JASMINE REVOLUTION

      JASMINE REVOLUTION 

Movements for social change don't just happen. Protest is said to flare up, gather steam and boil. Other times movements are said to take a country by storm or peter out.

Protest movements are continuously appropriating new technologies. The telephone, still camera, video camera, mobile phone, and fax machine have all been utilised. In many ways Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) like internet is simply one more addition to this list.

One such example of a cyber-revolution is Jasmine Revolution.

In Tunisia…

Jasmine’s white color symbolizes the tolerance of Tunisians and its sweet odor smells like Tunisia. It reflects the richness of this country.
The country that was first shaken to the core by Jasmine Revolution is Tunisia. The 2011 Jasmine Revolution of Tunisia drastically changed the current political climate of the country. At the same time, it is spreading waves throughout the rest of the Middle East.
Twenty-six year old Mohamed Bouazizi, the deemed martyr and the trigger of the Jasmine Revolution, could be considered as a person that might have nothing left to lose. Another cause of the revolution was Lahseen Naji who electrocuted himself. He also became a martyr for the Jasmine Revolution.
One major question asked: What caused the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia?
There was one main factor which led to several more factors. The main catalyst was Bouazizi. There was an argument between Bouazizi and Ms. Faida Hamdy who was supposed to be the municipal inspector. Bouazizi was constantly harassed by the local police. This had even gone back to his childhood years. One could say that his story is rather sad for good reason. It is explained that he never graduated high school because he had to help out his family which meant working full-time. Thus, Bouazizi resorted to selling produce on the side of the street. After the scuffle with Ms. Hamdy and her two colleagues, Bouazizi went to the governor's office to demand an audience. However, he was refused.
Thus, Bouazizi immolated himself on December 17, 2010. But, he was still alive only to die early in the next month.
But, Bouazizi's actions planted the seeds of dissent towards Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's administration. There are many that were in the same economic situation as Bouazizi. Afterward, there was mass protest in regards to the unemployment rate. There were street protests all over the country.
Then, the protests got violent and on December 20th, the state media gave a response from the government, but there was no footage of the riots. The government called the incident “isolated.” In short, Ben Ali's administration tried to suppress the protests and black out the media. However, Ben Ali's administration did not seem to factor in one thing: the Internet.
Without the help of the Internet, would the riots in the small town of Sidi Bouzid have spread as a powder trail all across the country? Would the images have circulated worldwide? The answer is definitely NOT.
It was not Twitter, it was not Wikileaks… But it was the first WEB REVOLUTION… How internet aroused the revolution???
Overall, the Jasmine Revolution was sparked by a person with little to nothing to lose who set himself on fire. Then, a string of protests followed. And then others took the same lead across the country only to have the police respond. While when it seemed that everything was contained, the Internet proved to really hurt Ben Ali who created his rebellious cybersons.
Social media through the Internet played an instrumental role in the Jasmine Revolution for the most part. Many platforms such as blogs, social networks, and instant messaging, have contributed in revealing the scandals and corruption surrounding the president, his family, and the government and sparked the flames of the Jasmine Revolution.
It is not the traditional media that made aware of the extent of the movement, but all the messages uploaded on Twitter, Facebook (almost 2 million Tunisians, which is 18 % of the total population) and the blogs of Tunisians within the country or abroad.
