The news that a pro-Palestinian blogger has been kidnapped by security forces has drawn attention to the role of bloggers in Egypt’s protest movement. Recent cases involving pro-Hamas activists also highlight the fact that not all of the country’s bloggers are well-meaning digital democrats.
Young Egyptian activists are using Facebook and similar social networking technologies to challenge a tradition of political disengagement. The authorities cracked down as young bloggers used the social network to mobilize support for a strike by textile workers, an initiative that spawned the April 6 movement.
“Taking advantage of technology such as microblogging,” one report notes, “activists are able to alert friends and comrades within seconds of a knock on the door in the night, or send out details for a protest at short notice.”
The April 6 movement illustrates what one observer calls the “cute-cat theory of digital activism.” Activists web sites or proxy servers are easy for a government to shut down, but closing sites like Facebook that are used for non-political purposes (like exchanging pictures of cute cats) would antagonize too many ordinary citizens.
A long-term struggle to win hearts and minds, through English-language training programs and similar initiatives may ultimately be more beneficial for promoting democracy than spasmodic street protests or agitation in the blogosphere.
“You can’t build democracy by saying, ‘We take democracy,’ ” notes a beneficiary of a US State Department training program. “You have to build democracy in the hearts of young people.”
[...] capture has stirred much outrage, particularly through online vehicles such as Facebook, some advocate it’s time for America to pursue more diplomacy and democracy promotion through the [...]