The Internet Age and Revolt

Has the Internet modernized regime change?
Times are changing. The days of the Stalinist repressive regime, the prominence of totalitarianism, and unchecked dictatorial brutality, may be approaching their end. The recent events in North Africa, the Middle East, and even historically autocratic Russia confirm that the interconnected world we live in is becoming an increasingly hostile place for autocracies.
As a result of the ongoing protests in Tunisia that began in December and culminated in the flight of longtime political strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on January 15th, the world’s repressive regimes have come under internal attack in the last two weeks. The dissolution of dictatorships has been a natural part of global geopolitics since the French Revolution in the 1780s, yet the recent spree of protests across the world speaks to new developments in regime collapse. Of which, the biggest force bringing hope to those yearning for freedom is, not surprisingly, the Internet.
Days after the revolution in Tunisia, emotions spread to neighboring North African states as mass protests against abject unemployment, restrictions on freedom of speech, and high inflation emerged in unfree Egypt and the newly created nation of Northern Sudan. In the case of both nations, dictators have held power since the 80s (Egypt’s Mubarak took power in 1981 and North Sudan’s al Bashir assumed the presidency in 1989) while their citizens have withstood widespread poverty and restrictions on liberty. Yet until recent years, the unrest created by these problems was of ancillary concern to the world’s despots as brutality and fear remained strong mechanisms of curbing the majority of dissenters. Though as recently as 2008, reports counted up to 20 Egyptians as the fatal victims of state-sponsored torture, prior to Egypt’s last two weeks weeks of rioting, there had been few instances of mass protest against the regime.
Nonetheless, as has been continually documented in China over the last decade, the Internet age is raising the stakes for oppressors worldwide. An anonymous web page can reiterate itself faster than censors can close it down, and regimes have struggled to maintain the information shields that formerly kept people ignorant and docile (think Soviet Union and modern day Myanmar). In my opinion, the recent events in the Middle East, and it appears Russia, are byproducts of this increased fluidity of information.
Rioters in Egypt, Northern Sudan, Yemen, Jordan, Russia, Albania, Algeria, as well as minor protestors in Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Morocco have taken the path of the Tunisians and have called for increased freedom in their nations. News reporters are calling the events in the Middle East (and spreading) unprecedented since the collapse of Communism in the 1980s–and rightfully so. However, while the collapse of the Soviet system was the catalyst of the “red flight” of 1989, the current revolutions are not unified by some overarching collapsed structure but rather by grassroots protests in countries where dissent has been repressed for decades.
Outside influences appear to have given the Tunisians the capacity for their revolt but the events in many other nations are more homegrown. Each protest cites Tunisia, and now Egypt, as major inspiration and it seems as though the ability of the Internet to spread news faster than censors can hide it has opened the door for action in regions that have long been prone to civil stagnation. Iran and China should watch warily as I am sure Russia already is.
Further, the internet has recently sparked tremors in Syria, a nation that has been under a state of emergency since 1963, and was a major tool used to rally supporters in Tunisia and Egypt. With organized dissident, led by the web, spreading even to Jordan and Albania as of late, Secretary of State Clinton has chimed in on the phenomena of Internet revolutions. As news of the Tunisian example continues to spreads across the free and unfree world, Facebook and Twitter revolutions may be here to stay. The miraculous call to arms of many of the world’s most oppressed speaks volumes to the speed at which information can be disseminated and used to galvanize collective action around the world. The days of autocracy as a viable regime type may well be numbered.
Photocredit: Tyler Cusick