I arrived in Tunis on January 1, only a few days after a wave of rallies had erupted due to the suicide of an unemployed college graduate, who torched himself after police confiscated his fruit cart, cutting off his only source of income. Mohammed Bouazizi, 26, sold fruit and vegetables without the necessary vendor's permit in the town of Sidi Bouzid, located 160 miles from the country's capital Tunis.
At the time, Tunisians had been protesting for a couple of weeks over poor living conditions, high unemployment, government corruption and repression. Three people had been killed in the protests by the time of my arrival. The atmosphere was tense, public protests were rare in Tunisia where dissent was usually repressed; however, no one I spoke to in Tunis believed then that these demonstrations would lead to the ouster of President Zein El Abidine Ben Ali who eventually fled the country to Saudi Arabia after ruling Tunisia for 23 years.
The Jasmine Revolution, as it is dubbed now, was not televised on Tunisia's main television station, Tunisie7, nor did it make headlines in the local press, but the news spread like wildfire on Facebook, YouTube, mobile phone, and to a lesser extent on Twitter (most of the tweets were from outside Tunisia).
Prior to my arrival to Tunis, I had spent the past five weeks in the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Territories debating social media, its impact on youth, and its relationship with journalism in the Arab world with my interlocutors.
It is very easy, but over-simplistic and naive to decide on a social media interpretation for the Jasmine Revolution, as we have been witnessing by many bloggers and self-appointed Middle East experts, many of whom neither speak Arabic nor have spent an extended period of time in the Middle East. They desperately want to convince us that Tunisians needed an external technological Western invention in order to succeed. A Twitter revolution of some sorts, as they previously labeled the Iranian Velvet Revolution, as though Arab masses were not capable on their own of saying "enough is enough."
Certainly social media was used as a communication tool for Tunisians to air their frustrations with the economy, unemployment, censorship, and corruption. But many factors lead to its success, such as a well organized trade unions movement, and the most potent weapon in the Arab world, the youth.
Population ageing is widespread across the world, but most Arab countries have been experiencing a youth explosion. More than one third of them are now unemployed. Tunisia is a bit different since it is one of the few Arab countries that opted for a family planning policy initiated during the rule of its first president, Habib Bourguiba. Tunisia, however, has also adopted a development plan with a focus on higher education, leaving a large number of young college graduates unemployed.
When I was driving around in Tunis, posters of President Zein El Abidine Ben Ali were sprinkled throughout the city with the slogan, "Together We Meet Challenges," a slogan meant to tout his plan of development by focusing on job creation, increasing revenue and enhancing Tunisia's positioning and influence on the regional and international scales. This obviously has failed, leaving a country of over- educated youth, many of whom are unemployed or doing menial jobs. Mohammed Bouazizi was the catalyst for their revolution.
Today, millions of Arab youth are disenchanted with politics and live a dramatic rupture with the state. Restrictions on freedom of expression, though improving in several countries, dominate the mass media in the Arab world. Social media has in many instances opened the door for them not only to share ideas, but also to take action. We've seen a vivid example of this during the Jeddah floods when the Saudi government tried to suppress the news about the devastation caused by nature due to poor infrastructure in the Arab world's richest country, but the news quickly spread on Facebook and the internet by concerned young Saudis. We've witnessed a bread revolution in Egypt, also driven by high unemployment and poverty; again initially transmitted to the outside world by young bloggers before it became international headlines.
Throughout history, when social discontent can no longer be contained, people have taken to the street to demand change. Having the most rudimentary technology, or none at all have not prevented these movements, a case in point being hand printed pamphlets distributed prior to the French Revolution, Gandhi's ability to inspire and mobilize through the exponential power of word of mouth, and the leaflets and tape recordings of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini speeches that were smuggled into the country prior to the Iranian Revolution.
Mohammed Bouazizi's self immolation was the expression not only of his despair, but that of youth throughout Tunisia ready to explode. Although they are an educated tech-savvy generation who were able to use social media as a tool, the underlying force was not a byproduct of this and the current situation would have come to pass with or without it.
Crediting social media with these revolutions however, trivializes them and does a disservice to the deep rooted issues that cause them.
As I was leaving Tunis on January 4, news spread again like wildfire of Mohammed Bouazizi's death at a hospital in the town of Ben Arous. Today, Mohsen Bouterfif died. Mohsen doused himself in gasoline and set himself on fire on Thursday after a meeting with the mayor of the small city of Boukhadra who was unable to provide him with a job and housing. Boukhadra is in Algeria.
Follow Jamal Dajani on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jamaldajani
Barry Lando: Tunisia: Democratic Triumph or U.S. Disaster?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22867
Now, I will say it again, the article maybe false but can anyone refute it with actual facts. If not, why is so much time spent discussing window dressing, i.e.Wikileaks? One why isn't enough to tell the whole story.
p.s. notice a pattern:
Television = why?
