One of the members of April 6 Youth Movement in Eygpt, Walid Rachid, proclaimed to the New York Times. The uprising in Egypt, indeed, inspires people from many totalitarian states including my country, Burma. And it also provides a good case study about the rise of social movements. Social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter are highly credited in the victory of the recent people protests in Egypt. In last October, Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article, “why the revolution will not be twitted” on the New Yorker – by stating “social media cannot provide what social change has always required.” Now, I wonder how Gladwell will take on the Egypt’s movements. Unlike any previous revolutions in history, the uprising in Egypt showed the world without any structured leadership, and particularly, without the leadership of a traditional political party, the movements initiated by mostly by young students on internet through Facebook groups and twitter blogs can bring down a long-well established regime.
