Arabs and cultural emancipation

Much has been written, quite justifiably, about the new ‘internet culture’ of the young cyber-dissidents of Tunisia and Egypt, not to mention the rest of the Middle East and North Africa.

Their mastery of the tools of communication and their ability to express themselves have earned them praise. To the West, they conveyed the reassuring impression that they were speaking the same language as ‘us,’ that they shared ‘our’ values and ‘our’ hopes. No one can deny their extraordinary progress as communicators: the younger Arab generation succeeded in conveying a message, both at home and abroad, that traditional political forces had, over a half-century of political involvement, failed to do. The power and effectiveness that flow from mastery of new technology cannot be underestimated: the ‘internet culture’ is also the expression of genuine power. Still, the precise nature of its power cannot but raise questions about how deeply-rooted the mass protest movements in the Middle East and North Africa really are. Are young people reclaiming themselves and their freedom through the use of modern means of communication, or are the means of communication stripping Arab young people of their identity?