Posts by Simon Grigg
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to giovanni tiso,
for instance on the Herald
Mostly I try not to.
But, yes, no argument.
Tweet (sorry) from Ferdi Zebua, RTed by George Darroch:
Once more, a sentiment oft repeated lately: yes, #Egypt 2011 should learn from Indonesia '98. Complete your revolution.
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to giovanni tiso,
The commentary this week fortunately is focussing a bit more on social and historical root causes and political prospects, so let's celebrate that.
I don't see why we have to exclude thoughts about the mechanics of it all from that celebration???
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to giovanni tiso,
I'm struggling to bridge this with "the Twitter generation", see?
I understand that, but I do think its almost impossible to understate the access to the kind simple communication we take for granted that the newer generation mobile phone has given much of the developing world (which the UN classes Egypt as - and this is even more so in the north where this stuff seems to be mostly happening). Twitter is but one network - Facebook is vastly more important.
And the uber budget net-enabled sub-smartphone is the tool that has done this.
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to giovanni tiso,
There are also the urban poor, and those who are chronically un- or underemployed.
Sure, and I wasn't saying these people were not represented but it would be equally unwise to say that the other parts of the demographic were not present. Maybe the 4m+ linked to social media are only the wealthy and I'm wrong, but I doubt it. And I doubt the phone companies would be spending the huge bucks in a country like Egypt if that was the case. And they are as we know.
Basing the assessment on presumed similarities with Indonesia also seems a bit thin.
Many of the urban poor, if what I've been reading in recent days is correct, are, like Indonesia, the desperately rural poor who have migrated to the cities to find jobs that don't exist - as with many poorer nations, Indonesia being but one example. The growth of these mega-cities and the problems they encounter, is, in part caused by these huge inflows from the countryside. It's clearly a factor.
The similarities I've drawn have come from that, and from the fact that frustrations voiced seem to be almost identical to 1998. Both are also Islamic nations which means a little more than we can often understand in the west (the power of the prayer gatherings for example) and both seem to break down economically in much the same way.
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to giovanni tiso,
On what grounds do you assume that?
Firstly these are urban dwellers, thus tend not to be the rural poor. Secondly, looking at the imagery they seem to be mostly younger. Thirdly, when you are earning $2 a day you simply don't have the luxury of the time.
I'm partially drawing from my experience in Indonesia which is not, as a nation, dissimilar. Those who would be most likely to join the ranks of something like this tend to be the younger, perhaps more literate and informed part of the population.
I'm thinking of the popular rising that led to the overthrow of Suharto in 1998 as a reasonable demographic parallel.
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to Stephen Judd,
The point I took away from the blog post I linked to is that electronic communication other than mobile and landline voice calls is restricted to a small minority of well off people who wouldn’t normally mix with other parts of society.
The figures I linked to above showed that at least (a year ago) 4m Egyptians were on Facebook, a figure that must have grown a fair amount since. Assuming that most of these are urban, that's a fairly healthly percentage.
There are smartphones and there are smartphones. The cheapest Chinese or Korean phones are much cheaper than the things you may be thinking of. I can buy an internet capable phone here in Bangkok for under $15 ( I own a T-Comm thingy which was 289฿ - NZ$12 - it has a browser and connects).
Also, one or two million people in the streets does not represent a huge segment of the population. I think it's reasonable to assume that the Facebook numbers are well represented in the people who have the time or inclination to do such a thing.
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to Simon Grigg,
I think we covered that further up the thread. It serves both purposes of course but the removal of a primary organisational platform is obviously pretty crucial to the regime..
Replying to my own post, I'm rethinking this a bit. In Iran, Indonesia and Thailand the power of FB, IM and Twitter totally shocked the establishment.
They shook the entrenched power-elite who simply had no idea what was no in the hands of those they supposedly dominated. In Thailand the powers were initially bemused at how the Red Shirts were able to move rapidly from one spot to the next seemingly almost instantaneously. It took a moment to sink in.
I'm guessing the shock waves just hit Cairo.
Whether the internet block was a reaction to this or not, or an attempt to simply cover-up a more violent crackdown which has yet to come, I'm not sure.
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to Gareth Ward,
I'm interested as to why everyone believes they shut down the Internet to quell internal organisation, as opposed to shutting down a coalface news source to the external world?
I think we covered that further up the thread. It serves both purposes of course but the removal of a primary organisational platform is obviously pretty crucial to the regime..
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I'd imagine so. However, more, once you kill the phones you kill the taxi services, the food distribution mechanisms, and so on, all of which now, albeit quite recently, reliant.
The cellphone revolution has empowered the poor, the working and pre-working (student) classes more than the white collar workers who often already had the means to communicate. That, I think, is key.
We come from a country where each voice, in its own way, matters just a little and always has. We are incredibly small in number and there is a fairly inclusive and equitable democracy as much as we like to moan.
In a country of 70m, as socially and politically inequitable as Egypt and many other such nations, the great unwashed have not just mattered little, they haven't really mattered at all. The phone has changed that in a way we can't begin to imagine.
As someone commented, Facebook and Twitter (and I think he threw Wikileaks into that which is another whole argument that I don't want to begin) have done more for democracy in the Middle East than a ten year trillion dollar war.
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
The only major hiccup would be with voice telcos where that might also drop the regime’s communications
And the small problem of the country's complete economic life grinding to an immediate halt.