Who is afraid of Twitter? (The Arab Spring)
The Arab Spring revolution movement began in the country of Tunisia, when Mohammad a fruit street vendor took to his daily routine of setting up his fruit cart in the streets of Tunisia. Mohammad grew up without a father and sacrificed his future to provide a better life for his mother and sisters. Mohammad applied numerous of times for a license to set up a permanent location for his fruit cart. With no success, and one horrible encounter with a women police officer Mohammad set himself on fire in front of the government facility. This has been known as the “Awakening” videos of the incident hit Facebook, and every other social media and fueled the Arab people to protest and be heard.
Egypt is part of the Arab Spring Revolution, and according to Snow the second major venue which an Arab spring uprising has broken out. When demonstrations of the 30 year rule of Hosni Mubarak began in January 25, 2011, global television followed the evolution till February 11, 2011 that Mubarak stepped down. It has been four years since the Arab Spring Revolution, and Egypt’s forward movement has been dormant. According to the NY Times, “Egyptian citizens, finding few ways to express grievances with public officials, have turned to social media to air their complaints; disaffected have posted images of unsanitary hospital conditions, deteriorating streets …..” (NY TIMES 7/25/15). Egypt has a long way to go, but it is moving in the right direction.
Citations
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/egypt/index.html