We feel that social media played the leading role in the first Egyptian Revolution. The death of Khaled Saïd was horribly unfair, but if it wasn't for social media it would have been much harder to have spread the message. The death of Khaled Saïd, but more so the actual reason for his death, was something hundred thousands of people in Egypt could identify with. They felt the same questions about Mubarak's regime arising within them, and with that, the need to speak up. So desperately, that when someone got killed because of this, it triggered their inner feeling of justice. Social media is very easy accessible and people feel most confident when they are part of the crowd, especially in dangerous situations. So, when all these people saw this growing page on facebook, called "we are all Khaled Saïd", they knew that they were part of something very big. Something very big that felt the same way about freedom and democracy as they did. It wasn't social media, but the people who started the revolution. However, it was social media who gave the people this vital feeling of confidence to take the next step. Social media changed the conflict in the sense that it created great awareness. It was social media who lit the spark.

The response to this eruption of emotions that were long time hidden, was huge. The facebook page organised a protest and the streets in Cairo turned black. People that had never seen eachother met on the street. They knew nothing but that the same goal ruled their minds: freedom and democracy. People were less afraid because of that "we are all in this together" feeling. The regime answered with harsh violent manners, in an attempt to suppress the population. We think, that the regime tried to make people afraid again. Maybe, in a time without social media, this would have worked. People would have seen others run away and the fear of facing the battlefield alone would have overruled the inner call for justice. But social media made it possible for news to spread like wildfire. The protesters could connect with people fighting the same fight, both locally and globally. They got mental support from Egyptians all over the world, and therefore the "we are all in this together" feeling never left. We feel that the regime could kill lives, but it couldn't kill the spirit.

We had great fun working on the blog. It was a challenge to find a suitable subject, but we feel that the topic we chose is quite profound and very interesting. Writing blogposts took some careful research, but this paid off very well. We liked choosing pictures that, in our opinion, represented a certain part of the conflict and looking for stylistic devices that were hidden in them. Finding an interview was a struggle we unfortunately failed. We both have no family/friends/acquaintances who come from Egypt, lived in Egypt or are in any other way related to the matter. We tried to contact someone once met during the LEMUN conference, but he wasn't available. We tried to reach the founder of the facebook group "Egyptians in the Netherlands" to see if he or anybody else was open for an interview but he did not respond. We then decided to look for an interview that was slightly less on-topic: an expert on online communication, to discuss the power of social media in such a conflict. We e-mailed Corinne Keijzer (https://www.corinnekeijzer.nl/) but got no response. Due to holidays and time restrictions, this is where we gave up. We hope that we made up for it a bit with our extra blogpost "How does the Khaled Saïd history relate to the situation NOW?" in which we analyse the long-term effects of the Khaled Saïd incident and the facebook page inspired by him, and with an interesting debate. On the whole, this blog has been an educational journey. We have both learned a lot about Khaled Saïd, the history of the Egyptian revolution, the complicity of Egyptian politics, how conflicts are effected by different religious ideas, how social media influences the confidence and social cohesian of a population, and with that, what the power of social media can do with a country.

We know the Khaled situation. A man who posted a video online because he was shocked by the fact that the police divided the money and drugs taken from civilians amongst themselves. He wanted to open up the subject and show fellow inhabitants of his country what was going on. The police found out and they beat him to death. This triggered an angry mob to respond by protesting, organised via facebook. We also know what series of events  followed: the egypian revolution continuing the arab spring, the abdication of Mubarak and the elected president Morsi, who was also put off. But how does this history relate to the situation now? Does Khaled Saïd still influence present day?

Last week, the army-backed government declared that the Muslim Brotherhood was now officially a terrorist organisation. A recent news update from the guardian stated that on Friday, the 3rd of January, thirteen people were shot dead as supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood clashed with the police. This made it ever so clear the the gap between those two opposing parties has never been bigger.

“(…) it was unclear if the police or armed civilians had shot them"

The Dutch ministry of foreign affairs has eased the travel advice with regards to Egypt, however, the area is still rowdy. These pictures, from the Khaled Saïd facebook page, show the current tumultuous activity:

Roughly, at this moment, violent incidents in Egypt always include two parties. One party is the army-backed government, who currently holds power and is supported by the police. The opposing party is the Muslim Brotherhood. They do not agree with the fact that president Morsi, a muslim brotherhood representitive, was put off and therefore they protest. There are off course also people who do not support the muslim brotherhood but are still discontent with the present situation. However, they are not key-actors in most current incidents. 

