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.
