Impact of Anti-US Protests: Healthy Change in the Muslim World

RSIS presents the following commentary Impact of Anti-US Protests: Healthy Change in the Muslim World by James M. Dorsey. It is also available online at this link. (To print it, click on this link.). Kindly forward any comments or feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentaries, at  RSISPublication@ntu.edu.sg

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No. 179/2012 dated 25 September 2012

Impact of Anti-US Protests:
Healthy Change in the Muslim World

 By James M. Dorsey

      

Synopsis

Demonstrations against an American-made anti-Islam video clip have sparked fierce debates in the Muslim world. They also provoked demonstrations against militant Islamists and spurred initiatives by governments and religious authorities to turn anger into constructive engagement with the rest of the world.

Commentary

THIS MONTH’s violent protests in Muslim countries against the bigoted anti-Islam video on the Internet have taken place against the backdrop of popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa over the past two years. They have catalysed a change in the attitude and approach of Muslims, which had over the past two decades reacted to perceived insults to Islam and the Prophet Muhammad with a series of protests that produced death and destruction, which in retrospect are little more than blips on the radar of history.

To be sure, this month’s protests were as lethal as the past protests including those following Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa against British writer Salman Rushdie, the 2004 killing of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh for producing a film critical of Islam’s treatment of women, and the 2005 Danish anti-Muslim cartoons. Scores have been killed in the recent protests, most prominent of whom was US ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens.

Historic change

However unlike past protests, this month’s outrage has produced historic change with protests against Islamist militants; debate about the role of religion in politics; how Muslims should respond to blasphemy; the limits of freedom of expression; and initiatives to engage in dialogue with the non-Muslim world. In effect the anti-Islam video clip, which got more than 30 million hits since the protests erupted, may have been the spark but the protests were really about the kind of society the Arab world is striving for and struggles for power among Islamists. Also as in the case of militant soccer fans in Egypt, they were a settling of scores with the police and security forces, the foremost remnants of the ousted regime of former president Hosni Mubarak.

In the most dramatic expression of change, angry Libyan protesters last weekend attacked Ansar al Sharia, the militant Islamist group believed to be responsible for Stevens’ death, forcing the group to abandon its base in the city of Benghazi and the government to announce a crackdown on the country’s myriad of armed groups.

Similarly, Egyptian activists have taken legal action against Ahmed Abdullah aka Abu Islam, who burnt a bible during last week’s protest in front of the US embassy in Cairo, and television host Khaled Abdullah who first aired the controversial video clip, The Innocence of Islam, on Salafist Al Nast tv. On Facebook, the “We are all Khaled Said” page that played an important role in mobilising last year’s protests that toppled Hosni Mubarak, listed reasons why Muslims should have ignored the video rather than ensure its popularity.

Turning anger into positive engagement

In Lebanon, a presenter on Future TV that is owned by Sunni Lebanese leader Saad Hariri, denounced the Shiite militia head Hassan Nasrallah as a hypocrite in a 15-minute political diatribe, for calling for protests against the video clip while remaining silent about the Assad regime’s destruction of mosques and killing of Muslims in Syria. Similarly, Sheikh Assir, a hardline cleric at an anti-video protest in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, denounced Hezbollah for displaying portraits of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at a rally, describing him as a butcher.

The cleric charged that Hezbollah was exploiting the protests to polish its image tarnished by the group’s support of Assad. "Why didn't Sheikh Nasrallah do anything when the prophets of freedom were martyred in Syria?" he asked, adding that Assad committed blasphemy by forcing prisoners to say “There is no God but Bashar al Assad,” rather than the Muslim oath of faith, “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet.”

The protests have also persuaded some governments and religious authorities to turn anger into positive engagement. Qatar has announced that it is investing US$450 million in a three-part epic that depicts the life of Prophet Muhammad. Ali Goma, the grand mufti of Egypt urged Muslims to "follow the Prophet's example of enduring insults without retaliating" and reportedly is looking at launching an international campaign under the motto, ‘Know Muhammad,’ to explain Islam to the non-Muslim world.

