Digital Townhall Live from Cairo Transcript

Transcription

1 Digital Townhall Live from Cairo Transcript Ben Rowswell: Ahlan wa sahlan, and welcome to the Digital Townhall from Cairo. We are coming to you live from Tahrir Lounge in the Goethe Institut, just hundreds of metres away from Tahrir Square where political activists made history a few ago. My name is Ben Rowswell, with the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. This is an initiative of Cloud to Street, a research effort that combines Stanford and Harvard with the University of British Columbia. The purpose of today s event is to learn from a panel of these activists, particularly on how they used social media and other technology to effect such dramatic political change. Through Adobe Connect we will broadcast our discussion with these activists by videoconference to you, and you can send questions for the panel through the chat forum. Let me turn to the three panellists we have today, and start with the impressive young woman woman behind Tahrir Lounge, Mona Shahien. Mona, can you tell us about how you got involved in politics through the internet before the January 25 revolution? Mona Shahien: Alright my name is Mona Shahien. I was one of the founders for the Revolutionary Youth Union in Tahrir Square. Before I was part of Reform and Development, a political party. I was also a member in the Shadow Government. My connection to the internet and political life first came through an ad about my political party on Facebook. I got myself downloaded to the street and went to the political party. The ad was simple: if you are a woman and want to be part of political life, join us. We have an event. So I went to the event and joined them. This is how I was connected to the political life. This is the start in 2009 and after that we started to have a connection out of Facebook, for us and the shadow government it made it quicker and easier. More connection and dialogue with each other and to get information. Ben Rowswell: Why were you more willing to respond to an invitation from Facebook rather than more traditional venues? Mona Shahien: It was an ad. All my life I wanted to participate with people like me. It was an ad. I responded to it thinking why not try and I might find good people. It was the trigger, the start. Once you meet the people it keeps you going because you want a space to document. You also want to read about those people. I read about the head of my political party on Wikipedia for example. You get more information. This is how I used the internet. Ben Rowswell: Turning to Abdel Rahman who is part of a coalition called the Revolutionary Youth Coalition involved in the planning before January 25 th using various methods. Could you tell us about how the coalition made plans to get people to the street on January 25 th?

2 Abdel Rahman Fares (translated): My name is Abdel Rahman, I am a blogger and activist for the coalition. The coalition was formed from groups, about 5 groups: Justice and Freedom, the Independent Campaign for Baradei, the Muslim Brothers... All these groups coordinated movements. In addition to a group of independents. The idea was to do it on January 25 th, a state holiday. The regime was suppressing and attacking freedom. We decided to make use of this event and the crimes of the Ministry of Interior, so we had 3 or 4 instances. The killing of Khalid Said by the police, the rigged elections of the People s Assembly, the failed investigation into the church bombing in Alexandria, and the killing of El-Sayid Bilal. And the revolution in Tunisia. So we said we would protest to send a message to the youth to call for the resignation of the Minister of Interior. It was not initially a revolution; all we asked for was the minister to resign and for officers to be put on trial. At our most optimistic, we thought we would get 10,000 in Tahrir Sqaure. We decided on several spots for people to meet, but we knew that announced places would be besieged by the police so we assembled in undeclared places in small groups with a leader of each. In our preparations we knew that security took an hour or an hour and a half to reach those points, so we had time to accumulate. We began our protests in working class neighborhoods. First, the locals tend to be critical of the government and second, the police are in hostile territory. Ben Rowswell: Do you think as many people would have come to the 9 sites where they gathered into Tahrir Sqaure if had to rely on word of mouth or traditional forms of communication rather than social media like Facebook? Abdel Rahman Fares: We had no voice, no TV channel. Our only channel was Facebook, Twitter and blogs. Facebook played a very important role especially in determining the places and directing the people, we used to interact with telephone but we couldn t reach this big number. Some people have modern mobiles, but using Facebook and pages with big numbers, for example Khalid Said, we could get much more than we could reach by mobiles. We didn t know sometimes, if the event was a very big number if the people who would come would be a small number. So we wanted the information to reach 1 million people. From the pages, Khalid Said, Muslim Brothers, other movements, all together the number was about 1 million. So we evaluated that we d have 10,000. This was our target. And we got far more than that. Ben Rowswell: Led me turn to our third panelist, Sabah Mamamou, who is on the media side. An deputy editor at Al-Ahram the newspaper of record here in Egypt, but also a prominent personality in new media, a blogger who founded a site called masrawwy.blogspot.com. Could you tell us about your role, particularly the use of technology? Sabah Hamamou: It was an off day. I was in my office having a meeting when I saw the waves of people going to Tahrir Square. I was about 10 minutes from the square. And then I could see online the demonstrations on a live stream. I wasn t going to join the demonstrations, but I left my office holding my camera. Before leaving I checked my Facebook and saw a friend of mine, a prominent political science professor, had a status saying if you need to use the restroom, etc (she s a resident of Tahrir Square). So I went

