Showing posts with label Egypt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Egypt. Show all posts

Collaborative Documentary Weaves Stories of Egyptian Revolution

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About 400 people gathered in Tahrir Square Thursday to launch a new kind of documentary about the Egyptian revolution.

Instead of putting together a traditional, continuous film, creators of 18DaysInEgypt are asking individuals to submit media they created while living it. Tags those contributors add about the date, their feelings and their location will eventually help connect individual stories.

Jigar Mehta, a Knight Fellow at Stanford University and former New York Times video journalist, originally started the project hoping to pull content directly from Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. But he and co-creator Yasmin Elayat quickly found difficulties in determining context from social media posts.

“We thought, instead of being ahead of contributors pulling content, let’s push them to contribute,” Mehta says.

The first of the site’s contributions came from about 100 photographers, journalists and bloggers who served as beta testers. Elayat and Mehta also had “ambassadors” collect media from people who weren’t connected to the Internet. Thursday was the public contributions launch.

Using a contribution tool, anyone can compile videos, photos, tweets and Facebook posts into a slideshow module for the 18DaysInEgypt website. They then have options to add aforementioned tags and additional text. So far, people have used the tool in a variety of ways, many of them — like a video slideshow of activist musicians — in ways the team hadn’t anticipated.

A concert at the 18DaysInEgypt launch party at Tahrir Square on Thursday.

“The Egyptian edition of the Daily Star has edited a picture of a Kefaya demonstrator in its 19 December print issue,” wrote one contributor. “[it] carefully blurred the anti-Mubarak writings on the Kefaya demonstrator’s poster.”

“One man had the audacity to grope my arse, not once, but twice, within 30 seconds,” wrote another.

“The latest fighting started when a boy who was part of the cabinet sit-in was brutally beaten by soldiers,” wrote a third.

Eventually viewers will be able to click hyperlinks in each of these modules to see others that took place at the same time, with the same person or at the same location — in other words, how the censorship, beating and arse grabbing were connected. It’s a view of storytelling that has gotten some attention, including a grant from the Tribeca New Media Fund.

Mehta and Elayat are working on making the concept available for telling other stories as well. They plan to launch a storytelling platform based on 18DaysInEgypt, GroupStre.am, within the next few months.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Maggie Osama

keep up with the newest technologies and contemplate about how these will be used in the future. On this blog I'll share my thoughts about the future of technology, based on the high Tech Road Show Blog inventions of today.
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The percentage increase of 10% The use of social sites faster prevalent in Egypt and Russia

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The percentage increase of 10% A report issued by the Center for "Bio" for research on the use of modern techniques of social networking in 21 countries, both in Egypt and Russia before the stages of the world regarding the use of electronic means of social communication. The report showed that the population of poor countries send SMS messages more than the population-rich countries, while the men used in both Spain and Germany the Internet on their phone more intelligent than women. The report also noted that the phenomenon of SMS text messaging is the most prevalent globally, in the countries surveyed show that 75% of mobile owners use the service. Did not change the use of social networking sites as "Facebook and Twitter" between 2010 and 2011, except for Egypt, which increased the proportion of use of social networking sites from 18% last year, to 28% this year, in addition to Russia, which increased the proportion of use of social networking sites 33% to 43%. The social networking sites as "Facebook and Twitter" one of the tools that sparked the revolution in Egypt and led to the fall of the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak, said observers, the social networking sites contributed to the mobilization of the demonstrations in Moscow, when tens of thousands of Russians to the streets to demonstrate against the Parliament in the issue of rigged elections. The survey sample ranged between 700 and 4000 people in 21 countries, and most other results published by the report were Indonesia, Kenya, the two most states use two SMS messaging, as the figure was 96% and 89% respectively, while did not exceed this percentage to 67% in United States of America. As in Spain, reaching the proportion of males who use the Internet via their mobile phones to 29% compared with 13% of the females, while the ratio in Germany 26% to 11% in Turkey, 30% to 14%, according to the network "CNN's" American. The percentage of users of social sites in the United States to 50% compared with both India and Pakistan, the figure reached in each of them to 5% and 2% respectively.
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Twitter’s 15 Major Milestones in 2011

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Much like any other year, 2011 experienced major events that shook the world, whether the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East or the worldwide protests led by Occupy Wall Street.

