Egyptian blogger and activist Alaa Abdel Fattah speaks during a TV interview at his house in Cairo on 26 December 2011, a day after his release from SCAF custody. (Photo: AFP - Filippo Monteforte)
On the first anniversary of the Egyptian revolution, bloggers who played a key role in sparking the uprising argue that their mission is far from accomplished. The only difference now is that thousands of ordinary citizens have joined them in online activism.Three days after the outbreak of the revolution, the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks published a cable that was issued by the US Embassy in Cairo in 2009. The cable explained that bloggers played a key role in raising the ceiling of freedom and widening the margin of sexual, political, and religious discussion in Egypt.
Of course, those familiar with the Egyptian situation did not need this cable in order to notice the growing activity of bloggers, whose numbers reached 160,000, according to WikiLeaks. However, the work of bloggers in Egypt began to take a different direction in 2008 with the April 6 strike, after which the April 6 Movement was founded.
Virtual calls for protests and strikes became more frequent, but this opposition to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime remained limited to the Internet, until 6 June 2010. On that day, security forces killed a young Egyptian man named Khaled Said after brutally torturing him. The victim’s photo spread everywhere, and activists created a group on Facebook titled “We Are All Khaled Said.”Months later, the number of members who had joined the group reached over 1 million. This milestone was crossed around the time of the outbreak of the Tunisian revolution and the fall of Zine el Abidine Ben Ali.
Inspired by the Tunisian experience, those furious with the Egyptian regime set a date on Facebook – January 25 – on which they would take to the streets in order to protest police brutality. To their surprise, tens of thousands gathered in Tahrir Square, and millions of Egyptians did the same in different cities. They declared the fall of the fear barrier and raised the slogan of toppling the regime.
The revolution was not a “Facebook revolution” nor were the revolutionaries “twitter kids,” as the regime tried to imply in the first few days. However, there is no doubt that social media websites played a major part in chronicling the revolution, and prior to that, in mobilizing millions to participate in the popular protests.
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On the first anniversary of the outbreak of the uprising, these activists look back over the last year with optimism mixed with concern, as Ahmad Wael put it. Wael is the editor-in-chief of Wasla newspaper, which is published by the Arab Network for Human Rights Information.
In an interview with Al-Akhbar, Wael explains that after the revolution, the margin of freedoms in Egypt has decreased due to the many problems that the country is facing.
“Several concerns have emerged, especially among bloggers and intellectuals, due to the rise of Islamic movements to power. But thus far, we have not reached any real confrontation with them,” he says.
Wael points to the important role bloggers played after Mubarak’s fall on 11 February 2011. “The arrest of Alaa Abdel Fattah and Maikel Nabil, regardless of the difference between the two cases, is enough to prove the importance of blogging,” he says.
He refers to another form of indirect censorship imposed by the military council on bloggers: “Dozens of activists on twitter were charged based on what they tweeted. However, they were not tried due to public pressure.”
Wael also says that “electronic committees” – which existed during the rule of the dissolved National Democratic Party – are still working. These committees were responsible for the electronic war against the revolution.
In light of all the challenges activists are facing after the revolution, blogger Mohammad Jamal, who is known as Gemyhood, refuses to limit the blogging movement to activities that took place during and after the revolution. He says that protests began on the Internet in 2005, “but our work snowballed, and the technology became more advanced, so that now every citizen has become a blogger.”
Gemyhood explains that “despite the decline in the importance of personal blogs at the expense of social networking sites, blogging has become big.”
But what about the role of all those activists in the commemoration of the first anniversary of the revolution?
Gemyhood says that the picture is still unclear “and we do not know what we will be confronting.” Nevertheless, it appears that his personal role has become clear: “I will republish the article that I wrote on the eve of 25 January 2011 titled ‘What Are You Going to Do, If They Come for You,’ as a reminder of all our achievements over the past year.”
It seems that Mubarak’s fall and fresh parliamentary elections are not enough to satisfy a large section of the Egyptian population. For instance, blogger Amr Ezzat refuses to classify the actions of bloggers as “pre-revolution and post-revolution actions...the revolution is still ongoing and we have a lot left to accomplish.”Ezzat believes that the role of bloggers “will continue, especially since some topics are not reported in the state media. Moreover, the slow rhythm of the traditional media does not suit the street’s fast pace.” Ezzat concludes that the aura that used to surround bloggers in the past has disappeared. “There is no longer such a thing as ‘a blogger who influences the people,’ for all Egyptians are now bloggers.”
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
Uprooted Palestinian 
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