On Friday I went to see Waleed Rashed and Ahmed Maher at AU’s Friday Forum. Waleed and Ahmed are co-founders of the April 6th movement in Egypt. A group that started on facebook, and used the power of their network to help organize the protests at Tahir Square. While listening to them speak on Friday I was struck by their sometimes ingenious ways of using technology and communications to mobilize support for their revolution.
Waleed and Ahmed spoke extensively about the difference between participating in an online group, and transforming that into action on the ground. In order to spread the word about Tahir Square, they employed tactics that multinational corporations employ today in stealth marketing. Waleed and Tahir wanted to harnace the power of ‘word of mouth’ to spread news of Tahir square, however they knew it had to grow organically, they could not just tell people to protest because it would not be genuine or successful. They ended up tapping into the network of taxi cab drivers around Cairo, who in their words would talk to you even if you didn’t speak a word of their language. In order to gain access to the network, Waleed would ride around in taxi cabs all day, and then call his friend and discuss plans for Tahir square, knowing that the cab driver would over hear him and then pass along the message. Sure enough, a few months down the road, Waleed got into a cab where the driver promptly asked him if he knew about the protest that was going to happen in Tahir square?
By tapping into a unique cultural network in Egypt, Waleed and Ahmed were successful in spreading their message. While these tactics worked for their revolution, Waleed and Ahmer were sure to point out that not every revolution is the same, and the same tactics they used might not work in Syria and Bahrain, who are also protesting their governments right now. I am I awe of the innovation and creative that went into planning the protests in Egypt, but Waleed and Ahmed did end their discussion on a somber note. Waleed impressed upon the audience that although he is lucky to be where he is today, there is a cost to the revolution and if one is to follow the path they took, then they must be prepared to pay that cost.
I'm glad you've chosen to discuss the event on friday, because I had to leave early. I, too, find it fascinating that they used word of mouth to spread the movement in the country. From the research that I've done, the population of Egyptians that actually had internet access was something along lines of 30 percent, which is pretty low in my opinion. So I think it was imperative for them to use word of mouth alongside technology to mobilize masses. What I find most interesting is that with such advanced technologies that we have today, please still use things like flyers and word of mouth to inform the public.
ReplyDeletei second Fatemeh. It's amazing to see how technology works, especially in US. If you come from developing country, you'd notice that internet facility in US is far much better. Free wifi anytime anywhere, not to mention the connection speed, for us 'the tech literated gen", its heaven. Meanwhile, its sad to see country still living under restricted control over technology, Myanmar (or Burma) for instance. its so bad, people consider myanmar telco as the lowest service in south east asia region. and its phone, not internet connection. can you imagine how their internet connection?
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