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Kendra King's insight:
I think it is important that technology plays a role in these revolutions. Before, if a revolution happened, the dictator could just silence its population. Now the population has things like Facebook and Twitter to mobilize their plans of attack for meeting places and advice about how to confront the government. As such, the power of the citizens has grown and according to the article some argue it was this power that made the government officials in Egypt and Tunisia stand down. I tend to agree since the coverage of the event helped increase the size of the demonstrations.
I love that these protests for democracy are being led by the citizens. Since the citizens actually want this type of government, there is actually a chance that this might be what the country needs. As you mentioned during the Solar Diem video, what works for one society may not translate to another. The author of this piece is more than likely from a western democracy given how the author thinks "democratic change offers the only solution" to issues like poverty and internal strife within "Arab" countries. Yet, that isn't the case in the Middle East. By forcing a democratic revolution on Iraq, the region is more destabilized than it was under the harsh command of Saddam Hussein. As you mentioned in class, Iraq needed a dictator like Hussein to keep peace though. So as helpful as technology might be for democratic revolutions, democratic revolution might not be the answer to every countries problems.Image may be NSFW.
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A case study for our World Development text book...
How useful was digital technology, particularly social networking sites, to democracy protesters in Tunisia and Egypt? How important are the democracy protests in the Middle East and North Africa to world development? Social media has fundamentally changed the cultural and political paradigms.
Kendra King's insight:
I think it is important that technology plays a role in these revolutions. Before, if a revolution happened, the dictator could just silence its population. Now the population has things like Facebook and Twitter to mobilize their plans of attack for meeting places and advice about how to confront the government. As such, the power of the citizens has grown and according to the article some argue it was this power that made the government officials in Egypt and Tunisia stand down. I tend to agree since the coverage of the event helped increase the size of the demonstrations.
I love that these protests for democracy are being led by the citizens. Since the citizens actually want this type of government, there is actually a chance that this might be what the country needs. As you mentioned during the Solar Diem video, what works for one society may not translate to another. The author of this piece is more than likely from a western democracy given how the author thinks "democratic change offers the only solution" to issues like poverty and internal strife within "Arab" countries. Yet, that isn't the case in the Middle East. By forcing a democratic revolution on Iraq, the region is more destabilized than it was under the harsh command of Saddam Hussein. As you mentioned in class, Iraq needed a dictator like Hussein to keep peace though. So as helpful as technology might be for democratic revolutions, democratic revolution might not be the answer to every countries problems.Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