But in 2011, microblogging service Twitter was at the epicenter of these events, broadcasting minute-to-minute updates and firsthand experiences from users to the rest of the world.

For protesters, Twitter served as a primary communicator to connect with other protesters and civilians, organize meetings and post pictures and videos of uprisings. Unfortunately, hundreds of protesters who encouraged violence via social media, or who were photographed and filmed taking part in the violence, were prosecuted.

SEE ALSO: Top 16 Tweets-Per-Second Moments of 2011 | The 21 Most Memorable Tweets of 2011

Twitter also launched new upgrades and designs for its services and made several acquisitions, including web advertising company AdGrok, social analytics platform BackType and lists and interests-focused startup Bagcheck.

Unfortunately for Twitter, 2011 also brought a number of scams — from 11.6 hours to a beach body weight-loss product to the Tweeter Viewer, these scams targeted many user accounts.

Check out the gallery below to see more of Twitter’s major milestones in 2011.

1. Egypt Blocks Twitter As Protests Become Violent

January: After violence between anti-government protesters and police continued to erupt in Cairo, Egypt, the Egyptian government censored microblogging service Twitter as well as other websites.

Social media played a key role throughout Egypt's protests. First, the protests were organized through a Facebook Page, then protesters turned to Twitter to post photos, video feeds and other information about the protests, using several hashtags devoted to the revolution.

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Social networking booming in Egypt, Russia, survey finds

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A woman talks on a mobile phone in Cairo's Tahrir Square on February 12, 2011.
A woman talks on a mobile phone in Cairo's Tahrir Square on February 12, 2011.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • Survey: Use of social networks grew dramatically amid recent upheavals in Egypt and Russia
  • People in poorer countries such as Kenya send texts more often than those in wealthier ones
  • New Pew Research Center report measured the usage of digital communication in 21 countries

(CNN) -- People in poorer countries send text messages more often than those in wealthier countries. Men in Spain and Germany access the Internet on their phones twice as much as women do.

And use of online social networks grew dramatically in Egypt and Russia over the past year, most likely as part of the recent political upheavals in those countries.

These are among the results of a new report that measured the usage of digital communication in 21 countries. The survey by the Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project found that text messaging is now a widespread global phenomenon: In the countries polled, 75% of cell phone owners say they text.

In almost all the countries surveyed, the use of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter didn't change much from 2010 to 2011. Two notable exceptions were Egypt, where 28% of respondents now use social networks -- up from 18% last year -- and Russia, where social-networking use rose from 33% to 43%.

Facebook and other networking tools played a prominent role in the revolution that toppled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in February. Protesters organized so effectively on social networks that the Egyptian government shut down the Internet for five days in an unsuccessful attempt to quell the uprising.

Observers say social networks also have helped mobilize protesters in Moscow, where tens of thousands have filled the streets to speak out against Russian parliamentary elections they say were rigged. The Pew survey found that only 6% of Internet users in Russia were not on social-networking sites.

Researchers conducted the survey face-to-face and via telephone in the spring of this year. Sample sizes in each country ranged from 700 in Japan to more than 4,000 in India.

Among the survey's other findings:

-- Of the countries surveyed, text messaging was most common in Indonesia and Kenya, where 96% and 89% of people said they regularly send texts. By contrast, 67% of people in the United States were frequent texters.

-- In Spain, 29% of male cell phone owners use their devices to access the Internet, compared to 13% of female phone owners. This mobile-Web gender gap was also pronounced in Germany (26%/11%) and in Turkey (30%/14%).

-- Social networking is generally more common in wealthier nations, largely driven by the fact that they have higher rates of Internet access. For example, 53% of respondents in Israel and 50% of respondents in the U.S. said they use social networks, compared with 5% in India and 2% in Pakistan.

