Gakh (of whom I have never heard before) performs an oration of one of his poems titled “Goha” (Goha is a well-known character from Egyptian folktales).

It’s difficult to translate the whole thing but what Hesham reads is basically a very pessimistic and gloomy “poem” in which he addresses his literary personification of Egypt and verbally lashes against what he sees as bad about the country (which is basically everything). If there is ever a poem to be described as “self-flagellating”, it is this one. Hisham delivers quiet a theatrical oration, with tears and everything. And you have to admit, he has a way with words and that Upper Egyptian accent lends the requisite air of authenticity to his pain (yes I am being a bit sarcastic here).

Now take that and contrast it with the second video making (admittedly less frequent) rounds between Egyptians online:

The video is titled “Ana Masry” (“I am Egyptian”) and posted on a Youtube channel called pmcegypt (what is pmcegypt? I don’t know). It simply presents various characters from Egyptian society (played by actors), who start by admitting to their bad habits but then say something about what is it about them (that is positive) that makes them “Egyptian”. The description with the video translates to “A video for those who love Egypt and still think that tomorrow will be better. Together we can change many things”.

What is interesting to my is not the content of the videos as much as it is the comments by different people – Egyptians – on both. What is even more interesting is the demographics of the people making those comments, or at least in the “sample” I observed on Facebook and Twitter where certain information about commenters is easily visible. Those are young, educated Egyptians: the demographic equivalent of the blood of this country. Any country. This is not a surprising observation, but rather an important one to note if anything if to be noted from all of this.

What does it say about the current social ailments of Egyptians, and what potential remedies are there for such ailments if we can actually define them?

Well, to give a very short answer, and insofar as anything can be gleaned from comments on online videos, the current social discourse in Egypt is more descriptive than prescriptive. People always tend to talk about how things are, not how it should be, and what should be done to make them be the way they should be. It is the path of least resistance in most social interactions in Egypt. The video by the “poet” above is nothing but a very lyrical version of the complaining spiel that lots of us hear from many Egyptians on a daily basis, from the taxi driver to your friends and family with graduate degrees.

The current collective social psyche in Egypt today is akin to a Jeep with its wheels spinning in sand: there is a lot going on but not much being achieved. It is all about the psychology of change. I’ll talk about the psychology of change and how it relates to the Egyptian mainstream social discourse in another post, but here is a thought for you to mentally chew on: change does not have to be political. In other words, start something or GTFO.

Speaking of Jeeps: They call this Egyptian Jeep, and I want one.

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