Important step forward
  
On the other hand, the protests have also strengthened the hand of Muslim conservatives who insist on strict laws against blasphemy and limiting freedom of expression to ensure that Islam is shielded against criticism and mockery. Salafis in Egypt could succeed in pressuring the Muslim Brotherhood to include a ban on blasphemy in the drafting of the country’s new constitution. A similar provision has already been included in the draft Tunisian constitution. Saudi grand mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh and the grand imam of Cairo’s Al Azhar University, Sheikh Ahmed el Tayyeb, called separately for the criminalisation of all insults of religious prophets and messengers.

Without doubt, a majority in nations across the Middle East and North Africa rejects expressions of blasphemy and supports laws against insults of Islam across the region. Nevertheless, the debate sparked by the recent anti-video protests is largely reflective of the tensions in societies transiting from autocracy to a more open form of government. For Islamists the struggle against blasphemy is in part a response to autocratic repression that, for example in Tunisia, targeted men with long beards who attended dawn prayers. Liberals across the region walk a tightrope between advocating freedom of speech that would allow criticism and mockery of religion and losing whatever public support they may have.

Change produced by the most recent protests is unlikely to amount to Western-style liberalism. It does however constitute a watershed in which people for the first time draw lines that they could not draw before and in which anger pent-up in societies with no release valves or manipulated by autocratic rulers, not only spills into the streets but is also being channeled into engagement. It may be just one step forward, but nonetheless, it is an important step.  


James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. He is also the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

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The Arab Revolts and South East Asia: What Impact and What Influence?

Actuelles de l’Ifri

The Arab Revolts and South East

Asia: What Impact and What

Influence?

Teresita Cruz-del Rosario

et James M. Dorsey

Southeast Asia experienced its own political upheavals well before the

Arab revolts. Nevertheless, the wave of popular uprisings that shook the

Middle-East and North Africa region goes far beyond the region’s boundaries,

and Southeast Asia is no exception to the global crisis of confidence towards

governments. 2011 was a year of massive demonstration of widespread and

deeply felt discontent that was willing and able to assert itself in powerful and

often new ways. Although contexts and political cultures differ, the impact of

the Arab revolts on Southeast Asia is already palpable. The consequences of

the wave of Arab protests on Southeast Asian countries carry their load of

opportunities and risks for governments, in political, social and economic

terms. But the impact is not one way, and Southeast Asian experiences could

represent a source of inspiration.


A Different Political Culture

In countries that have narrower opportunities for public redress, citizens

cleverly manoeuvre within tightly controlled spaces mainly through electoral

contests that do not directly challenge entrenched authority. Malaysians have

succeeded to get their messages across, created dents, raised questions,

and expanded spaces for public discourse. Filipinos, Thais and Indonesians

who have succeeded in regime change through relatively peaceful means,

redirected the course of political life and a qualitative shift in social life has

occurred. Thai voters returned to power the party of deposed premier Thaksin

Shinawatra through the landslide victory of his sister Yingluck --- a victory

forhis red-shirted supporters that in the past involved bloody clashes with the

military. For the moment, her unequivocal electoral victory ended years of

strife between red and yellow shirts and put the country back on a path of

relative stability and economic growth. In Burma, the generals have retreated,

and a new civilian government promises to deliver reforms, signaling a new

political direction for the country that would emulate market-based

democracies. In Indonesia, broad-based social movements have helped

restore democratic practice.