At this moment, the facebook page "we are all Khaled Saïd" has 337K "likes" (so: followers) and still posts new updates. It is difficult, however, to determine the role of the Khaled Saïd incident and of the facebook page. We feel that the facebook page is less objective than it used to be. It is not at all positively minded towards the current organisation of government and military. They post pictures and text on mistakes made by the army-backed government and police only, no negative comments on the Muslim Brotherhood could be found. We feel that the facebook page is maybe more submissive than it used to be, but that it still has the same goal: informing everyone about the current situation in Egypt, and fighting for freedom and democracy.

We are not completely sure wether Wael Ghonim is the owner of the facebook page or not. The facebook page itself tells us that it is NOT run by Wael ghonim, however several websites, including the Guardian, say that it is run by Wael. So we will hold on to the information the Guardian provides us. 

 (Wael Ghonim)

An Egyptian man named Khaled Mohamed Said was beaten to death by Egyptian police while in custody. Four days later the “We are all Khaled Said” Facebook campaign was launched, causing a public outcry that eventually led to the overthrow of the Mubarak regime. Corruption, police brutality and suppression are all a very clear reason to demonstrate. But before this happens there is always something needed to stimulate this. A specific incident that affects shared displeasure has to happen to stimulate a large group of people to demonstrate. At the 6^th of June, 2010 a stimulating incident like this happened, an Egyptian man, named Khaled Said, became a victim of police brutality. According to the press, Khaled Said was killed after he posted a video on internet, in this video police officers divided money and drugs among themselves which they had seized from people. Because of this he was dragged from an internet café by the police and was beaten to death. After this incident the Police authorities refused to investigate this case, they said that he died because he swallowed a package of Marijuana. Khaled Saїd became the symbol of the demonstrations in Egypt. An anonymous  person (At this moment the name of the owner of the facebook page is known:Wael Ghonim) created a website and Facebook page called “We are all Khaled Said”. The owner of those pages calls himself ‘El Shaheeed’, which is Arabic for ‘the martyr’. The goal was to set up an internet protest against police brutality. El Saheeed  mentioned a date, Thursday the 25^th of January, at which they would be demonstrating. This was the biggest demonstration ever against the regime of Mubarak, the leader of Egypt. That El Shaheeed became such a big success is mainly caused by his use of language. He avoids statements which can be considered too religious or political. He thinks that this will only disperse people, the Egyptian population has to work together. In the end the "We are all Khaled Said" website became a rallying point for a campaign against police brutality. For many Egyptians, it revealed details of the extent of torture in their country. Pictures of the mutilated body of Khaled appeared online and instantly went viral. This spark ignited the Egyptian revolution. 

The former president of Egypt is president Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak was indirectly involved in this problem because in his , so called, Mubarak regime, police brutality appears. Khaled was brutally killed by policeman, so this incident characterizes the regime of Mubarak. Mohammed Hosni Said Mubarak was Egypt’s president from 1981 until 2011.  He kept the country under emergency law, giving the state sweeping powers of arrest and restricting the  basic freedom, the fundamental rights, of the Egyptian citizens. Mubarak faced growing unrest during his time as president. Many objected to his restrictive regime, and wanted to have more personal and political freedom. People started to show their opinions and mass protest arose. After weeks of intense pressure, Mubarak finally agreed to abdicate on February 11, 2011.

   

The police was directly and actively involved, it were a couple of policeman who killed Khaled Said. These Policeman acted like this because of the regime of Mubarak, which has violent arrests as a characteristic.

But most importantly: the people, all over Egypt people started to protest because they had seen what happened with Khaled. People started to protest against Police brutality and other government abuses. And they together overthrew the regime of Mubarak. One of these people was Wael Ghonim, he was the one who revolted against police brutality. After he saw the pictures of Khaled after his death, he felt that they are all Khaled Said, he said that they are all of these young Egyptians who could die and that no one would be held accountable. This is the reason Wael brought Khaled’s case to a public case. Wael used facebook to bring people together, who have the same opinion, to form a front and protest against police brutality.  

Our new blog has been launched today. Stay focused on it and we will try to keep you informed.