Liberating Spaces

Until very recently, dictators in the Arab world could repressed non-Islamic political discourse. With the establishment of repressive states in these countries, Islamism became gradually the only political discourse with space to oppose the state: the mosque. Secular ideologies, socialism, communism, nationalism and liberalism were crushed by the violent repressive apparatus of the state. But political messages attached to religion couldn’t be suppressed. Any attempt to do that would have meant an attack on the basic values of the society the state avowed to defend – an Islamic society.

Among the urban population, a powerful socialisation process emerged through the social institutions attached to the religious dimension of Islam. The mosque was not only a place of prayer, the madrassas and the Islamic universities did not only educate, and the Islamic societies’ social services did not merely take care of men, women and children, they were all powerful spaces of transmission of myths and symbols, and were the basic means of production and circulation of the Islamist political and social discourse, the only alternative to the repressive state. The Mosque was the only connection space allowed.

I define connection space as a space, be it virtual or physical, where people, knowledge, ideas and projects can be connected. In the Arab world, in the absence of more secular spaces, the mosque was a connection space that allowed individuals to express socially their opinion with relative freedom – within the boundaries of Islamic religion. It allowed sharing of knowledge, and the collaboration of different projects for taking action (economic, social, political…). It was the primal space for people with socio-political concerns to establish, keep and extend their social network. This was before the Internet disrupted existing social structures and dynamics.

I remembered with very fond feelings the times I went to Egypt to study Arabic in 2002 and 2003. There I was amazed to see how people were hooked to their mobile phones. In Egypt, as in many places in the Mediterranean, extensive and intensive communication and, within the limits of the technology available in those times, social interaction are an essential part of people’s everyday culture. Going from Assouan to Cairo by train, we had to sit next to a guy who didn’t stop talking loudly on his mobile phone for the 6-7 hours of the trip! Now, the social internet has revolutionised the way people communicate and interact. It has opened new public spaces unreachable to state repression, unless paying a high economic cost. The entry of Facebook in people’s lives has changed from where and how they get and share ideas and projects of life.

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The Arab world is awakening to a new political era. Times of real democracy and respect for human rights seem to have arrived to a region which seemed condemned to live in the permanent dilemma between secular autocracy or radical Islamic rule. It is too soon to say, but from what I’ve seen from trips, conversations and research about the region, this seems to me a radical change from past experiences. This is neither an Islamic revolution (the deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Rashad al-Bayoumi, said in an interview to the Spiegel “We don’t want this revolution to be portrayed as a revolution of the Muslim Brothers, as an Islamic revolution. This is a popular uprising by all Egyptians”), nor a traditional liberal one. Islamist groups have played a marginal role in the uprising, and no secular political groups or leaders are capitalizing the change. Instead young people from different affiliations, religions and political beliefs coordinated their action under the conviction that their country was in a bad state, it needed to change, and change had arrived.

There is no single cause or factor that explains these sudden political changes. There are, however, elements that facilitate it happening. And today this is how people are using new tools of information, communication and organisation to challenge the power of the state against those who appropriated it for their own personal benefit. In autocracies, this means bringing the authorities to kneel by the force and conviction of the many, coordinated to achieve a well-defined common goal e.g. in Tunis and Egypt for the toppling of the dictators (Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak).

This is people’s revolution. Those who don’t enjoy the rights and obligations of democratic citizenship, revolt against the powerful to get them. This will extend to many other autocracies in the world. Many countries are ready for a real people’s revolution.

In well-established democracies these technological changes may facilitate revolt against the privileges of the political class – from the pettty corruption of letting the taxpayer pay a hotel room in a private trip to the big commissions attached to public procurement contracts -, and the manipulation of state structures for the benefit of the few, those with money and position to influence, sometimes even determine, how we are governed – above all the financiers, who with arrogance move money, take money as they please.

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Having done some research work on Middle East politics (including a Masters in Middle Politics) and being academically, professionally and personally connected to what the Internet is doing to politics, it is amazing how I haven’t commented on what’s happening in Egypt yet. I want to write a longer article on young people, revolutions and communication. But for now, I’ll have to be satisfied with a bit of free time I have found to write a short note on Egypt twit-face-wiki-jaz revolution. A short note, because I just want to point towards a couple of interesting sources, on internet or non-internet related factors in relation to the Egyptian revolution.

First I should mention the unavoidable Evgeny Morozov (@evgenymorozov) and his article “The dark side of Internet for Egyptian and Tunisian protesters“. Not that he says much more than his usual (see his book The Net Delusion)): new communication technologies help democratic and non-democratic revolutions alike, dictators also use Internet to repress, there are more reasons behind a revolution than the Internet. But it is also interesting to have a powerful critical voice out there, pointing these (rather obvious?) facts.

Then there is one of my favourites, Patrick Meier (@patrickmeier). He has interesting articles on his blog iRevolution about the use of crisismapping – particularly Ushahidi – for mapping the Egyptian protests.

Two articles analysing the situation in Egypt. First about the first US reactions (on Foreign Policy), and, second, in the context of a possible Middle East awakening (on openDemocracy). And a collection of articles on Foreign Policy magazine about the options and consequences for US diplomacy.

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Eduard Punset, a Spanish thinker who writes about many different ideas around networks, neurology, society, economy…has posted today on his blog about the new emerging way of relating to each other (here in Spanish, translation in English). According to him we are witnessing the emergence of the structures of relationships between each other, other life beings and our environment based more on independence, diversity and respect (these three dimensions are my interpretation of his words). One of the most important factors of this change is social networks. Very recently, I have experienced a direct evidence of this.

This process is part of what I call the “emotional revolution“, a movement of conscience about the importance of our emotions, how we feel them, know them, communicate them and work with them. A process that will put at the centre of our lives and our societies the emotional energy that pushes us forward as individuals and communities, in harmony with our environment and all life beings around us.

Ulysses and the Sirens (Herbert James Draper)

Ulysses knew how to pass safely by the coast of the Sirens. In the Odyssey, we are told how he instructed his sailors to put wax in their ears, bind him tightly to the mast, and by no means release him until they had passed the Sirens’ island. Ulysses knew that the Sirens’ temptation was such that he won’t be able to resist it without restraint. He knew that the wonderful Sirens’ song meant in truth destruction. It had, therefore, to be resisted.

Technology has a sweet, melodic and very attractive singing. It promises humans to do, make and achieve the impossible. It wonders us at all ages, and we fall quickly for its wonders. We imagine new perfect worlds that will bring us happiness and plenty, all thanks to our technological advances. Yet the Sirens of technology, if not resisted, can easily bring us to destruction. History is witness of this danger.

Technology and ethics are intimately related. How we approach and use technology is very much conditioned by our ethical values. Therefore, the construction of a society based solely on technological disruption is a dangerous evolution. For our behaviours, as individuals, groups and as society as whole are transformed unknowingly by these new technologies without the restraint of ethical principles that would, otherwise, guide our conduct in more beneficial directions. When Ulysses ordered its sailors to bind him to the mast and keep him there, he was imposing on himself an ethical principle to resist the temptation of the Sirens. He was telling his sailors not to follow his orders in any circumstances; he was innovating to resist a path he knew will bring him destruction.

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