Panel: Democracy, Dissent and Digital Media in the Arab World

One of the greatest things about Washington, DC is the abundance of incredible learning opportunities that you wouldn't be able to find anywhere else in the nation. This city is filled with a striking wealth of intelligent individuals, knowledgeable on topics that really impact our world today. While my main purpose of being here this semester is to write for the Daily Herald, I've gotten the chance to have some great learning opportunities. This morning was one of them.

I attended an event today at the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill about the effect of social media on the revolutions in the Arab world. I was pleased to find that the speakers went far beyond what we've been hearing about the so-called "Twitter/Facebook revolutions." The panel included Egyptian journalist/blogger Mona Eltahawy, Washington's Al-Jazeera bureau chief Abderrahim Foukara, Amira Maaty from the National Endowment for Democracy, who was in Egypt for the revolution, and Georgetown Internet studies professor Michael Nelson.

Rep. Schiff

Congressman Adam Schiff (D - CA) also made a quick appearance. While all the cameras shot up when Schiff got to the podium, the real meat of the presentation came from the panelists. Schiff's speech was pure, tailored government jabber.

Of the group, my favorite speaker was Eltahawy. An Egyptian, her comments were much more passionate than the others, while still being incredibly interesting, educated and informative. She said this is not the Twitter or Facebook revolution, and was frustrated with those who referred to it as that. It's about people. "Facebook and Twitter did not invent courage," she said. "They allowed a means to express that."

Her views were supported by Georgetown professor Nelson. "At the end of the day, the Internet is not causing the revolution," he said. "But it is enabling it." Though governments may block social media sites, the top 10% who know how to use the Internet well get around it via proxy servers and spread information to the rest of the population. Others combat social media censorship by communicating through dating websites or online games. While people in the Arab world have been so successful in mobilizing via the Internet, using it to set up a government is a whole other monster. President Obama is a good example of this. He ran the most successful online presidential campaign our nation has ever seen, but his use of the Internet while governing has not been as stellar.

Al-Jazeera's Abderrahim Foukara stood in support of traditional media as well as social media as an important force in the Arab revolutions. "Social media has been no surrogate for mainstream media," he said. "It took conventional media, primarily TV, to connect the dots social media set up." In some parts of the Arab world, the illiteracy rate can be as high as 60%. The Internet does nothing for that group. If the revolutions end up being successful and lead to democratic rule, Foukara pointed to a new talking point: why were these people forced to live under tyranny for so long? This brings the conversation onto an international playing field and Foukara says it can't be done on simply social media.

Foukara also threw in some patriotic, American references, always present in DC, saying the foresight of the US Constitution to prevent tyranny resonates with the Arab people.

Fear was also expressed at attempts to regulate the Internet, make it less open and disallow anonymity. The ability to publish work anonymously needs to remain intact for revolutions to take place. Such anonymous publications were a staple in our American Revolution, and the Federalist Papers.

The presentation ended on an interesting note: a comment on how the Arab world stepped up to solve their problem rather than just arguing and playing the blame game. They got things done. I hope to see a little more action like this in Congress. Not violent protests on the hill, of course, but action to move forward and solve our nation's problems rather than looking back to rag on those who caused them.