Since the eruption of the Arab uprisings, Myanmar has relaxed strict

government control in part for fear that the Burmese might be capable of the

kind of resilience displayed by Syrians in their 14-month old defiance of brutal

regime repression. Singapore's long-ruling People's Action Party has seen its

share of the electoral vote drop to a record low because of surging prices and

immigration and a new generation of young voters who espouse the values of

political choice and social change. In a further indication of sensitivity to

developments in the Middle East and North Africa and recognition of the need

for release valves, Singaporean bloggers were long able to get away with what

mainstream media could not(1). Malaysia has responded to sharp criticism of

the police by repealing two sweeping security laws and lifting restrictions on

the media even though a new restrictive assembly law and clashes between

police and demonstrators point in the opposite direction. In all of these

countries in Southeast Asia, grievances were channeled via organized efforts

of social movements.


In all of these countries thus far, political strife has not resulted in civil wars.

This is perhaps the singular feature that distinguishes protest action in

Southeast Asia from the Middle East. It also suggests that Southeast Asian

governments are likely to be more adept in responding to potential popular

discontent than entrenched Arab autocracies.


Further, most Southeast Asian countries have engaged in party politics

despite the imperfections in the development of political parties in this region.

Some countries like Malaysia have experienced the dominance of the Barisan

Nasional which has ruled the country for nearly two decades. Yet, opposition

politics led by Anwar is making inroads into the ruling party and will most likely

see the emergence of more vigorous electoral contests in the coming years.


In Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi has been elected to parliament in which her

party, the National League for Democracy, commands a respectable following.

The Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia continue to struggle with political

party formation, so that these entities reflect broader programs for governance

rather than the personality of its front-runner candidates. Political evolution,

though slow and tedious, heralds the institutionalization of a political process

that in turn signals a forward march in the creation of a more modernized

political culture. For all the citizens of these countries, hopes are high that the

deepening of these processes will consolidate democracy and therefore

become irreversible.


For all Southeast Asian countries, an active electoral culture is in place, and

citizens do take their electoral rights seriously. They insist on the legitimacy of

their leaders through fair and honest elections. This should be construed as a

sign of political health, and a staunch adherence to a social contract between

government and their subjects.


Finally, social movements have been a part of the institutional life of Southeast

Asian countries. Even in Myanmar where civil society organizations including

media have faced severe restrictions, the Burmese found spaces within the

existing political opportunity structures to have their voices heard and

registered. In Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, social movements have

been an integral part of the fabric of social life. Where protest groups have

taken to the streets, these have been, by and large, relatively peaceful despite

the occasional violence and destruction to public property.


Interestingly, social movements in all these countries opt for an electoral

option, thus working within institutional means that are offered by a regime

which, in and of itself, desires to play by the rules of the “legitimacy game.”


However unpopular, regimes seek recourse to legitimatizing procedures, even

incurring the risk of potential loss. Thus far, all rulers seek a popular mandate,

never mind that they might engage in the occasional electoral manipulation to

ensure longevity. Notwithstanding fraudulent practices in electoral politics in

Southeast Asia, the quest for political legitimacy should be construed as a

hopeful development in the evolution of politics in these countries.


However flawed these processes are, most Southeast Asian nations are

poised to consolidate their economic and political gains in the years to come.

And in contrast to the Middle East and North Africa with its entrenched

autocracies, their governments have by and large displayed a greater degree

of attunement to what is happening around them with a greater deal of vision

and flexibility.


Energy Security Issue and Islamist Experience


If the Arab revolts and developments in Southeast Asia are both expressions

of a broader global trend, the impact on ASEAN nations of developments in

the Middle East is far more direct. As the Arab uprising inevitably spreads to

the Gulf, Southeast Asian nations will have to define the risk to their energy

security and develop alternatives in case of a disruption in oil and gas supplies

as well as increase their focus on alternative energy options. Some Southeast

Asian nations particularly the Philippines and Indonesia will also have to deal

with the impact of large numbers of migrant workers returning home to escape

erupting turmoil.


