First published in Islamabad Dateline on 01.02.2011
WAVES OF REVOLUTION
The ways of world have changed; tune is new, instruments have changed / Free your mind from mental slavery; make the young, masters of the old!
Indeed, instruments changed significantly since Iqbal penned down these inspirational lines. It is the age in which powerful authoritarian governments are overthrown by the youth, using social media and music, tools that seem trivial to elder generations.
“Half the population is oppressed and living in misery/ President of the Country/ Your people are dead!” - lyrics of Tunisian rap artist Ben Amor commonly known as El General, who was put behind bars and his music taken off-air as it was causing an uprising in the youth of Tunisia few weeks ago. Today El General is setting the microphone on fire once again as thousands gather to celebrate Ben Ali’s exit and welcome the dawn of a new era in the history of Tunisia.
This was not it. The spark that ignited fire through El General’s political rap and social networking sites has taken Egypt and Yemen by storm. The authoritarian governments of the region try to ban “tools” igniting this rebellion but the young ‘are masters of the old’ when it comes to playing with radio frequencies encrypted with data that overthrow governments.
Egyptian activists like their Tunisian counterparts are using internet to effectively plan out their protests. Ahmed Salah one of the main organizers of protests against Husni Mubarak’s regime says “No one is accepting the people being assigned to government – they are oppressed & corrupt. We need support – we are being killed”. Ahmed was taken in custody and beaten, but his bravery knows no bounds and he says he won’t stop, even if they replace rubber bullets with real ones. Husni Mubarak will have to succumb to people’s power. Some already chant “Mubarak! Mubarak! Saudi Arabia awaits you!”
The pattern is identical, tools almost the same, this is the power of new media which if used effectively can cause decade’s old regimes to collapse. Same tools were used by us during the lawyers movement, and emergency relief efforts when floods struck in Pakistan.
Oscar Morales, whose facebook group “One million voices against FARC” transformed into the biggest demonstration against terrorism in the history of the world in 2008 and which eventually caused the debacle of guerilla organization FARC in Colombia expresses solidarity with Egyptians and says: “I am in tears of emotion and pride. My heart is with you in these defining moments of history”
People like Oscar and Ahmed Salah did not make history; they ‘typed’ it with their own hands.
Would this be the end? Certainly not.
Digital activists around the world relay a warning to world leaders which can be best described in the words of Stephanie Rudat, co-founder of Alliance for Youth Movements: “This is for you Ahmadinejad, Mubarak, Chavez, Jong-Il, Castro, Mugabe, al-Qaddafi, Jintao, Abdullah, Shwe, al-Assad, Karimov, Lukashenka, Zenawi, Deby, and Berdimuhamedow, Listen to your citizens – oppression & corruption is unacceptable! It will no longer be tolerated”
These waves of revolution which are already causing a domino effect in many countries will surely make this decade the era of social media.
Syed Ali Abbas Zaidi is an aeronautical engineer by force, an activist by mind, a lover by heart and a wanderer by soul
Awesome article SAAZ
Keep it up!!!!
speechless, you’re amaizing. i was already your fan but this made me crazy fan of yours. :p, all the best for everything.
SAAZ is also a human by body, and his sensitively beating heart needs care and help sustain his life and his health, so that the dreams alive within him can take birth as goals, and come to fruition as events and actions in reality.
I cannot state what it means to me to see and have people like you, my young soul-siblings, as leaders who I am proud to follow. I am proud to call myself a PYA member, and seek the opportunity to make a difference in the most effective way.
If Justice is to prevail, corrupt Dictators must be eliminated from the living, and without any form of Justice given to them
by a human Judge or Jury.
God will be the Judge and Jury over corrupt people once they are dead.
I disagree with Stephanie Rudat Chavez should not be on the list. He doesn’t have an oppressive regime is restored the rights of the poor people. The only people who hate him are those who don’t have control over the countries oil anymore. Most citizens know their rights in Venezuela because of Chavez and support him fully. He was democratically elected and the coup that was staged against him in 2007 failed. People in the West may not agree with a lot his policies and anti-American stance but his people love him.
@abbas,
i have a very opposite view of all this. let me put it in points.
1. the arab revolution (s) are too late perhaps. the USA and NATO has already gained their targets. e.g annihilation of radical islam.
2. the arab countries do not (DO NOT) have a parallel system of governance in place. if the monarchs are over thrown, the governance is affected. e.g in egypt the army head is the same who was intelligence head and he was a close ally of husne mubarak. now the army says it cant run the polls before 6 months.
3.the revolutions are finance based. these revolutions have got nothing to do with the standing of islam. like, no revolution talked about iraq or afghanistan.
4.perhaps a weaker middle east will more easily attack iran or atleast keep quite over NATO invasion over iran.
I agree with meera that chavez is different category even most of media in his country is owned by opposition parties.
wow very Nice article… thanks for Share…