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"Twitter" and a new interface called amazing potential

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To facilitate communication with all the ease and effectiveness of

Revealed the social networking site "Twitter" for the new interface and new design and a comprehensive yet electronic, as well as for applications for twitter mobile devices based on the operating system "Android" or "any OS".
Is based on the new design to divide page to 5 main sections, ie, add 3 tabs new, respectively: "Home" and "Connect" and "Discover" and "Me" and "Tweet", to allow users to stay connected to their interests more easier and smoother.
It includes the first tab "Home" and a comprehensive overview on each of the Alngredat that appear in the right side, news, comments and other information about the people around you.
The tab "Connect" to conduct other on the talks and the participation of friends, acquaintances and family and see who is following all-new you, or those who you follow and information on new followers.
The biggest change with the new update the tab "Discover", where the business is collecting all the information of interest to the user, and reviews the current activities of those who follow the user or suggestions followers and new show in the left side, as well as enable the user to find the friends, as well as to link this tab New users stories via tweets, preview, news sources and watch their own videos and follow up all Alngredat relating to each story.
The tab "Me", reviews the all the profiles for the user, lists, and links its own, and can send and receive news directly, in addition to the observers for the user to have the possibility to see the pictures and video clips that the user downloaded directly to its own profile.
And the push of a button on the key "Tweet" the user can news of new knowledge and its sources of origin and see the images and video, using the "@" can start to talk with other members.
It should be noted that the last major redesign of the site Twitter was more than a year ago, in mid-September 2010 the site division faced into two main sections, are grouped the content of the user of the images and Fido and data has induction and information sources inside and, before that should have user left the home page of the inventory of the number of Alngredat published.
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Why 2011 Will Be Defined by Social Media Democracy

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youtubeImage by Sean MacEntee via FlickrEkaterina Walter is a social media strategist at Intel. She is a part of Intel's Social Media Center of Excellence and is responsible for company-wide social media enablement and corporate social networking strategy. She was recently elected to serve on the board of directors of WOMMA. On Jan. 25, 2011 pictures and videos flooded out of Egypt as tens of thousands of anti-government protestors took to the streets in a "Day of Rage" protest over President Mubarak’s 30-year rule. Pro-democracy sympathizers across the world retweeted and shared the updates, even as the Egyptian government disabled cellphone towers and blocked Twitter in an attempt to censor the material. Reports indicated that households and businesses opened up their Wi-Fi networks to support the protesters and to allow the dissemination of information. The pictures and videos that continued to appear across YouTube and Facebook trended on Twitter worldwide, both inspiring and shocking international onlookers.
2011: The Year of Social Media Democracy
Social Media as a Tool of Change
Mob Rule: The Darker Side of Social MediaHuman Spirit Triumphs


Besides bank defaults and credit downgrades, 2011 will be remembered for the rise of social media democracy in countries traditionally ruled by autocratic governments — most notably, the Arab Spring. The wave of protests that began in Tunisia in December 2010 spread first to Egypt, then to Libya, Bahrain, Syria and Yeman, with protests of varying sizes across many more middle-Eastern countries.
In regions where official media has been heavily censored for years, the rise of personal access to the Internet and social networks has meant that populist movements now have a voice that can reach the outside world.
Before 2011, ad-hoc events organized by social media had largely been entertaining and quirky, often put together by arts groups such as Improv Everywhere, which staged flash mobs in Grand Central Station. And let's not forget the social media craze planking.Soon, however, Twitter hashtags, Facebook groups, YouTube videos and Flickr streams would be employed by the masses in countries where censorship had traditionally blocked anti-government voices. Representatives of populist discontent were able to adopt and adapt new methods of communication to reach each other and outside sympathizers, often at terrible risk to their own lives and the safety of their families. Social media democracy began to take on a new meaning; a collective voice was now able to document its struggle for the first time.
After opposition to Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi turned bloody, NATO intervened to lend rebels military support in the escalating civil war, and to help to protect civilians. On both sides of the struggle, the control of information became a major tool for encouraging or intimidating civilian uprisings. After Colonel Gadaffi's death, photographs flooded social media, a further triumph for social democracy and the fall of a despotic, censorious regime.
Yet Western issues of people-power and censorship would soon be tested, in what some viewed as the darker side of "mob rule." In Aug. 2011, London was rocked by four days of rioting. What started as a peaceful protest against the fatal police shooting of Mark Duggan escalated into violence, arson and looting, mainly against the rioters' own communities, as well as against police. The violence soon detached itself from the original cause, and became an outlet for the tensions of an underclass hit hard by high unemployment and recent austerity measures. Rioting quickly spread to other towns.
Social media not only played a role in riot organization, but also in the prosecution of hundreds of participants who either incited violence via social media, or who were photographed and videoed taking part in such violence. Some in the UK government and press claimed social media had enabled the riots. However, people used the same tools to organize clean-up operations and to contribute community support.
As demonstrated by the countries affected by the Arab Spring and London riots, social media has been one of many important tools used by people to affect change. As with any strategy, social media lends itself to both moral and amoral uses – it is the intention behind it that matters. Social media cannot substitute for the incredible bravery and resilience of the people who stood up to oppressive regimes, at the risk and cost of their own lives. It was the passionate desire for change and human determination that drove the spirit of the uprisings, and what ultimately achieved success in overthrowing powerful military dictatorships. In the case of the Arab Spring, the rebels' adoption of new technologies such as social media gave voice to a powerful movement, despite the censorship of the official media. Ultimately, however, it was their courage and self-sacrifice that forced the change
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Google Doodle Readies Voters for Egypt Election