Considered as one of the enemies of the internet by Reporters without Borders, Tunisia was long known for its pernicious methods of internet filtering and censorship. Tunisia has also acquired the status of ICT leader in the region and regularly distinguished itself for its e-administration strategy. This proves well that sometimes it is difficult to associate e-Democracy with e-Government.
For the association of Internet with the freedom of speech was always out of the question in Tunisia, where the bandwidth is owned by the Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI), controlled by the government, who imposes a severe filtering of information and where the 12 Internet service providers, both private and public, are directly or indirectly controlled by the government. Private satellite Internet connections are blocked to private individuals and are available only via fixed telephone lines. In order to have a better watch on the dissidents, all the connections are made on individual basis. The user keeps his same IP address, either if he connects from home or from his workplace. The e-mail boxes are put under surveillance as well.
Even put under high surveillance or surrounded of barbwire, Internet has become a titan which nothing can stop. Sharing everything was the objective of all Tunisians who were taking pictures or filming riot scenes in the street demonstrations. The images and videos posted online were sometimes very gruesome and allowed the public opinion to become aware of the extent of the movement.
Alongside the websites which stood as the voice of the opponents such as the website Kalima, an independent magazine founded in 2000, and censored in the country. There were also all these Internet users and bloggers, like Lina Ben Mhenni, author of the blog A Tunisian girl. During the demonstrations, she posted information and listed cases of police exactions, posted online photos of the five martyrs allegedly killed in Regueb, a city situated thirty kilometers from Sidi Bouzid, where the demonstrations against unemployment started in mid-December. She also spread the word on the arrests of the bloggers and activists Slim Amamou, Aziz Amami, Hamadi Kaloutcha, and the student leader Wissem Sghaier. The same situation for the photos and videos published on the independent site Nawaat.org, which dedicated a special page to the latest news. “We have on average 80,000 visitors a day, which is eight times more than usual. The movement is becoming more and more extensive and has a worldwide effect", says Malek Khadhraoui, one of website administrators.
Aside from social media, the online group Anonymous also played a very instrumental role. Anonymous is most notable for being a large online group that constantly crusades against the faith of Scientology.
The heavy censure of the Internet by the Tunisian government could not stop spreading the truth and has made the information about the president corruption as common knowledge for the world in general and the Tunisians in particular.
The downfall of the corrupt government, however, was accelerated as WikiLeaks revealed official documents about the organized and excessive corruption and extent of theft committed by the government and his family during the 23 years of tyranny. It spilt an already bubbling cauldron causing the uprising. A special website was made referring to the Wikileaks about Tunisia and the corruption by the Ben Ali family called TuniLeaks.
The wave of protests ultimately led to the downfall of disgraced leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who then put himself into exile in Saudi Arabia. The Jasmine Revolution also gained support by the country's military. It was revealed that General Rachid Ammar could also have been a cause for Ben Ali's departure from the country. It is believed that Ammar refused to order his soldiers fire upon the protesters.
On January 13th, 24 hours before leaving the country, President Ben Ali promised to allow total freedom of information and end Internet censorship, in his third address delivered to the nation in less than a month. For the first time in the history of Internet, a government was putting an end to the Internet censorship under pressure from the people. This statement, which places Internet freedom on the same rank as the freedom of the press, opens a new era in the young history of political Internet. It illustrates mostly the decisive role played by Internet in the fall of a regime which thought could effectively control the Web.

