26 Feb 2012 By Mshari al-Zaydi With the succession of events in the region, who
can still remember the numerous Arabs and Westerners
who previously described what happened in the Arab
world as the Facebook or Twitter revolutions? The
stars of this period, in Egypt, for example, were
figures like Google executive Wael Ghonim, female
blogger and political activist Esraa Abdel Fatah, and
Asmaa Mahfouz. As for Yemen, Tunisia, and Libya, the
situation was not too different. Attempts were made to
create a state of harmony with regards to everything
that was happening, and find other Wael Ghonim's and
Asmaa Mahfouz's in every country. Arab and Western
writers sang the praise of these youth, to the extent
that a quick reading of articles and interviews of
famous writers in the Arab world, in addition to
articles published in US and European newspapers,
represent a veritable celebration of the Facebook and
Twitter youth. (The term Twitter later beat and
practically eradicated the term Facebook, in this
regard) I still possess copies of some of these articles
glorifying the Twitter and Facebook youth written by
prominent writers in Egypt, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia.
These articles condemn their countries' previous
cultural and political experience and sing the praises
of the internet youth, disavowing the countries
previous political expertise and culture. Some writers
called on people to burn their old books and forget
everything that they had read or thought they knew and
instead listen to these youth and blindly do what they
say! Yes, this is truly the direction things were
heading in during the year of the "Arab Spring". This
is something that was not only said and believed by
the youth, which would be understandable, but also by
well-experienced and worldly people as well! However
it seems that all this experience and expertise
disappeared in a moment of revolutionary recklessness!
The purpose of this article is not to stop at this
particular moment in time when Arab intellectualism
was absent! This was a period of time when it was as
if Arab intellectualism had decided to satirize itself
and glorify the Arab street, square, and youths who
had previously been viewed as being more enthusiastic
than rational. Rather, the purpose here is to pause
and contemplate just one of the numerous
manifestations of the Arab youth's "chaos", and the
process of destroying everything that is known in
order in favour of the unknown. This is something that
glorifies chaos itself and is reminiscent of the
literature written by leftist European writers in the
1960s, whilst some psychologists are of the view that
this reflects behaviour studied by Sigmund Freud,
namely the Oedipus Complex. A few days ago, young Egyptian MP Ziad al-Elemy,
one of the stars of the Egyptian revolution, publicly
insulted Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi during
a public rally in the city of Port Said. The rally was
dedicated to the bloody incidents that took place
there and which caused dozens of deaths and injuries
following the now infamous football match between Al-Ahly
S.C. and Al-Masry. I watched the YouTube recording of al-Elemy's
statement, and this represents direct proof of the
pull of the audience. The insult in question, mouthed
by a young revolutionary MP, was not a voluntary act,
but rather was in response to the demands of the
audience. According to the details provided by the CNN online
Arabic edition, during a public rally entitled "the
Day of Solidarity with Port Said", MP Ziad al-Elemy,
co-founder of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party and
Executive Board member of the Revolution Youth
Coalition accused the Egyptian Supreme Council of the
Armed Forces [SCAF] of being responsible for the
violence that has erupted across many Egyptian cities.
Al-Elemy was cited as saying that the Port Said
incident, which resulted in the deaths of dozens of
Al-Ahly S.C. fans in early February, in addition to
the sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians
in Egypt was orchestrated by "the same criminal", in
other words SCAF. During his public address before the rally, al-Elemy
used a famous Egyptian aphorism to criticize the
regime's tendency to scapegoat lower-ranking officials
whilst leaving the real perpetrators unpunished,
saying "how long will the people allow the donkey to
escape but grab on to the saddle?" One of the audience
then asked, "who is the donkey?" and the Egyptian MP
replied "Field Marshall Tantawi is the donkey." There can be no doubt that SCAF has suffered the
ultimate affront as a result of this insult against
its chairman Field Marshal Tantawi, who remains the de
facto leader of Egypt. SCAF threatened to take legal actions against al-Elemy
without referring to parliament, should the Egyptian
parliament fail to hold the MP accountable for his
actions. Al-Elemy has so-far refused to apologize for
his comments, and the Egyptian Parliamentary Speaker
referred him to a special committee for investigation.
However, a number of Egyptian MPs continue to exert
effort to convince al-Elemy to issue an apology to
Field Marshal Tantawi and SCAF. This incident is a typical example of the discourse
which is prevailing amongst the majority of the
"internet youth" who are presenting themselves as
permanent advocates of the revolution, not just in
Egypt, but also in other Arab states, including Saudi
Arabia. The Saudi Twitter youths – although some of
them are no longer members of the youth – and their
Egyptian Twitter counterparts share certain
characteristics, namely: verbal attacks, savagery,
sweeping certainty that they are right and attempts to
mobilize the public. In short, there is a state of
persistent tension and an on-going search for a victim
to accuse and insult and flog every day. This situation has been explained by some as being
the result of the novelty of this experience for the
Saudi people, who are not accustomed to direct
discussion in this manner and exposure to different
and disparate intellectual, political and social
viewpoints. Perhaps this is true, to a certain extent,
but what about the same complains which have been made
regarding the use of Twitter in a country like Kuwait,
for example, which enjoys great levels of freedom and
democracy and freedom of expression in its traditional
media outlets, not to mention the unprecedented levels
of political debates in parliament and public rallies?
The same thing also applies to Egypt. Therefore, the excuse, in the Saudi situation, that
the novelty of this experience is the reason for this
savagery on Twitter is a poor one. In my own view, this is perhaps the result of the
Twitter environment itself, for each place has its own
culture and code of conduct, and so one's behaviour on
the playground is not the same as it is in the
classroom, or the coffee-shop, or a place of worship.
Each place has its own code of conduct. Similarly,
what applies to real environments must also apply to
virtual environments. There is a sense of rivalry with regards to drawing
attention to one's views and ideas, and so sometimes
mistakes – and indeed catastrophic mistakes – occur.
No one is safe from this, the young or the old, men or
women, liberals or Islamists, or even those who have
nothing to do with politics – this is the culture of
this domain and the pull of the audience. In a previous article on the same issue published a
few months ago, I said that the "posturing" on social
networking websites has practically transformed them
into platform for political activity and for polishing
one's profile. We are today experiencing a "surfeit"
of information across the world that makes
distinguishing between what is true and what is false,
or between what is real and what is exaggerated, or
between what is subjective and what is objective,
increasingly difficult. This is apart from the fact
that the competition to gain fame on the internet and
achieve popularity has promoted everyone to
persistently seek to shock the public and attract
attention, which is something that comes at the
expense of scrutiny and accuracy. This happens so
extensively that rumours are often taken for facts, or
sometimes information is revealed before it is ready
or confirmed, and in a second has become a news item
circulated across the world at incredible speed
between different news media and websites. However,
rectifying or correcting a mistake or refuting a
certain piece of information may not occur as quickly
as this news was initially circulated. In fact, despite this surfeit of virtual
information, there is a lack of real accuracy in this
regard, and so digesting all of this fails to sate
one's hunger. This kind of publicity is akin to a runaway horse;
it is useful whilst you are riding the horse, yet at
any moment you can fall off and be trampled. A Saudi journalist and expert on Islamic
movements and Islamic fundamentalism as well as Saudi
affairs. Mshari is Asharq Al-Awsat's opinion page
Editor, where he also contributes a weekly column. Has
worked for the local Saudi press occupying several
posts at Al -Madina newspaper amongst others. He has
been a guest on numerous news and current affairs
programs as an expert on Islamic extremism Comments 💬 التعليقات |