The Egyptian Revolution

I have been watching recent events in Egypt avidly from afar this weekend for both their tragic death toll and their incredibly exciting potential to end the autocratic regime of Hosni Mubarak. The fall of the Egyptian dictator would no doubt resonate widely within the Arab world and beyond.  Indeed, it’s interesting to note that the Chinese regime has blocked all references to Egypt on Twitter.

This attempt to cut off the revolutionary rumblings that social media such as Twitter and Facebook can transmit clearly reflects the importance of these new forms of mass communication.

For a variety of different perspectives on this topic, it’s may be worth looking back at the Periscope dossier on social media and the Iranian uprising in 2009.  You can find it here.

Ashley Dawson

Ashley Dawson is professor of postcolonial studies in the English department at the Graduate Center, City University of New York and the College of Staten Island. His latest books include People’s Power: Reclaiming the Energy Commons (O/R, 2020), Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change (Verso, 2017), and Extinction: A Radical History (O/R, 2016). A member of the Social Text Collective and the founder of the CUNY Climate Action Lab, he is a long-time climate justice activist.