Thus, it’s the bloggers who created a culture of opposition inside the youth. The youth, educated and illiterate did the revolution. Youth should also contribute to the democracy without their courage being hijacked.

These people understand that dignity is more important than bread

The various blog posts were:

You are an extraordinary people for having unleashed a revolution whose echoes have reached the four corners of the world ------------ to all the Tunisians.
Their fatal mistake was thinking that they could rob you and put you on your knees but you smashed that dream ------------- referring to Ben Ali and his family.

Thus, the fragrance of jasmine spreads..... leading to a similar revolution in various Middle East countries.

In Egypt…

President of Egypt Hosni Mubarak facing the Tunisian knock-on domino effect

If there was ever to be a popular uprising against autocratic rule, it should not have come in Egypt. The regime of President Husni Mubarak was the quintessential case of durable authoritarianism. Government officials, pundits and academics, foreign and domestic, thought the regime was resilient not because it used brute force or Orwellian propaganda, but because it had shrewdly constructed a simulacrum of politics. Parties, elections and civic associations were allowed but carefully controlled, providing space for just enough participatory politics to keep people busy without threatening regime dominance.

Having grown up on such empty descriptions, it's not surprising that we're hearing so much today about Egypt's "Facebook revolution" or its "Twitter revolution."
The role of the internet in Egypt's revolution has definitely been overstated. Internet access in Egypt is barely 20%, much less than Tunisia or Iran. Mobile phone usage is much higher, at about 40%. Egypt is also a very young and urban society. In cities, the gap between rich and poor is more extreme and gratingly visible than in the rural parts of the country. These elements a rising level of connectivity combined with an exploding population of young people facing declining economic prospects since the global recession are probably the most critical underlying factors explaining Egypt's explosion.
The April 6 Youth Movement an Egyptian Facebook page was started in 2008, to support the workers in El-Mahalla El-Kubra, an industrial town, who were planning to strike on April 6th. Activists called on participants to wear black and stay home on the day of the strike. Bloggers and citizen journalists used Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, blogs and other new media tools to report on the strike, alert their networks about police activity, organize legal protection and draw attention to their efforts. The movement was the political Facebook group in Egypt with the most dynamic debates. As of January 2009, it had 70,000 predominantly young and educated members, most of whom had not been politically active before. Their core concerns include free speech, nepotism in government and the country's stagnant economy. Their discussion forum on Facebook features intense and heated discussions, and is constantly updated with new postings.
It is readily believed that a handful of people through Facebook, Twitter, and blogging sparked this uprising. One of which is Wael Ghonim . Many believe Ghonim was the first contributor to spark the Egypt revolution when he created a Facebook page dedicated to Khaled Saeed entitled We Are All Khaled Saeed. Saeed, an Egyptian business man was beaten to death by police in June 2010. It is believed that this was in retaliation to a video he posted showing Egyptian police sharing the spoils of a drug bust. The Facebook page blew up to over 400,000 followers, creating an online arena where protestors and those discontent with the government could gather, vent, and organize. The page called for protests on 25 January, Known as the day of wrath. Ghonim has also gained quite a large following through his Twitter account where he has been creating a narrative of the events happening day to day in Egypt.
Inspired by the revolution in Tunisia, the Egyptian revolution was started on January 25^th 2011. Protests began with a campaign on a popular Facebook page. Even as online pledges to participate approached 90,000, however, a large-scale demonstration seemed unlikely. And Egypt is a crushingly effective police state, with a long history of imprisoning dissidents and no-holds-barred crowd control. Attempts to organize large-scale protests in Egypt tend to fall flat.
Mohammed ElBaradei and the Muslim Brotherhood, the two opposition players most likely to draw people to the street, had offered only moral support. There was a lot of Internet activism, but there’s not always a big turnout on the streets. Yet protest organizers combined an Internet savvy with hard tactics on the ground. They got online supporters to coordinate with friends and family by text and word of mouth, and to join with traditional activists to reach out to people on the street. The anonymous administrator of the main Facebook page behind the protest, told NEWSWEEK that organizing something significant would take more than just activism on the Web. “It’s not just posting,” he said. “To get people to the streets you need to rally. Rally very hard.”
The protests so large in scale could be organized largely over the Internet and independent of Egypt’s traditional opposition, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, should give Mubarak plenty of cause for concern. It shows the extent to which regular Egyptians are fed up with authoritarian rule, and how quickly that frustration can spread lending the shades of the uprising in Tunisia.
It’s not an Islamist-organized protest. This really is unprecedented. It’s just everyday Egyptians getting angry!!!

A powerful tool of open source data analysis, Google Insights for Search is used, which offers unique advantages for gaining insight into these mass movements, and the ideas, thought leaders and personalities driving revolution. It shows how the tool allows analysts to gain intellectual purchase on three different facets of this “Jasmine” revolution, namely: the role of religion in post-revolutionary Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, and an electronic straw poll of likely presidential candidates.

Why Google Insights? Why are internet searches relevant? What additional insight does this tool provide researchers to developments on the ground in Egypt?

Google Insights is a free service and allows researchers to conduct near-instant analysis of the search terms typed into Google’s search engine. The search results of this new tool need to be more comprehensively tested and the robustness of its findings are open to discussion.

It is important to note that Google Insights is different from a public opinion poll. While public opinion polls measure aggregate attitudes, Google Insights helps better understand public “attention.” Google, the dominant global search engine, provides real-time insight into individual “attentiveness,” but on a massive scale. Search results are particularly appealing during moments of great upheaval (as long as the internet stays operational) because they can suggest results in near real-time at minimal cost compared to existing survey methodologies.

