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The Iranian Revolution had a clear leader in the figure of Ayatollah Khomeini. However, in the recent Egyptian Revolution, there was really no one apparent leader. Why is that? Though there are other factors contributing to the difference, a major change was the technology and its role in the revolution.
Preceding the Egyptian Revolution, Tunisia experienced a surprisingly rapid development of a revolution. Many people attributed the speed to "Facebook," which gave the youth a forum to discuss, motivate and share ideas, leading the the organization and instant unity of the people and information. In both the Iranian revolution and Egyptian Revolutions, the youth were highly involved. The takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Iran was primarily a student-led movement, where they took many American hostages. In Egypt, one of the main motivations for the revolution was the unemployment rate for the youth. Thus, the youth are taking advantage of the new technology, including forums such as Facebook to organize their rebellion.
In Iran, Khomeini also used the technology of his time to keep the revolutionary fervor alive during his exile. With people listening to his cassette tapes, his power became supreme and his ideas became the vision of the nation. Now however, in 2011, Egypt did not even need one man to unite the country and reign with one supreme vision to overthrow their government. Although there were some leaders, there was no "Khomeini" of the Egyptian Revolution. Could technology like Facebook take the place of revolutionary leaders like L'overture, Gandhi, Stalin, Mao and Khomeini? The real question is if people can organize themselves and keep a movement alive without a head or symbol that a one man leader provides. By the evidence of the recent Tunisian and Egyptian revolution, the answer seems to be a yes.
Emily,
ReplyDeleteIt's an interesting idea, and one that people have suggested (Clay Shirky is the best known proponent of the idea. A lead opponent of the idea writes here)
And yet, there were organizers in Egypt, they were just very low key, and in fact they found, I believe, that technology wasn't enough. See this article for example, or the opening paragraphs of this one
Still, though, interesting piece--very thought-provoking