Egyptian revolution 2.0 (or not?)

January 2011, the month of the Egyptian revolution. It all started on 25 January with demonstrations, marches, labour strikes and fights between demonstrators and supporters of the regime of Hosni Mubarak. Every country in the world was focused on the Middle East, wondering what would happen. Everywhere in Egypt people were gathered to demonstrate against the government, often combined with many violence.

It was possible to follow the developments in Egypt from every place in the world by watching the news or reading newspapers. In addition, everywhere in Egypt people communicated by leaflets, playcards, graffiti, and of course all the TV cameras with life footage. As mentioned in this BBC article: "When one communication channel is blocked, people try another." Meanwhile, this time another communication channel showed up: the internet.

The use of internet and mobile phones to organize demonstrations increased over the past few years. The internet showed his power several times before, and again that power was visible in January 2011. Many protestors in Egypt used social media to spread the news about developments, and to gather people for the next demonstrations. As mentioned in the article, "The Facebook group set up to protest at Khaled Said's death is "liked" by nearly 600,000 people and was a key organising centre for the current protests." However, next to Facebook, mainly Twitter was utilized for communication (#egypt), followed by an almost complete shutdown of international internet access between Egypt and the rest of the world. Nevertheless, on the historic 'Day of Rage' nothing could stop citizens from communicate which each other, and a huge number of citizens came together on the streets. These demonstrations resulted in an historic event: Mubarak resigned as president on 11 February and left Cairo.

From my point of view the internet was truly an important factor in this Egyptian revolution, but it was not the leading factor. I think this revolution would have happened anyway, perhaps just a little slower. After all, it is not the internet that brought this revolution in Egypt. It was hope.