Print media = why, why? (if you're lucky)
Internet = why, why, why? (underneath a pile disinformation)
You (should) = why, why, why, why, why.....because if you don't we might end up like that poor vegetable salesman!
Ever heard of a word called balance? It's a wonderful concept.
If that number of Americans amassed in the streets, it would be *immediately* suppressed by rubber bullets, realmbullets, drones, tear gas and the corporate media would paint the story to turn the protesters into "terrorists".
Americans need to realize this country is the new Soviet Empire, - only minus the free healthcare and education,...and OUR Perastroika is not coming any closer under Obama and his Reaganist Senate cronies.
and our attempt to install democracy all over the world is going to be a long hard deadly road,
see (osama bin laden.)
and looking at our form of democracy,as we are currently practising it,are we sure its worth it.
There will be no success unless the Muslim countries return to Islamic values as ordered by the prophet sws. Muslims living a non Islamic lifestyle, shari'ah-less law and rules, corruption and immorality and its cousins has been the rule in Tunisia; as well all Muslim lands.
More calls for further intercention and interdiction will not solve these problems. Too many years in Tunisia and other North African countries under western trained backed apostate leaders who threw their actions produced horrible despotic rule and suppression of Islamic laws and rules in favor of secular rules and laws. This product gave use police states, brutal security forces, rising crime and corruption and we see the few get rich and the masses poorer!
There will be no sucessful rule in Islamic lands for rulers who espouse secular law, rules, corruption and despotic rule. There will be continued fighting and riots until rightful Islamic leaders take the mantle and bring back Islamic values and stop corruption. And these Islamic leaders strengthen the infrastructure, rebuild schools and encourage fair prices which is called for in the shari'ah. Retrain and unbrainwashed security forces who have trained by the US to attack, beat and brutalize the Muslimeen; while supporting immorality and apostate rule.
I'd say the complete opposite of what you espouse is what will pull the Middle East out of its downward slide. In a secular society, you (as in yourself) can follow as strict of an interpretation of Islamism that you want, as long as you don't force it upon others. Repressing a good portion of your population with strict islamic rule is the catalyst for corruption and eventual overthrow. Much more so than secularity.
Many don't know that it was not the shari'ah that brought down this despotic ruler but secular rule of law that produced, tyranny, corruption, price gouging, destroyed infrastructure and immorality.
Muslims lived and suffered under secular law it is time to return to shari'ah law and that is the way of life that a Muslim is ordered to live by the prophet sws.
The Middle East is nothing more than puppets of the US and they too have their share of problems but as long as they continued to be armed and trained by the US, they will stay in power and despotic regimes will continue to oppress the Muslimeen.
Your own CIA even told that the US encouraged and supported apostate leaders who govern Muslim lands. Also, you should read the book CIA AT War. This is a eye opener for those that think that the US is supplimenting Islam.
In Muslim lands, we have hard choices, it is either the bullet or the ballot. We cannot vote out these despotic rulers because they rig elections and use their security forces to scare the population into voting for them and opposition and Islamic parties are arrested routinely and jailed. This is what the secular system has produced!
You’re trying to regurgitate garbage that was shoved down your hallow head when you were little and you never learned to look at things any differently.
But, setting yourself on fire? Maybe over the top, there. Maybe a sign you've gotten too swept up in your own emotions along with crowd frenzy for your own good, and time to reconsider, there, before you light the match. You kind of have to ask what the personal payoff is going to be, there. You're ending your life, because things didn't go your way. Maybe kind of childish? Hillary says it takes a village to raise a child, others say it only takes a child, to raze a village, and violent youth social upheavals tehd to engender things like mandatory schooling, defense spending, and even MORE restrictions.
Freedom abused ends up being freedom confiscated, something to consider, before you throw that first stone...there will always be authority, there will always be government, because the majority want to be safe and be able to go to work etc.
There's other ways to achieve political change, besides burning the place down. Some countries get that one right, some don't.
Vietnam was called the first 'television war'. Coverage of the war was provided daily, so every TV in every household in a sense became a loophole in the bunker, a vantage point where people that had never been in the military, let alone overseas, could see first-hand what it was like for another country to be burnt down.
Well in this example, now we get to see what a revolution looks like. Question is, who started it, who agitated, who helped, and who gains by the current status quo? Are the people liberated, or only tools of someone far-off and cackling and bridging their fingers gleefully? There are digital troublemakers out there...
good article - thanks
Lobelog http://www.lobelog.com/ agrees and is currently running a good summary/sampling of articles with Aprille Muscara's 'Debunking the Myth of Tunisia’s “Social Media Revolution"'
From Jeff Neumann at Gawker:
"We should stop trying to fit the events in Tunisia into a Western context. It simplifies things, but it also overlooks the real forces of change at work in the North African country. This isn’t about Facebook, or Wikileaks, or Twitter — it’s about the people of Tunisia being fed up with decades of marginalization at the hands of a Western-backed kleptocracy, and taking charge of their own future"