The energy security issue will no doubt shoot to the top of the agenda if or

more probably when the protests spread to Saudi Arabia and/or other major oil

producers. Non-oil producing Southeast Asian nations like Singapore,

Thailand and the Philippines depend on the Middle East for 70 per cent of the

oils and gas imports. In addition, Southeast Asia and the Middle East are

crucial links in a seaborne commerce conveyor belt that runs from the Gulf to

the Pacific. If the Straits of Malaka and Singapore were seen as potentially

among the most risky maritime choke points in the past, today it's the Straits of

Hormuz and Bab el. Mandeb, which is straddled by Somalia and Yemen. Asia

would be most affected if shipping particularly through the Strait of Hormuz

were to be interrupted. The US gets 22 per cent of its oil from the Gulf, Europe

about 30 per cent as compared to Asia’s whopping 75 per cent. Needless to

say, Asia has the most at stake in terms of energy security.


Southeast Asian governments and military and intelligence organizations are

monitoring closely the geopolitics of the Arab revolts as well as their fallout as

part of a global trend that expresses a lack of confidence in institutions with a

mixture of hope and anxiety.


The debate over the potential domestic fallout is to some degree coloured by

vested interests that have gained in strength and prominence in the wake of

9/11. For those whose budgets are boosted by perceptions of a terrorist threat,

the focus is on the rise of the Islamists in countries like Egypt and what this is

likely to mean, for example, for Islamist groups in Indonesia, Malaysia,

Thailand and Brunei.


To be sure, the rise of Islamist forces in the Middle East and North Africa

boosts confidence among Islamists in Southeast Asia. Yet, the tradition of

Islamist participation in Malaysian party politics dates back to the 1950s and

has proven its resilience despite the efforts to silence its proponents. Islamist

politics in Indonesia is no doubt gaining ground against more secular forces.

But it is doing so in a country that votes decidedly secular despite growing

religious intolerance and widespread corruption.


Beyond The Turkish Model A Southeast Asian Inspiration


As post-revolt and opposition forces in the Middle East and North Africa look

first and foremost to Turkey but also to Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore,

they are likely to have to first settle their post-revolt battles before they can

really build on the experiences of others. Despite all their warts, Indonesia,

Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, the Philippines, and more currently,

Myanmar, have much to offer. Singapore alongside Malaysia constitutes

examples of multiculturalism which the Middle Eastern and North African

countries increasingly wracked by ethnic and sectarian cleavages will need.


Similarly, Indonesia stands as a model of reform of the military in a post-revolt

society, a model that, like Turkey, can only grow in significance as the push for

greater accountability and transparency moves forward in the Middle East and

North Africa. Finally, Myanmar’s path towards a more open political system

demonstrates that even the most intractable of regimes are capable of being

pried open.


Nonetheless, with the exception of Brunei, Southeast Asia is likely to be more

a question of a monsoon in which steady rain washes away entrenched

powers rather than an Arab Spring in which costly revolutions seek to replace

systems rather than reform them. Fact of the matter is that Southeast Asia

despite its political uprisings is a region of relative peace and stability. It has

posted one of the world’s highest growth rates and Southeast Asians enjoy

relative prosperity.

Southeast Asia is largely governed today by leaders whose legitimacy is

grounded in elections and who, by and large, have upheld their end of the

bargain in social contracts. In doing so, they have established structures that

are increasingly robust yet capable of embracing change. This is being

reinforced by Southeast Asia having one of the world’s fastest expanding

middle classes whose clamour for greater openness, transparency and

accountability is certain to make itself felt.


There is reason to believe that no matter how flawed the process is, most

Southeast Asian nations are poised to consolidate their economic and political

gains. The challenge will be for governments to see social movements and

street politics not as fundamental defiance to the system but as evidence that

social contracts are subject to the vigilance of their citizens.