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Google is highlighting the 2011 Egyptian elections with a doodle on its search homepage for Egypt. Each of the six letters that spell out “Google” perform an action of the voting process — from waiting in line to adding a vote to the ballot box.
Monday marks the country’s first parliamentary elections since President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in the wake of a massive uprising earlier this year. Polls are open in Cairo, Alexandria and seven other provinces. Giza, Aswan and Suez voting begins on Dec. 14, Bloomberg reports.
Though it’s uncertain whether the Google doodle will inspire Egyptians to vote, they’re undoubtedly taking notice.
“I find [the Goodle doodle] very significant to the new generation in Egypt that uses technology. We all know what Google is and what it means for them to give us some international attention,” says Nasry Esmat, an Egyptian journalist living in New York. “The doodle adds more to our pride.”
The doodle isn’t Google’s first contribution to the much-anticipated Egypt elections. In September, the company developed an election API to facilitate the voting process. It not only gave citizens easy access to elections information, including polling locations and candidate profiles, but also allowed mobile service providers the opportunity to develop election applications.
“The majority of Egyptians still cant use the Internet or computers, but these tools are very effective because they help those who have basic knowledge to spread the information,” Esmat says. “And, honestly, those who have basic knowledge are the ones who can make change in Egypt.”

BONUS: More Google Doodles


The Christmas Google Doodle



Each package gets larger with a mouse-over, and a click on it returns search results pertinent to a specific country or the particular items featured in a scene. This one is from December 24, 2010.
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Social Media Plays Witness to Clash in Egypt’s Capital [PHOTOS]

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Over the weekend, Egypt’s military-backed riot police stormed Tahrir Square and attacked protestors participating in “Occupy Tahrir.”
Now, with a little more than a week until the country’s general election for a new government, hundreds of activists are recovering from serious injuries and at least five have been reported dead.
Using the power of Twitter, Instagram, and Flickr, these protestors documented the devastation as it unfolded around them. See images from the clash below.




 

Once again, citizens of Egypt have flocked to Twitter and YouTube to expose injustice in the ongoing protests against the newly instated military government.
Just days before the general election is set to take place across the country, riot police forcefully cleared out protestors in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Saturday and Sunday. The clash brought about at least five deaths, and several injuries.
As protestors continued to hold their ground in Tahrir Square Sunday, riot police escalated in force. Police released tear gas and fired rubber bullets at the crowd. Witnesses have tweeted that they have seen the use of guns and live ammo, a disturbing new twist in the story. Hospitals are also reporting that they have seen casualties to gunfire. Still, protestors refuse to leave their encampment, even with the threat of bullets overhead.
See a timeline, including media, from the clash below. You can also watch live video coverage on aljazeera.com








Riot Police Approach




Military-backed riot police approach Tahrir Square to break up protestors located at "Occupy Tehrir" on November 19 in Cairo, Egypt.
Photo courtesy Flickr user
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Wall Street protesters inspired by Arab Spring movement

