The Mubarak Mistake

There are many differences between the Bahrain protests and the Egyptian revolution – the distinct foil in populace perhaps most apparent – but one fundamental similarity is the profound competency of social media to pioneer government reform.

With a population north of 80 million, the Egyptian opposition leaders had little difficulty attracting tens of thousands to rally the streets, however Bahrain’s population is a much smaller pool, south of 800,000, of whom 30% are Sunnis, guest workers and other foreigners.

Ten years ago, aggregating a mass protest – I must purport, peaceful – would have proved almost impossible, however today, we now have communication platforms that are flexible enough to match our social capabilities, and these are giving rise to new ways of coordinating collective action.

Clay Shirky, author of 2008 hit ‘Here Comes Everybody’, explicates the social transformation of groups:

“The centrality of group effort to human life means that anything that changes the way groups function will have profound ramifications for everything from commerce and government to media and religion.”

Clay was spot on. Standard. The Mubarak administration experienced this first hand when they decided to block Facebook in an attempt to dismantle the plans of Egyptian activists. In an interview on 60 minutes, Wael Ghonim, Google’s regional marketing manager for the Middle East, talked about how the Egyptian people gathered via Facebook, and, consequently, how the Government’s operation backfired.

“One of the strategic mistakes of [the Mubarak] regime was blocking Facebook. One of the reasons why they are no longer in power now is that they blocked Facebook. Why? Because they have told four million people that they are scared like hell from the revolution.”

So will the same mistake be made twice? On Wednesday this week, users of Bahrain’s Batelco high-speed Internet service were complaining of “service degradation”, and many believe this to be a Government induced gimmick to disorganise the protesters’ plans. So far, the Bahrain regime has not spoken of the issue, but if proved culpable, the revolution could well be now.