The collective experience of Southeast Asia should boost confidence in the

region and hold out hope for the Middle East and North Africa. It is an

experience of volatility, of two steps forward and one step backward in the

immediate wake of a revolt and of the ultimate entrenchment of electoral

politics and the flourishing of civil society in the longer run. In short, Southeast

Asia shows that institutions, processes and mechanics, however flawed and

imperfect, can convert contentious springs into manageable monsoons. What

sets the experience in Southeast Asia apart from that in the Middle East and

North Africa is that in Southeast Asia grievances were channeled through the

organized efforts of social movements rather than suppressed by a military

crackdown on civil society.

(1) That could be changing with at least one blogger for the first time having been taken to task for what he

wrote and forced to retract some postings

Le programme Maghreb/Moyen-Orient de l’Ifri combine des recherches à long terme et à finalités

opérationnelles et une capacité d’analyses immédiates des bouleversements survenus dans le monde

arabe.

Teresita Cruz-del Rosario, PhD, is the Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Center for Asian Law Studies, National

University of Singapore

James M. Dorsey is Senior Fellow in the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies

Les opinions exprimées dans ce texte n’engagent que leur auteur.

ISBN : 978-2-36567-033-3 © Tous drois réservés, Paris, Ifri

Arabs boycott Adidas as public displeasure shifts from the West to China

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat runs the marathon in an Adidas T-shirt (Source: The Times of Israel - Kobi Gideon/Flash90)

By James M. Dorsey

Arab youth and sports ministers announced this week a boycott of sports apparel manufacturer Adidas because of its sponsorship of last month’s Jerusalem marathon. The boycott comes at a time that Arab public displeasure is expanding from the West to China and Russia because of their support for the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. 

The announcement of the boycott by Saudi Prince Nawaf bin Faisal, chairman of the Arab council of youth and sports ministers, contrasted starkly with an analysis presented the same day by a prominent UAE intellectual that if a year ago Arabs were denouncing the United States for its support of Israel and Arab autocrats, today their anger was focused on China.

"All companies that have sponsored the marathon of Jerusalem, including Adidas, will be boycotted," Saudi Prince Nawaf said at the end of meeting of the council in Jeddah.

Adidas, the only non-Israeli sponsor, unsuccessfully tried to persuade the Jerusalem municipality to re-route the marathon to avoid occupied East Jerusalem after three city council members had complained to the German multi-national. That did little however to dissuade Arab ministers.

In fact, going beyond the boycott, Prince Nawaf said the council had also decided to organise a separate marathon next year in Arab cities entitled ‘Jerusalem is Ours’ to coincide with the annual Jerusalem event. "Israel is trying to misguide public opinion into believing that Jerusalem is its capital and that is a violation of all UN resolutions," Prince Nawaf said.

Prince Nawaf’s statement appeared to have an element of the pot talking to the kettle with the marathon’s slogan seemingly matching Israel’s claim to all of Jerusalem rather than to Arab countries’ long-standing endorsement of a peace plan that envisages Jerusalem as the capital of both Israel and Palestine with the east of the city serving as the administrative seat of the Palestinian state.

The council’s decisions reflect as much a deep-seated Arab stake in Jerusalem, Islam’s third most holy city, as it does an effort to by largely troubled regimes to garner public support at a time that a demand for far-reaching change is sweeping the Middle East and Africa for the past 16 months. The wave has already toppled the leaders of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen and has pushed Syrian President Bashar al Assad to the brink.

Speaking at a symposium organized by the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute (MEI), Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a prominent US-educated UAE University political scientist, cautioned that despite continued public Arab condemnation of US and Western support for Israel and contradictory policies towards the protest wave sweeping the Middle East and North Africa, China was for the first time seeing its flags burnt at demonstrations and calls for boycotts of Chinese goods echoing on social media.

At the root of public anger with China, a country that for years was respected for its support of the Palestinians and other liberation movements, is its dithering in Libya during last year’s NATO-backed rebellion that toppled Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi, and even more so China’s refusal to back away from Mr. Assad, whose year-long bloody crackdown on anti-government protesters and rebels has already cost an estimated 9,000 lives.