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By Michael Saba, CNN
AdBusters and other online activitsts, including hacker collective Anonymous, call for a Saturday march on Wall Street.
AdBusters and other online activitsts, including hacker collective Anonymous, call for a Saturday march on Wall Street.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • Internet activists have taken to Twitter, other sites to "Occupy Wall Street" on Saturday
  • Organizer says digital uprisings in places like Egypt and Iran are an inspiration
  • The hacktivist group Anonymous urged its supporters to participate in the sit-in

(CNN) -- It worked in Cairo's Tahrir Square. Now, taking their cue from social-media fueled uprisings in places like Egypt and Iran, a band of online activists hopes it will work on Wall Street.

Kalle Lasn, co-founder of the counterculture magazine AdBusters, has taken to Twitter and other websites to help organize a campaign encouraging tens of thousands of Americans to hold a nonviolent sit-in Saturday in Lower Manhattan, the heart of the U.S. financial district.

This past spring and summer saw a massive groundswell of populist demonstrations against authoritarian regimes in North Africa and the Middle East -- the Arab Spring of 2011.

In Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and Syria, protesters took to the streets and occupied public spaces to protest stagnant economies, lack of freedom of expression and regimes that seemed more concerned with consolidating power than addressing the needs of the people.

Each of these revolutions began differently, but they all were organized and fueled by tech-savvy social media users, particularly on Facebook and Twitter. Lasn now wants to use the Internet for a protest in the United States.

"There's a very visceral anger against the financial community," Lasn said. "Many people feel that these people who are financial fraudsters, who basically got away with it, have yet to be brought to justice... It seems like we the people now have to congregate on Wall Street and other financial districts around the world and force the global economic system to move in a better, more just direction."

Adbusters' protest campaign -- with the hashtag #occupywallstreet -- began in July with the launch of a simple campaign website calling for a march through the streets of Lower Manhattan and a sit-in at the New York Stock Exchange, just as demonstrators did in Tunis' November 7 Square and Cairo's Tahrir Square.

The campaign got a sizable boost in August from the hacktivist group Anonymous, which released a short video urging its supporters to participate in the sit-in.

Since then, the movement has seen the addition of planned protests in other countries, including Japan, Israel, Canada and a half-dozen European nations.

The aim of #occupywallstreet is to draw 20,000 protestors to New York's financial district, although Lasn hopes for as many as 90,000.

"In Tunisia and in Egypt, the Internet was used to organize surprising numbers of people to get out into the streets and start a radical, democratic movement for regime change," Lasn said. "Of course, the situation here in America and many European countries is quite different. We're not living under a torturous dictatorship, for one.

"Nonetheless, there's a feeling that the global financial system, the heart of which is in the U.S., in New York, that this system is somehow having its way with us," he said. "There's a feeling that we need a revolution in the way that our economy is run, the way that Washington is run."

This isn't, Lasn stresses, an excuse for rioting and looting like the world recently witnessed in the United Kingdom. It's a call for radical change, but in the tradition of nonviolent protesters like Mahatma Gandhi, he says. If protests turn violent, he fears the message will be lost.

"What we are hoping for is to have a very large number of people turn up in Lower Manhattan and start walking toward Wall Street peacefully, signs in hand," Lasn said. "If we have peaceful assemblies and debates about what our demands to President Obama should be, then bit by bit we can create a situation that will rival what happened in Egypt."

"That would be a wonderful, energizing and positive moment to feel like we the people are in charge," he said.

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The sage of Orascom Telecom

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Sitting on a stage at an entrepreneurship conference last November, Naguib Sawiris was surrounded by screens showing the live "tweets" of the audience.
Fadi Ghandour, the chief executive of Aramex, asked him for his definition of "change".
"Change would mean to me if everybody sitting here would overturn the governments we have," Mr Sawiris said without hesitation.