3 there it was an amazing view of the whole square but I wanted to see more. All the buildings around were locked so I asked her to go to her building to take footage from there. It was around 4:30, I took footage until 10:30. I felt I d done my job so after posting some stuff I went down to join the protesters. But then around 12:30 there was tear gas in the square. Luckily I had access to my friend s apartment and hid from the police there who were beating and detaining everyone, so I had refuge. I couldn t reach it but another lady let me in. I later found out she was a Christian Egyptian. We heard terrible things of police trying to catch everyone, women and men. I got permission to take footage from her window. I will never forget Tahrir Square at this moment. It was around 12:30. It was terrible. Police were catching and hitting and shooting demonstrators. I took footage and put it online (they hadn t shut the internet down yet). I couldn t leave the building but my host who I am eternally thankful for allowed me to stay until morning. I went to my office and posted my first footage on Masrawwy. Within a few hours another site had posted the link, so before one day was gone there was 90 hits. Ben Rowswell: What is the footage of? Sabah Hamamou: Police holding one demonstrator while his hands were tied behind his back. If the whole world hadn t seen this police brutality (not just my own footage) and the anger of people at police treatment of fellow Egyptians when only asking for freedom and a better place to live. So the next day there were more demonstrations and so on. So I kept going to my friends place to take footage and post it on Masrawwy. So after a week I was friends with lots of people in Tahrir, and the doctors, so I had access to people to talk to even though I only spent two nights. This doctor told me that his Facebook and online activists playing the same rules as people who fought the tax and people who attacked the demonstrator in Tahrir Square. Each one has his own rule. So soon there were 2 cameras streaming continuously from Tahrir Square. And police didn t know about this they were hidden. Mona Shahien: I went in the morning and went home for an urgent call. I couldn t sleep there that night or the day after. But for two days I kept reporting everything. But then they turned Twitter off, but we knew how to change that proxy IP (address), to open it. And I turned my Facebook page to a place where I reported every single second on what s happening in Tahrir Square. Sabah Hamamou: Yes, they had turned off the password so anyone could report. Until Friday when they turned the internet off. Mona Shahien: I had two friends just leave a camera on reporting 24 hours a day. If you hear it, you feel like you are there. And I was reporting everything. But my Facebook page got shut down before the internet was turned off. It was blocked and I got a call from my friend with a warning from someone that my reporting was a problem and I could get in trouble. So I had to stop. I was reporting in two languages because I wanted people to know. I heard from people at BBC and Al Arabiya following up wanting to know what I did. Some BBC and Arabiya staff

