Role of Facebook in the Arab Revolution - Coursework Example

Role of Facebook in Arab revolution Role of Facebook in Arab Revolution The influence of facebook in social life is increasing day by day. When it was introduced in 2004 by a former-Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, nobody thought that it would affect global politics, economy, culture, communication etc as it does now. According to Marshable (2010), “facebook and its idea spread across the college campus within months from launching and at present it is the second largest social networking site, second only to my space as far as traffic is concerned” (Marshable, 2010). The ability of facebook in bringing politic and social changes was never in the distant dreams of Mark Zuckerberg. In fact facebook reveals the power of social media not only to the political leaders and economists but also to the sociologists. In the recent revolutions in the Arab world, facebook played an important role. Many people are of the view that the dictators in Arab world would have continued their totalitarian leadership if facebbok like social never interfered in the matters of the Arab world. This paper analyses the advantages and disadvantages of using facebook for conducting revolutions in the Arab world. Advantages and disadvantages of using Facebook for conducting revolutions in the Arab world If youre a Saudi king who buys billions of dollars of American weapons, youre pro-Western and therefore entitled to continue to rule a country without a parliament, one where thieves hands are amputated and women arent allowed to drive. If youre an Egyptian president who supports the peace process, youre pro-Western and have permission to continue to impose emergency rule in your country, jail journalists and opposition members, and fix elections (Barel, 2011). Arab dictators continued in power because of their strong relations with United Sates. It should be noted that Saddam who challenged America’s power, failed to continue in power. Moreover, in Iran also America is trying to create political unrest because of Iran’s negative attitude towards America. At the same time, dictators in countries like Egypt, Saudi, Libya, Tunisia etc. succeeded in continuing in power because of their readiness to obey American orders. The entry of facebook changed the scenario completely. Even Americans never thought that facebook adversely affect their interests in the Middle Eastern region. The interferences of facebook created history in the Arab political history. Facebook provided a channel for cross cultural communication for the Arab people. In other words, facebook helped people in the Arab countries to know more about the social and political situations in the external world. Through facebook, messages related to the necessities of having a democratic administration spread across Middle East. Arab dictators never realised the silent revolution taking place in their country through facebook. Only after this revolution attained the dimension of political agitation, these dictators realised the depth of the problem they were facing. Arab dictators have a strong control over their domestic media. No television channels or newspapers in Arab world may report anything against the interests of Arab leaders because of the fear of punishment. Freedom of expression, liberties, equalities etc like human rights are not visible in the Arab world even for the name sake. Facebook educated the Arab public that they are leading a life of slaves and their leadership is looting their resources. The dictator of Tunisia was overthrown in less than one month after being in power for 23 years. There is no question about how opponents of his regime were able to topple it. Two words describe it: Facebook, Twitter. These two social networking sites enabled protesters to take to the streets, organize the opposition, recruit new protesters, and overcome the police force and the military (North, 2011). For the first time in the history of media communication, dictators realised that it is difficult or impossible to block or censor foreign media. Since internet is a global media, nobody can restrict internet messages beyond certain limits. Even communist China which has sophisticated internet related technologies, is struggling to block the exchange of information through internet and social media. Arab world have inferior technologies related to internet compared to that of the westerners. Thus Arab dictators failed miserably to control the intrusion of foreign media in their soil and paid the penalty. President Mubarak of Egypt appeared as a gentleman to westerners. He kept strong relations with the westerners and supported the Middle East peace talks conducted by the westerners. Even for Israel, Mubarak was an accepted leader. In fact Mubarak was trying to secure his place or power in the country through his strong tie up with the westerners. He realised that it is impossible for him to challenge westerners and it is better to keep better relations with them in order escape from the destiny of Saddam. However, he failed to analyse the social changes taking place in his country as a result of social media like facebook. He never thought that in a country with only less than 20% of people with internet access, revolutions may come from digital media. “It