This is a time of ideological claims on the revolution. Success has 100 fathers, and I want to put in my own ideological claim. I think this was a revolution fomented by worldly Egyptians who used the west– through twitter and facebook and then the cable networks– as their balance pole to walk out on the tightrope of fear that had stopped Egyptians forever before them. Yes workers played a crucial role, also the Muslim Brotherhood–groups who have never been afraid to organize for their rights. Yes the poor joined the revolution. But as Mona El-Shazly said, thanking the young, this should have been done by Egyptians before them, but the people could not do it; and the miracle in Tahrir was made by internet-savvy young people.
Many of the critical moments in the fine Al Jazeera documentary that Adam mentioned today involve modern Egyptian media and sophisticated Egyptians with keen awareness of western societies. The organizing committee began using Facebook as an organizing tool three years ago. A young woman in Tahrir wearing hijab and speaking perfect English says on January 25th, “I heard about April 6 [movement] from Facebook. I’m not into politics. I wanted to do something positive. This is the happiest day of my life.” When things started blowing up after January 25, an intense young man inside the organizing headquarters wearing a T-shirt with English on it, says, “We want people in England, Holland and the U.S. to put out news about this thing.”
We did put out the news, because we understood that the west was critical. My life went out the window two weeks ago when the revolution caught fire. We’re a small website, but we felt a keen sense of responsibility, and the internet helped build the fire.
You may say that this is a projection of my own experience, and I accept that: I am a privileged person of the internet, and I believe that for five years the internet has built the peaceful revolution against the neoconservatives and the Israel lobby inside American politics. Also, I trust political analyses that admit of selfishness more than ones built on altruistic claims; the young Egyptians did this for their country, and I’m in this to reform American political life and Jewish life, which necessarily involves liberating the Palestinians.
OK, but what is the ideology of the revolution? Of course Egypt, the Obama administration, and world historians will be sorting that meaning out for a very long time. And a central tension in this discussion is going to be this question: How much did the west play a role?
The west is patting itself on the back. This Sunday 60 Minutes will give Google’s revolutionary Wael Ghonim the hero treatment, as well they should, he has told us on Twitter. I imagine we’ll hear from one of the Google boys, praising Ghonim in Mountain View, California (and yes I wonder how pro-Israel Google is; they bumped this site from Googleads two years ago). Last night Eliot Spitzer was adoring Ghonim– surely because he reminds him of privileged meritocrats like himself.
And if you look at these videos of Ghonim in his new Cairo offices, first celebrating the revolution, or with his Dream Team (above), you see a very western milieu. A youtube commenter says the White Stripes are playing in that video. Not the soundtrack to the Russian Revolution.
On CNN last night, Ghonim thanked the network for saving lives through its publicity of the revolution. He has called Google the greatest company in the world, and on twitter last night, he called for western development:
“Dear Egyptians, Go back to your work on Sunday, work like never before and help Egypt become a developed country.”
But what does he mean by developed? I often felt during this revolution that it was a human potential movement– the revolutionaries want a society in which everyone will be able to fulfill his or her potential. And though I want to say that that’s a western idea, the truth of this revolution is that these ideas belong to no one and everyone. Twitter belongs to everyone, facebook belongs to everyone. They are no longer western–anymore than papyrus is Egyptian.
That powerful idea of human potential is one that could liberate Palestine, where the energies of millions of people have been suppressed for decades, where the nonviolent protest movement is more sophisticated and experienced than the Egyptian one.
And for any westerners who say that this is about economic freedom, i.e., Ramallah, remember that Ghonim’s core issues were nationalism– love of Egypt– and freedom — civil and human rights. Today more than ever, these are universal rights.