"It bothers me that there is disrespect for the rule of law and order," he said.
It was a prescient statement from the Egyptian billionaire in charge of Orascom Telecom just months before Tunisians overthrew their president and protesters in Egypt forced Hosni Mubarak to resign as president after three decades of rule.
Mr Sawiris, 56, long known for being outspoken and taking big risks in business, emerged as a stabilising factor during the recent protests in Egypt.
He was one of the so-called "wise men", a middle-ground group made up of businessmen and intellectuals, that helped to mediate between the opposition and the government.
One of the group's major victories was to put pressure on the government to release Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who helped lead the use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to trigger the protests.
Meanwhile, other major businessmen in Egypt were either quietly waiting out the storm in their villas or being publicly attacked as corrupt. Dozens of businesses are under investigation because of their close ties to the Mubarak government.
"He's a different breed of businessman in the Arab world," Mr Ghandour said of Mr Sawiris this week. "It shows up that the business community is not necessarily always on the sidelines."
Mr Sawiris, the eldest of three sons in charge of Orascom companies, has always been one to speak his mind, but he has also walked a fine line. He came out publicly against Mr Mubarak stepping down, preferring that he keep a ceremonial role until elections this year.
"I was not an advocate that Mubarak had to go," he told the US television interviewer Charlie Rose last week. "I did not wish this end for him … He has done a lot of good in this country. We were a totally socialistic country. He opened the door for investment, infrastructure was built."
But he did not mince his words about Mr Mubarak's authoritarian ways, saying that fake charges could be brought against people who went a little far with their criticism of the government.
Indeed, at the entrepreneurship conference last November, in Dubai, Mr Sawiris avoided making direct statements about the government in his own country. But he is not an easy man to stifle.
Forbes listed him last year as the 374th richest person in the world, with a personal worth of US$2.5 billion (Dh9.18bn).
Orascom Telecom has some 500 million customers in Algeria, Pakistan, Egypt, Bangladesh and Canada, as well as investments in telecommunications companies in Zimbabwe, Namibia and Burundi.
"The size of his business gives him comfort to be able to be vocal and aggressive the way he is," Mr Ghandour says of Mr Sawiris.
Orascom Telecom has made a name for itself by going into challenging markets, often with leverage. It was among the first to set up in Iraq.
In the days leading up to January 25, the beginning of the Egyptian uprising, Mr Sawiris was in North Korea meeting Kim Jong-il, the country's leader, about a joint venture to build a 3G network there.
He later told Bloomberg TV there was a subtle political element to all telecommunications businesses.
"Even when people accuse me of doing business in countries like North Korea, I am there because I provided the people of North Korea with their right to speak," he said.
Mr Sawiris says he gets his drive for success and his willingness to fight from his father, Onsi Sawiris, and from his faith in God.
Onsi, the patriarch of the family, who is now in his late 70s, had to deal with two previous presidents of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser and his successor, Anwar Sadat.
Nasser nationalised the Sawiris construction business in the 1960s, leading the family to relocate to Libya. When trouble arose there, the family returned to Egypt. It was an important lesson about rising to the challenge, the son says.
"I saw how important it is to be persistent and a fighter," Mr Sawiris said in Dubai last November.
"Just keep on hammering and it will happen. If you yield at the first obstacle, then you are not an entrepreneur."
Eventually, the three sons were each given their start in the Orascom empire. Naguib, the eldest, took over the telecoms company, while Nassef, the youngest, led the construction business, and Samih became the head of the property and hotel development company. The three branches are now legally separate businesses, but the brothers remain close, Mr Sawiris says.
The family also has had to contend with being Coptic Christians in a predominantly Muslim country, a situation Mr Sawiris said inspired him to become rich.
"As a Christian, my chances of political life in Egypt are limited, but my ambitions have no limits," he said at the Dubai conference. "I thought maybe if I can become very rich, money is power and money can be used for some good stuff."
The family is involved in a range of charitable causes, including an initiative to send more than 100 young Egyptians abroad for university every year.
Lately, Mr Sawiris has said he would like to focus more on his philanthropic work.
He has been in talks with Russia's VimpelCom to sell $6.5bn of the Italian company Wind Telecom's assets and a more than 50 per cent stake in Orascom Telecom. If the deal goes through, it would amount to Mr Sawiris taking a step back and allowing others to be more involved.
One regret, he says, was not being able to be in Tahrir Square at the height of the protests.
"I was dying to go," he told Charlie Rose, but explained he could not be seen as partial while mediating between parties. "If I want to be an honest broker, I can't take sides too much."
Mr Sawiris appears to have no plans to take a political role in the new Egypt. After Mr Mubarak stepped down, the "wise men" disbanded.
His goal now is to keep making Egypt better.
"I want my kids to live here and hopefully die here like I'm hopefully going to live here and die here," he said.
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Egypt's Last Pharaoh? The Rise and Fall of Hosni Mubarak

