This time last year thousands of Tunisians and Egyptians took to the streets, demanding an end to their respective regimes. Bolstered by journalists and writers using social media, this triggered the Arab spring. Julie Tomlin explores the tense relationship between the mainstream media and social media-led activism and the new language that is emerging.
“Do you really think you can change the world?” Asked at the end of 2011, a year when popular movements from Tunisia and Egypt to the United States and Russia dominated the headlines, BBC journalist Mark Easton’s question seemed horribly out of sync with the times.
Put to an Occupy London Stock Exchange protester in a tone implying the only reasonable answer could be “no”, the question suggested an almost determined failure to grasp the nature of today’s grassroots movements.
While the social media-savvy of protesters and activists excite the imagination of the mainstream media, there has been little focus on the philosophy of the decentralised movements that are emerging.
Understanding how tools like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are used only gives part of the picture. It is in the powerful fusion between social media and activism that we see how people become agents of change; the point here is that no one knows exactly what the outcome will be.
When Egyptian activists like the blogger and journalist Wael Abbas started using social media to highlight the abuses of president Hosni Mubarak’s regime, he had a conviction that he should do something. Like Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who moderated the “We are all Khaled Said” Facebook page and the April 6 Youth Movement, Abbas worked on the campaign, day after day, but with none of the clarity or clearly defined aims and strategies that the mainstream media often demands.
In a recent BBC interview with the BBC’s Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen, Abbas explained that he had sometimes despaired of seeing change. Arrested a number of times, Abbas (who was named by the BBC as one of the most Influential People of the Year in 2006) said he had even considered leaving the country.
Like other activists who have played a role over the years, Abbas was taken aback when thousands of people took to the streets on Friday 25 January 2011 demanding Mubarak’s overthrow.
This surprise element is a characteristic of change in action. Another is the unpredictable events that take place on a broader scale that can’t be controlled or anticipated. When Bowen asked Abbas what finally made the difference in Egypt his immediate reply was that Tunisia’s uprising in the same month had proved to people that change was possible.
The nature of revolutions or any lasting social change is not suited to the world of 24-hour news with its thirst for soundbites and quick fixes. When the actor and activist Khalid Abdalla took part in a panel discussion on the progress of the Egyptian revolution at London’s Frontline Club last summer, it was striking that he spoke about the revolution in similar ways that an artist might talk about their work.
Like art, a revolution needs protecting from over-analysis and from imposing a structure prematurely during its formative stages, said Abdalla, the founder of Mosireen, an alternative media centre supporting citizen journalism in Cairo. Optimism was a duty, he said, recognising also that the change he and other activists were working towards might only be realised by a future generation.
Acting with conviction but without certainty or clarity; individual contributions that form part of a bigger, complex whole that no one person can claim responsibility for; playing the long game and remaining optimistic and determined in the face of failure; the power of the unexpected and serendipity: all these are part of a new language where the answer to the predictable BBC question is “yes”.
Julie Tomlin is Words of Colour’s creative programmes manager for social media and online journalism.