Egyptians do turn to Google’s search engine to find out more about the personalities and figures of various religious leaders that they hear about in the news. The surge in searches demonstrates the internet’s power in Egypt as an increasingly important alternative source of information, even in a country saturated with satellite channels and a raucous free press.

Will religious fundamentalism grow in Egypt? Will the Muslim Brotherhood dominate a fractured and ineffectual opposition? Now that the hated security apparatus is on the defensive, will jihadists have the opportunity to regroup?

THESE ARE DAUNTING, BUT CRUCIAL QUESTIONS!!!

Research using preliminary experimentation with Google’s Insight for Search service supplemented with extensive discussions with regional experts and methodological testing has provided some interesting and counterintuitive results about the ideas and personalities currently shaping Egypt’s future. While there are still numerous methodological challenges to this approach, Google Insights presents as a promising new tool for overcoming some old and enduring challenges as researchers and academics try to address all the important question: whither Egypt?

Thus, with a firm understanding of the distinction between attentiveness and public opinion, using Google Insight people identified some major insights into the ideas, thought leaders, and issues animating Egypt during this crucial period.

After the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, freedom was given to establish political parties only by "notifying" concerned authorities resulted in establishing several political parties. Several political leaders were freed from the jail.

In Libya….

Many young Libyans have been frustrated by the slow response of foreign government, social media has created an international show of solidarity.

Libya, one of the largest oil producers of Africa is going through the worst bloodshed in recent history. Libya, although gained independence as kingdom of Libya in 1951, is being ruled from 1969 till present by Muammar al Gaddafi who rose to power in a military coup. In 1972 Gaddafi acquired the post of the Prime Minister. He is one of the longest serving rulers in history. He is reported to have earned for himself and his family some 60 billion dollars. After abolishing the monarchy of king Idris, he encouraged anti-western radicals.

No foreign press is allowed in Libya. Here political parties were banned by 1972 Prohibition of Party Politics Act Number 71. Trade unions don’t exist and there is no right to strike. Following the success of Egyptian Revolution, protests here began on 15^th February, 2011. By 20th February more than 200 people had been killed in Benghazi. On 21st February, Libyan Air Force Aircraft attacked civilian protestors in Tripoli (the capital of Libya). Gaddafi has declared war on its own people. He has openly declared that he will not leave Libya and would prefer to die here as a martyr rather than fleeing.

Amid a near-total media blackout the internet has played a major role in distributing video, pictures and information about the ongoing unrest in Libya. Footage has emerged online of the violent clashes between anti-government protesters and the security forces, while countless video clips have been uploaded showing the chaos which appears to be spreading across Libya.
While rumor can be widespread, accurate and detailed information has filtered out on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, with users across the globe following minute-by-minute accounts of the latest events. Main Facebook page was started, where activists discuss when and where to protest, has attracted more than 82,000 members.

We've received overwhelming support, which has allowed all of the people in the region to come together. And it's not just support from Tunisia and Egypt, it's from the United States and beyond.

As a result, several Libyan officials stepped down or distanced themselves from Gaddafi declaring his regime to be illegitimate and accusing him of genocide and crime against humanity in his attacks against the people of Libya. Various cities have slipped out of his grip. Now that even police and army have declared that they are against Gaddafi.

Thus, the revolution inspired many other countries especially Middle East…

IT IS THE ARAB REVOLT: SOCIAL MEDIA AND PEOPLE’S REVOLUTION

Identifying likely outcomes in fast-paced and dynamic situations like the unrest currently gripping the Middle East is always difficult. Leaderless revolutions, like the jasmine revolution in Middle East are often particularly problematic because conventional tools of intelligence are of limited use: a satellite can estimate a crowd size, but it does not help to identify the ideas that will inspire and sustain protestors. Even high placed human intelligence sources may lack certainty as to who the political actors are that matter among the masses of demonstrators.

D MOUNICA JYOTHI
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