Speaking at the same symposium Peking University Arabist Wu Bingbing identified the wave of protests in the Middle East and North Africa as a threat to Chinese interests alongside what he charged was a US concerted effort to secure its hegemony in the region. Mr. Bingbing avoided mentioning the crackdown in Syria but described Chinese-Russian cooperation, an apparent reference to the two countries’ vetoing of anti-Syrian resolutions in the United Nations Security Council, as strategic.

China has insisted its veto did not amount to supporting Mr. Assad and was intended to prevent the situation in Syria from worsening. While insisting that the battle in Syria was a domestic affair, China has since said it backs Arab League efforts to find a political solution despite military support for the anti-Assad rebels by key Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two of the People’s Republic’s key energy suppliers.

Mr. Abdulla suggested that at this point the growing anti-Chinese sentiment was unlikely to damage China’s economic interests despite Arab leaders publicly criticizing China as well as Russia for their vetoes of anti-Syrian resolutions in the United Nations Security Council. While that appears largely to be the case for the Gulf’s autocratic oil producers, China’s most important counterparts in the Middle East, that may not be the same for those nations such as oil producing Libya that have toppled their autocrats.

Saudi King Abdullah in widely reported blunt remarks in early February directed at China and Russia without mentioning them by name described their UN vetoes as “absolutely regrettable.” The king went on to say that “no matter how powerful, countries cannot rule the whole world. The world is ruled by brains by justice, by morals and by fairness.” An Arab League representative confronted senior Russian officials days later in in even blunter, undiplomatic terms during a heated debate behind-closed-doors.

China last year supported a Security Council resolution that imposed an arms embargo and other sanctions on the regime of Mr. Qaddafi, and endorsed referral of the regime’s crackdown to the International Criminal Court in The Hague but abstained from voting on a resolution that authorized international military intervention in Libya on humanitarian grounds.

At the same time, China attempted to straddle the fence by cultivating relations with both Mr. Qaddafi’s embattled regime and the rebels. That even-handed approach however didn’t prevent the rebels from threatening a commercial boycott, particularly after they found documents purporting to show that Chinese defence companies had discussed the supply of arms with Qaddafi operatives. 

A Chinese Ministry of Commerce delegation visiting Libya in February failed to secure agreement on recovering at least some of the losses that China, Libya’s biggest foreign contractor, suffered with the evacuation last year of 35,000 Chinese workers who were servicing $18.8 billion worth of contracts.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

‘THE ARAB SPRING AND ITS IMPLICATIONS ON SOUTHEAST ASIA’

JAMES M DORSEY LECTURE: ‘THE ARAB SPRING AND ITS IMPLICATIONS ON SOUTHEAST ASIA’

By Refana Juanda, SHHBIDSS

BOLKIAH GARRISON, Thursday 1 December 2011 - The Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (SHHBIDSS) conducted a lecture this morning at the Officers’ Mess in Bolkiah Garrison. The lecture, entitled ‘The Arab Spring and its Implications on Southeast Asia’, was presented by Mr. James Dorsey, a Senior Research Fellow at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Mr. Dorsey discussed the developments of the Arab Spring and how it impacted Southeast Asia, especially with regards to governance, Islam and energy resources. The lecture was attended by the Ministry of Defence and Royal Brunei Armed Forces (RBAF) officers as well as defence attachés and representatives from various government agencies and tertiary institutions. The next lecture is expected to be held in January 2012.

Arab autocrats ignore social media at their peril

By James M. Dorsey

(Text of remarks at Singapore Global Dialogue)

If there is one event or series of events or region that has fuelled the debate about the impact on policy and policymaking as well as on social movements and protest of technology in general and social media in particular, it is the Arab revolt that has been sweeping the Middle East and North Africa since December.

Many have dubbed the popular revolts in Egypt and Tunisia the Facebook revolution. Indeed, in Syria social media and mobile telephony play a key role in circumventing news blackouts and censorship to get news of the brutal crackdown by the government of President Bashar al Assad to the outside world.

