By: Arthur Cooper
Submitted: 2011-02-24 02:10:50 | Word Count: 664
Recent reports from Algeria signal that internet disruptions are being used to thwart yet another civil uprising in North Africa. Many claim that access to their Facebook accounts had been blocked by the government in an effort to quell the ongoing protests. Algerian protesters, there and abroad, in the past several months have been displaying civil unrest in spurts targeted at a governing system that has failed to provide adequate employment and housing for its’ citizens.
Algeria is a country that dabbles heavily in natural gas exportation, a major industry for the country. Many countries trade with Algeria and this has made this country very wealthy. Unfortunately, the wealth has not trickled down to the people. Run by a system similar to Egypt, Algeria has a very powerful leader and a weak parliamentary system. People in Algeria, Jordan, Tunisia, Egypt and others in the Middle East, are apparently fed up with a system that only rewards a few, leaving the masses to fend for themselves. Thus far the protesters have been greeted with military might and intimidation.
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Egyptians successfully ousted President Hosni Mubarak last week and toppled the constitutional foolery that bound Egypt for thirty years. Although the victory in Egypt is not quite what inspired protests in Algeria, they have served as a catalyst for renewed motivation. Protests in Algeria have been taking place for a while, but haven’t matched the consistency and level of involvement seen in Egypt and Tunisia.
What I find interesting is that the government is attempting to block the internet and Facebook. The internet became the single most influential tool in Egypt and the Algerian government has taken note. I suppose they figure that if they block internet communication, they will halt the uprising. Egypt, however, proved that theory wrong. Egyptians, with the help of others, found a way to get around those restrictions and use the internet as a means to energize and mobilize an entire generation.
In this day and age, the internet and Facebook has become an all encompassing tool, capable of linking a country. But several social revolutions have taken place without this method. The civil disobedience lead by Ghandi in South Africa and India and the Civil Rights movement in America are just a few of the revolutions that didn’t require the internet or Facebook. These tools weren’t around then so I know that it is possible to change the world without social networking.
The significant difference is that these online networks can spark a revolution in lightening, or should I say high-speed. Facebook can connect a country in a way that the newspaper, television and other sources simply cannot. It took Egyptians less than twenty days to totally change the status quo. Imagine what communication tools will be available to citizens of the world in fifty years. Twenty days could seem like an eternity for the generations ahead who are at the forefront of a revolution. I am glad to have been alive in this time so that I can tell the story of how the will of the people and the internet changed nations.