is the power of the communications networks, when coupled with a willingness on the part of protesters to gather in the streets, that spells a period of crisis for every autocratic regime on earth”(North, 2011). Mubarak failed to anticipate the power of communication network and paid the penalty. Post prayer protests played an important role in the Egyptian revolution. People assembled for Friday prayers, were asked to take part in the agitations through facebook. On one of the protest’s main Facebook pages, more than 43,000 people have already signed up for the event, which was posted Wednesday. “A lot of organizers are arrested,” says “ElShaheeed,” the page’s anonymous administrator. “We are hoping it will virally spread, and people will assume responsibility [by spreading the word] in their mosques and churches.” Post-prayer protests have been effective in Egypt for years. “It’s incredibly smart, because they can’t close off the mosques,” says Joshua Stacher, a Middle East specialist at Kent State who lived in Cairo for almost a decade. “They don’t know who’s showing up to pray and who’s showing up to protest.”(CR News, 2011) The above facts clearly show how well the Egyptian agitators used facebook effectively to conduct their agitations against the dictatorship of Mubarak. In Libya also, facebook played its part in expelling the controversial leader Gadhafi. Gadhafi was an enemy of America earlier, however later he became a friend of America. He also realised that American support is necessary for him to sustain power. However he failed to estimate the impacts of Egyptian revolution upon the Libyan people. In fact Libyan people were looking for an opening to topple the Gaddafi administration. They got inspiration from Egypt and their dislike towards Gaddafi is evident from the fact that they brutally killed Gadhafi even though they caught him alive. One of the major advantages of using facebook for Arab revolution is the possibility of revolution even “without a centrally directed agency and without any organization that can be infiltrated and subverted” ”(North, 2011). It should be noted that in most of the countries, an organization or centrally directed agency conducted revolutions. For example, in India, Indian national Congress under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi conducted the revolution to topple British colonial rule. However, in the case of Libya, Tunisia and Egypt, recent revolution took place without the leadership of an organization or centralised agency. If a centralised organization was functioning in these countries against these dictators, it was easy for the doctors to destroy it using iron fist. However, facebook helped the agitators in these countries to assemble under the banner of facebook and conduct revolution. Because of that it is often said that the recent Arab revolution is nothing but facebook revolution. Facebook revolution is raising several concerns also in the international political circle. It is quite possible to conduct revolutions in any country using digital media. In other words, antisocial elements can use facebook as a weapon to topple even elected democratic governments. There is not control over the information passed through facebook. Anybody can spread any messages across any countries and take undue advantages. Anders Colding-Jorgensen, a Danish psychologist, conducted an experiment in 2009 in which he implied that Copenhagen’s Stork Fountain was about to be demolished and started a Facebook group to save it. The threat was fictitious but the group soon had two new members joining every minute (Cohen, 2011). The above fact clearly shows the facebook addiction among people in different countries. In fact facebook became an addiction for many people just like alcohol addiction or drug addiction. Whatever the news and information spread through Facebook is believed by the people, without proper evaluation to prove its credentials which is not a good sign for the future. Any kind of addiction is not good for the construction of a healthy future generation and facebook addiction may also cause problems in future. Conclusions Facebook helped the recent Egyptian agitators immensely in leading a successful revolution against the dictator Mubarak. It also helped people Tunisia and Libya to topple their totalitarian administrations. The waves of democracy brought to the Arab world by facebook. At the same time, people have habit of entrusting each information passing through facebook which is not a good sign. Antisocial elements can easily exploit the possibilities of facebook to mislead people and conduct their missions. References Barel Z (2011). An Arab revolution fueled by methods of the West. Retrieved from http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/an-arab-revolution-fueled-by-methods-of-the-west-1.340079 Cohen R (2011). Facebook and Arab Dignity. The New York Times. January 24, 2011. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/25/opinion/25iht-edcohen25.html CR News (2011). Revolution by Internet. Retrieved from http://www.cedarsrevolution.net/jtphp/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3290&Itemid=2 North G (2011). Facebook, Twitter, and the Arab Revolutions. Retrieved from http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north939.html Read More