#Jan25: One Tweet, One Story

[tabatha]

Last week, we spoke with @alya1989262, a 21-year-old Egyptian student who sent the first Tweet with the #Jan25 hashtag.

What follows is her story of how she and others have used social media in recent weeks. While technology has played a role, Egyptians who put their lives at risk for their beliefs have had the biggest impact:

I’m almost 22. I’ve lived in Egypt since I was 5 (spent the years before that in France). I signed up for Twitter I think 2 years ago or so, but only started using it intensively in the past 7 or 8 months.

Twitter is a very important tool for protesters, as evidenced by the fact it and Facebook were repeatedly blocked in Egypt as the protests flared up. We use it to campaign and spread the word about protests/stands–hashtags are invaluable in that respect, and to share news quickly and efficiently, with our own 140-char commentary on them, and subsequently have conversations with random people/complete strangers.

For years, the ruling party portrayed the political scene in Egypt as a struggle between themselves, the secular National Democratic Party, and the Muslim Brotherhood, with the Egyptian left wing completely marginalised for lack of inspirational leaders. We, the non-Brotherhood opposition, were left waiting for a magical spiritual leader a la Obama, who would inspire us to revolt against the NDP. Tunisia showed us that a popular revolution can take place and topple a dictatorial regime, without the need for strong leadership and tight organisation. January 14 was the day we started believing in January 25.

http://hope140.org/blog/?p=127

[highplainsdem]

1. K&R