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By the time he finally resigned Friday, Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak had ruled Egypt longer than anyone since Muhammad Ali Pasha, the Albanian-born viceroy of the Ottoman Empire credited with bringing Egypt into the modern age. Mubarak was a son of the soil, born 82 years ago on the Nile delta, but in his three decades as its president, the Land of the Pharaohs surrendered its position as leader of the contemporary Arab world. Egypt remained by far the most populous Arab nation, but its historic power to inspire the masses was crimped, beaten and subdued along with the citizens who restored it in the space of a fortnight, simply by assembling, day after day, and chanting for him to leave.

When he did, a day late, the announcement fell to the first vice president Mubarak found the need to appoint in the last 30 years, the indefatigable spymaster Omar Suleiman, a figure who would be right at home on the 1950's era black-and-white movies that flicker on the television sets in every Cairo coffee shop and kiosk, to the remembered glory of Egyptian cinema. At once terse and lugubrious, the former general delivered his walk-off line like the undertaker he likely thought he had become: "May God help everybody." (See pictures of Hosni Mubarak, the man who stayed too long.)

With that, power reverted to the Egyptian military from which Mubarak emerged, both stolid and a little dashing, 36 years ago. He had been a command hero of the 1973 war against Israel when he shed the epaulets of Air Chief Marshal to serve as vice president to Anwar Sadat. And when Sadat was assassinated by Islamist officers at a military parade, the world discovered the new president of Egypt was a square-jawed, powerfully built figure whose imposition of Emergency Rule seemed justified.

But as the years passed and self-regard accumulated, Mubarak assumed a still grander role: The Indispensable Man. It wasn't only a matter of embodying a nation, though that was the fundament of the electoral arrangement. For the first 18 years, Mubarak was returned to office not by elections - no other candidate was allowed - but by referenda that never showed him with less than 94%. Let Egyptians think what they wanted privately, more and more of what legitimacy the ra'is (Arabic for "chieftain") could claim originated beyond Egypt's borders. Mubarak upheld the 1979 treaty with Israel that Sadat had boldly signed, and which led to his death. The decision assured more than $1 billion in aid per year from Washington, but also the enmity of an Arab world that moved the Arab League headquarters out of Cairo and down the Mediterranean coast to Tunis.

In time the League moved back to Cairo, and its members more toward Egypt's position, in 2002 even putting forward its own peace plan. But in a Middle East where autocrats have remained in place thanks in no small part to Western powers seeking the kind of assurance colonial masters once sought from tribal chiefs, Mubarak was at the head of the class. He cut a dapper figure on the red carpets of the White House, where he received the welcomes of five presidents, and played the pivot in the peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority, both of which fret at his departure. The strategic position Egypt long occupied on the map, Mubarak assumed in the cosmology of strongmen who Washington remonstrated quietly but counted as reliable. Perhaps Leon Panetta was only passing on what was in the air in Cairo Thursday, but it was fitting that word Mubarak's departure was imminent came from the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. (See TIME's exclusive photos of the Egypt uprising.)

Not that all of this came out of the blue. Tunisia's revolution was clearly the spark, but Egyptians have been stewing for so long, their uprising was foreshadowed by the titles of books years in the making and years in print: Egypt on the Brink; Egypt After Mubarak; Egypt: The Moment of Change; Inside Egypt: The Land of the Pharaohs on the Brink of a Revolution. The stranglehold of Mubarak's regime gripped not only politics - putting a boot heel on the formation of any challenge to the National Democratic Party, jailing a presidential challenger on trumped up charges - but also the economy. In 30 years in power, more than two generations could study as long as they wanted, but still hope to find no meaningful work absent some connection to the regime. Such were the legions of unemployed university graduates that the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation started a program to settle them on reclaimed desert along the Nile delta. It was called the "Mubarak Project."

