Censorship in Egypt
As the entire blogger community of Egypt knows, Abdul Kareem Nabeel Soliman, a very vocal Egyptian blogger, was arrested on the 26th of October. He was arrested because his position and opinions on the Mubarrek administration and Islam are very, shall we say, "controvertial". Gr33nData and Egyptian Sand Monkey have a couple of interesting posts and threads regarding this issue, and you can find out a lot more on the subject by checking out their posts. I wanted to paraphrase my posts on their blog, because I think the conversation about Egyptian censorship is relevant to the current situation here in the US.
Regarding the arrest of Soliman, which is being touted as due to religious reasons, I think the issue is more political than religious. I think that the Egyptian government feels threatened by the new media of the internet, and it's struggling to keep up with the change in the way people are communicating around the world.
I'm all for the freedom of speech, but it's not a universal freedom. Here in America it's protected by the first amendment; no first amendment, no free speech. I don't know Egyptian law, but I'd love a lesson in civil rights in Egyptian society. Egypt has long enjoyed a state monopoly on the media and has been able to promote the dominant social paradigm through its media avenues. Radio, television, and (to a lesser extent) printed media are one way avenues for information dissemination, rather than two way conduits for social conversation. The internet in general, and blogs in particular, are a new social forum that fulfills the function of a sook, or marketplace, but one that is not just local. Think of this; twenty years ago, the Egyptian government controlled radio and television transmissions, as well as much of the print media. If you wanted to discuss the problems of society and try brainstorm on how to address them, you had to go to the sook and find other people sympathetic to your cause. And how many people at your sook fit that description? Now, you have MUCH greater access to that kind of community, and it transcends borders. In a lot of ways that's good, and in a lot of ways that's bad. Governments are threatened by that, and the forum allows for the minority to have a much greater voice. Using Islam as an excuse to censor non-party ideas gives the government a moral justification for heavy handed techniques in controlling the social dialogue.
But referring to counter-institutional speech, it can be dangerous. Especially to the entrenched institution. Us Americans have done things to censor free speech in the past, and we're likely to continue to do it in the future. It's much easier to censor speech in a totalitarian state than in a democracy, and heavy handed tactics are much more accepted in many places. Here, instead of "disappearing people" (as my daughter is fond of saying) we like to use more subtle tactics, like smear campaigns and information overload. The top-down dissemination of information in traditional media made it very expensive and difficult to get ideas out to an audience. With the Net, however, any dummy with a computer and a phone line can reach an audience of potentially hundreds of millions. Old institutions in America are being shaken up by this new structure as honest-to-god journalists are being replaced by pundits and the public is still trying to cope with the paradigm shift. And we're a country that elevates free speech to a God-given right! I can't imagine how much tension is being placed on regimes who are less open than ours, now having to deal with this new "threat" to their institutional power.
I just want to say that I am not "coming down on" either Egypt or Mubarrak's government. As an American, with our tradition of free press, I witness DAILY the attempts of many politically motivated special interest groups (not to mention the two dominant parties) to control the media. Here they don't censor as much as they make ad-hominem attacks in order to discredit, but censorship still goes on. We live in interesting times. I personally suspect that we're witnessing an inexorable shift in paradigms from heavy handed censorship to subtle political manipulations. But as long as there are people in power, they will have a vested interest in promoting their vision of reality in which they get to stay in power.
Before the internet, the Muslim Brotherhood managed to organize a plot to assassinate Anwar Sadat. Ayman Al-Zawahiri was in their organization. And they did it without the internet, cell phones, or satillite uplinks. Now, he's the number 2 guy in Al-Qaeda (or the number 1 guy, depending on who you ask) and they're recruiting on the Net.I personally think they're fighting a losing battle, both Mubarrek and Al-Zawahiri. They're trying to contain the decentralization of power, and I think that it's a wave they're going to have to ride or they'll be buried under it. The Net will change the world as surely as the Gutenburg press did, and people in power will find new ways to adapt to the paradigm and reconsolidate that power. If they hold on to their old techniques of control, however, they'll find the ground has slipped from under them.
Of course, that applies to America as well.
Regarding the arrest of Soliman, which is being touted as due to religious reasons, I think the issue is more political than religious. I think that the Egyptian government feels threatened by the new media of the internet, and it's struggling to keep up with the change in the way people are communicating around the world.
I'm all for the freedom of speech, but it's not a universal freedom. Here in America it's protected by the first amendment; no first amendment, no free speech. I don't know Egyptian law, but I'd love a lesson in civil rights in Egyptian society. Egypt has long enjoyed a state monopoly on the media and has been able to promote the dominant social paradigm through its media avenues. Radio, television, and (to a lesser extent) printed media are one way avenues for information dissemination, rather than two way conduits for social conversation. The internet in general, and blogs in particular, are a new social forum that fulfills the function of a sook, or marketplace, but one that is not just local. Think of this; twenty years ago, the Egyptian government controlled radio and television transmissions, as well as much of the print media. If you wanted to discuss the problems of society and try brainstorm on how to address them, you had to go to the sook and find other people sympathetic to your cause. And how many people at your sook fit that description? Now, you have MUCH greater access to that kind of community, and it transcends borders. In a lot of ways that's good, and in a lot of ways that's bad. Governments are threatened by that, and the forum allows for the minority to have a much greater voice. Using Islam as an excuse to censor non-party ideas gives the government a moral justification for heavy handed techniques in controlling the social dialogue.
But referring to counter-institutional speech, it can be dangerous. Especially to the entrenched institution. Us Americans have done things to censor free speech in the past, and we're likely to continue to do it in the future. It's much easier to censor speech in a totalitarian state than in a democracy, and heavy handed tactics are much more accepted in many places. Here, instead of "disappearing people" (as my daughter is fond of saying) we like to use more subtle tactics, like smear campaigns and information overload. The top-down dissemination of information in traditional media made it very expensive and difficult to get ideas out to an audience. With the Net, however, any dummy with a computer and a phone line can reach an audience of potentially hundreds of millions. Old institutions in America are being shaken up by this new structure as honest-to-god journalists are being replaced by pundits and the public is still trying to cope with the paradigm shift. And we're a country that elevates free speech to a God-given right! I can't imagine how much tension is being placed on regimes who are less open than ours, now having to deal with this new "threat" to their institutional power.
I just want to say that I am not "coming down on" either Egypt or Mubarrak's government. As an American, with our tradition of free press, I witness DAILY the attempts of many politically motivated special interest groups (not to mention the two dominant parties) to control the media. Here they don't censor as much as they make ad-hominem attacks in order to discredit, but censorship still goes on. We live in interesting times. I personally suspect that we're witnessing an inexorable shift in paradigms from heavy handed censorship to subtle political manipulations. But as long as there are people in power, they will have a vested interest in promoting their vision of reality in which they get to stay in power.
Before the internet, the Muslim Brotherhood managed to organize a plot to assassinate Anwar Sadat. Ayman Al-Zawahiri was in their organization. And they did it without the internet, cell phones, or satillite uplinks. Now, he's the number 2 guy in Al-Qaeda (or the number 1 guy, depending on who you ask) and they're recruiting on the Net.I personally think they're fighting a losing battle, both Mubarrek and Al-Zawahiri. They're trying to contain the decentralization of power, and I think that it's a wave they're going to have to ride or they'll be buried under it. The Net will change the world as surely as the Gutenburg press did, and people in power will find new ways to adapt to the paradigm and reconsolidate that power. If they hold on to their old techniques of control, however, they'll find the ground has slipped from under them.
Of course, that applies to America as well.
posted by sadiq at 11/06/2005 04:30:00 PM
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