Think Again: Egypt
"Facebook Defeated Mubarak." No. There’s a joke that has been making the rounds in Egypt in recent weeks, and it goes something like this: Hosni Mubarak meets Anwar Sadat and Gamal Abdel Nasser, two fellow Egyptian presidents, in the afterlife. Mubarak asks Nasser how he ended up there. "Poison," Nasser says. Mubarak then turns to ...
"Facebook Defeated Mubarak."
"Facebook Defeated Mubarak."
No. There’s a joke that has been making the rounds in Egypt in recent weeks, and it goes something like this: Hosni Mubarak meets Anwar Sadat and Gamal Abdel Nasser, two fellow Egyptian presidents, in the afterlife. Mubarak asks Nasser how he ended up there. "Poison," Nasser says. Mubarak then turns to Sadat. "How did you end up here?" he asks. "An assassin’s bullet," Sadat says. "What about you?" To which Mubarak replies: "Facebook."
But the popular explosion that led to Mubarak’s overthrow was not simply a matter of calling for protests on Facebook; it was the product of years of pent-up rage and frustration at the corruption and abuse of power that had become the hallmarks of the Egyptian regime.
Blake Hounshell is a former managing editor of Foreign Policy.
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