Oblivious is a word.

"Look," Mubarak told Charlie Rose a couple of years ago, raising an arm from the gold-gilt armchair to shake a finger. "Your concept of human rights is a merely political one. Human rights are not only political." (Comment on this story.)

The president then enumerated the areas protesters listed to reporters in Tahrir Square for 18 days. "You have social rights," he said. "You have the right to education. You have the right to health. You have the right to a job. There are many other rights, and we are doing well on these fronts." (See the celebratory images from Tahrir Square.)

"But we are not absolutely perfect," Mubarak allowed. "Nobody's perfect."

Nor are revolutions. As this one enters its celebratory phase, some observers are dismayed by the faith demonstrators have placed in Egypt's military.

"Communique No. 1, right? This is not how a revolution begins," said Tzvi Mezal, a former Israeli ambassador to Egypt, while awaiting Mubarak's address to the nation Thursday night. The incongruity - Friday brought Communique No. 2 from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces - was striking enough. "Everyone thinks the army is going to save the day. Mubarak is also the army."

Still it was army officers who chucked out Egypt's last monarch in 1952, peaceably escorting Farouk I to Alexandria and putting him on a boat. (The mechanics of that transition involved abdication to his infant son.) And the throngs that brought down the man Egyptians derisively called "Pharaoh" were, on Friday night, raising soldiers aloft.

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Why Not Call It A Facebook Revolution?

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Tunisians filled the streets with the help of Twitter. Egypt’s protests were coordinated on Facebook pages like that of Internet activist Wael Ghonim. Libyan dissenters spread the word about their “day of rage” last week the same way. And yet, in these heady days where the entire Middle East seems to be inspired to organize online in revolt against autocracy, it has become fashionable for experts to dismiss the role of social media in 2011′s revolutions.

“People protested and brought down governments before Facebook was invented,” the New Yorker’s Malcolm Gladwell opined on February 2. A few weeks later, The Financial Times’ Gideon Rachman reminded us that “the French managed to storm the Bastille without the help of Twitter – and the Bolsheviks took the Winter Palace without pausing to post photos of each other on Facebook.”

True enough — and utterly irrelevant. Those uprisings had a strong assist from contemporary technology too. The Bolshevik revolution would hardly have happened without the telegraphs and trains that spirited Lenin to the Finland station at the right moment. And what would the French revolution have been without the latest high-tech gadget, hot from the workshop of Dr. Joseph Guillotin?

Yes, of course, technology alone doesn’t make revolutions. The will of the people is the most vital ingredient. To ferment revolt, first let their resentment simmer for a few decades. But that doesn’t mean social media cannot provide wavering revolutionaries with vital aid and comfort. Remember the kids being interviewed in Tahir Square the night Mubarak resigned? What struck me most was what they were doing while waiting for the reporter to finish his introduction: thumbing on their smartphones. Want to hazard a guess at the website they were checking?

Read the full column on CNN.com

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Watch Egyptian on YouTube a revolution of all FREE people of Egypt.

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Watch live streaming video from haythamfox at livestream.com

I would like to personally thank visiting

this is a revolution of all FREE people of Egypt. YouTube will live stream Al Jazeera’s coverage as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak addresses the nation at 3 p.m. ET. [Update: As of 3:25 p.m., Mubarak has yet to make an appearance.] Mixed reports indicate that the president will resign.

Protests against Mubarak’s presidency have continued in Egypt during the past 17 days. The government has responded by shutting down Twitter, Facebook, and then the entire Internet. On February 1, Mubarak promised that he would not run for office again after his term expires in September, a concession that many protesters were not satisfied with.

Al Jazeera has led the world’s media in coverage throughout the protests, and it has used its obviously superior coverage to leverage a campaign to bring the news network to the United States.

For now, however, many Americans are accessing its broadcast on the Internet. YouTube has made this a bit easier by hosting a live stream of its coverage.

More About: Egypt, mubarak, protests, video, youtube

Hosni MubarakImage by robertxcadena via Flickr
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