Yet, despite the perception of many, it is not technology that is sparking the revolts. No doubt technology helps, facilitates and accelerates the speed and breadth of communication. New technology and social media impact politics, social movements, communications and flow of news. But the question one has to ask oneself is whether the Arab revolt would have erupted without Facebook and I would think that the answer to that question is a resounding yes. To dub the Arab revolt a Facebook revolution would require revisiting our explanations and understanding of past revolts starting just over the last century Russia and moving on to Iran, the Philippines and for example Indonesia.

To be sure, technology plays a role and indeed a very important role in protest and revolt. In Iran in 1979, it was the cassette that helped Ayatollah Khomeini to gain and wield power and inspire millions to overthrow the Shah, at the time one of the most powerful symbols of US influence in the region In the very initial phase of Tunisia in December it was the mobile phone video of a young many whose humiliation by the regime of President Zine el Abedine Ben Ali persuaded him to set himself on fire that sparked the protests that led to the president's downfall.

Cassettes and mobile telephony are technologies that autocrats understand by and large. Social media, however, is in many ways a game changer, primarily because it involves a degree of engagement and connecting with one another that works in the favour of activists. Activists employ the medium at a time that autocrats have ignored it and failed to understand its power.

Social media constituted and constitutes a window of opportunity for activists. But even when autocrats attempt to engage, they are up against people who understand social media and its opportunities in ways autocrats have yet to grasp and structurally will find difficult if not impossible to grasp. Social media changes in ways earlier technologies did not the way one has to manage communications and public affairs, particularly in a crisis.  That requires a degree of sophistication that many but particularly inflexible, ossified autocratic governments  often find difficult, if not impossible, to marshal. In fact, marshaling that degree of sophistication would mean a far more far-reaching revision of the way most autocrats do business, a skill Arab autocrats certainly have yet to put on display.

Perhaps most frustrating and most fundamental to autocrats is the fact that the combination of mobile telephony, the Internet and social media has rendered censorship futile. It fundamentally changes the ground rules of communications policies. It turns the shaping of the narrative into something much more complex, in which governments and institutions, autocratic or not have to engage in ways they did not have to in the past. For one communication has truly become a two-way street. Shaping the narrative no longer means control, instead it means engagement. And that is an approach that in the best of circumstances is a difficult one. That is  certainly true for autocrats, particularly embattled ones. It requires a mind shift few autocrats, certainly those that are on the defensive, can easily make.

Just how difficult that process is evident in the problems the Western media have had in adjusting to technological change. It took the media years to understand that format shapes content, that when several years ago broadsheets moved to tabloid formats, the nature of the story changed. Similarly, simply moving the print edition of newspapers lock, stock and barrel on to the Internet was not a workable formula. It failed to recognise changes in terms of interactivity and the way news is consumed and the changing expectations the public empowered by new technology has of what news organisations offer.

As a result, governments and institutions irrespective of the political environment they operate in have to rethink the way they approach communications. They have to pay greater attention to the way they project themselves, their policies and the way that they relate to the public in a new and increasingly complex communications landscape. It also means that, ultimately, governments and institutions will have to become more attentive to public opinion, because whether or not that opinion is blocked from being expressed, it is still there.

The world looked to the Arab street in the wake of 9/11 for change that would eradicate the feeding ground on which extremism feeds. When the Arab street did not come through, government officials, analysts and journalists wrote the Arab street off. Fact of the matter is, widespread discontent continued to simmer at the surface. One only needed to put one's ear to the ground. If the current Middle Eastern revolt or series of revolts and its embracement of technology teaches us anything, it is that where discontent exists but cannot be expressed openly, it will be expressed elsewhere in what constitutes a truer reflection of reality. It is a reality enhanced but not sparked by technology that one ignores at one’s peril. Thank you.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He also is the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.