What's in a name? Egypt's Facebook Revolution

In the initial months of 2011, the Facebook Revolution was the hottest headline around the world - modern, relevant and easily digestible for a western audience. Pundits lauded the organizing powers of social media and marveled at a movement that seemed to have erupted out of nowhere.

But critics argue that much of the western media's coverage simplified a complex social and political change that was years in the making. Noha Atef, an Egyptian journalist, blogger and human rights activist finds the title demeaning to the memory of at least 800 Egyptians who died during Mubarak's overthrow.

"Facebook and Twitter are available almost everywhere but the revolution happened only in some countries," she says. "It's not Facebook or Twitter [that are to thank for the change], it's the people who are using them. The protest itself was people with determination, with hopes, with ideas. Why didn't we call the fall of the Berlin Wall the TV Revolution? Every time has its own media."

 The Internet and new media have opened up new public spaces where traditional news sources are tightly controlled by the state. However, while social media were useful in sharing news of the protests between some groups and to news media outside Egypt, the protests were the result of a long chain of events and factors that brought the Egyptian population to breaking point at the beginning of the year.

Implementation from the mid 1990s of neo-liberal economic reforms reduced services and state sector employment, and reversed land reform policies favorable to the rural poor. These socio-economic pressures resulted in a sharp rise in labor activism. Further factors were a new willingness to cooperate between the younger generation of the Muslim Brotherhood and secular pro-democracy campaigners, and the establishment of the Kafayah (enough in Arabic) movement in 2004, an anti government movement that used blogging and other new media to oppose the regime. Rigged elections in 2005 and 2010 provoked public outrage, and the murder by the central security forces in 2010 of Khaled Sa'id, a middle class computer programmer, is thought to have shocked the urban elite out of complacency. In a context of routine police brutality and ever worsening socio-economic conditions, the tension between the state and the people came to a head.

Dr Amnon Aran, a lecturer in International Relations of the Middle East at City University, London, says, "The protest that grew in Tahrir Square was the result of traditional mobilization. It wasn't Facebook that called the millions to the street, it was the Muslim Brotherhood, professionals and other grassroots that movements that already existed."

"I wouldn't credit it with the sort of transformative role that it has been given by some western commentators. Really the turning point was when some of the state industries went on strike."

If the Facebook in Facebook Revolution is something of a misnomer, what of the revolution itself? While the protesters of January and February were victorious in seeing Hosni Mubarak off and his immediate 'clique', the state apparatus remain in place, and moves to prosecute its most reviled members are faltering. There is growing fear that life will go back to oppression as usual without a further struggle.

Families seeking justice for those killed during Mubarak's ousting have continued to demonstrate since February, and on 28 and 29 June, Tahrir Square once again erupted in scenes of mass police brutality, with the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR) estimating around 1400 civilians injured in clashes with the security forces, of whom 70 were also injured. The security forces are accused of deploying teargas, rubber bullets and paid thugs to attack peaceful protestors, as occurred during the January protests and countless demonstrations, strikes and protests in the preceding years.

Egyptian activists, angered by the slow pace of change in the country, held another mass protest in Tahrir Square on Friday 8 July, leaving no doubt that while the revolution has not yet happened, it's certainly in progress. Namees Arnous, a young woman from Cairo who was present for all eighteen days of the January/February protests, says that the current demonstrations are crucial to getting the job done.

"Some people don't like that the protests have started again and they advocate stability. But these demonstrations will keep the revolution alive, to achieve what it started out for. It's the key to our lives, to our future."