4 Sabah Hamamou: People like me kept taking footage, so they turned to social media. For example, Al-Jazeera took some of my footage of pro-mubarak protesters. The official media turned to social media, blogs, to inform the people. Ben Rowswell: So we ve had three stories here of how technology impacted the politics behind the Revolution. First from Mona who tells us how she was downloaded as a political activist from the internet, from an ad from Facebook. Then from Abdel Rahman on the street organization from how the internet allowed them to get out information to a much wider group than they normally would. And then how the reporting from the square itself by Facebook statuses, video and whatnot allowed people in the rest of the world to know what was happening and then limited what the regime s response could be. A question then particularly for Abdel Rahman and for all of you, about whether this represents a different kind of politics? Is it another form of political activity that is fundamentally different from what was done in the era before social media? Are the actors different and does it allow for action that would not be possible otherwise? Abdel Rahman Fares: I forgot to say that I salute the martyrs who fell in Tahrir Square who gave us freedom and I wouldn t forget the martyrs in Libya, Bahrain, Syria, Tunisia. Second I salute and thank the students watching us now. Of course there is a different between politics and the street traditionally and online. But there is an important point that it we need to communicate with alternative media, you should first have the experience of the street so that you can communicate that experience. You cannot do it all with a laptop. You need contact with the reality. This is why most groups that participated in January 25 th were fighters originally and used internet as a media. Internet played an important role not only in January 25 th but most other events. From 2004, December 12, the Kefaya Movement I started on that I knew through the internet and I participated in the first invitation in This was the first demonstration that chanted Down with Hosni Mubarak. The next was 6 th of April 2008, in a few days internet first page on Facebook political page collecting big number of use in few days. Maybe Mona is not an activist from the street, but the idea alone is not solution. There must be planning. Even that on the day before the 25 th January, we thought on how to make people have some protection. We made courses online but we couldn t reach the targeted number. The internet was part of our voice. We wrote a training course on our page. This participated very much in reducing casualties. The 25 th we called people to face the gas by having water and goggles, having vinegar to wash face with, having a helmet to protect from the police beating with sticks. We also asked the people to have newspapers to have their chests to avoid special bullets. And plastic on feet to make isolation. Many people had these things and in addition we said to the people to have and to have small and to block the muffler of the cars to make them inaudible. This protected us a little. Ben Rowswell: We have our first questions from our participants back in North America. To Mona, youth are being wired and conditioned to blog, video, comment, share and upload. Their entire life is online. But what about older people? How were they involved if they don t have that natural tendency to go online and be on social media?

5 Mona Shahien: We have 22% of population online. I think that 18% are actively using Facebook. We re looking at a small scale. Not the whole population that participated. When people knew about the revolution through TV news channels like Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, especially when the internet went down and no one could go online or chat, people went down to the street. Videos played a very important role. People are praying in the street and get sprayed with water. It moves you. It s emotional. So older people joined. They weren t online or part of the movement like the 6 th of April movement. So seeing it on Al-Jazeera and on RASSD (which shows news from social media). RASSD wants to expand and is more professional. But they kept us updated on events in Tahrir. Videos taken on mobile phones kept us informed. You found lots of people that joined the protest that don t have the internet but it helped that those videos and images were put online and sent to traditional news channels. Those people knew through the media and that s how they joined. Ben Rowswell: This relates to an audience question on what happens now. Mubarak is gone and a transition is happening, but there is a difficult stage ahead. Presidential elections, constitutional negotiations. I d like to hear about steps you are taking now Sabah I d like to hear from because one question was about the future of state media, and Sabah you worked for state media are a bit of a pioneer in new media. Sabah Hamamou: I d say that the state media in Egypt is in such transition and has another revolution to go. I was quoted in BBC and Newsweek saying revolution in Al- Ahram. Al-Ahram used to be the voice of the regime, it happened in a dramatic fashion in one day. They changed their tone from pro-mubarak to pro-revolution in one day. I did have a big part in that along with one colleague who have been labeled the rebels in Al- Ahram. We said that it s a changing Egypt and we need to change Al-Ahram even though it s very old, 135 years old, older than Egyptian TV. But we said this is a turning point in the future of this institution and now we are working on, there s a whole generation of young and mid-career people who want to see this institution changing. I can t say what it will be like, but it s changing and we will make this institution representative of Egypt, not whoever is in power in Egypt be it a president or a party. Ben Rowswell: Can you tell us about your own blog and how you re using your presence in new media to make that shift? Sabah Hamamou: I should say that I ve been in the US in I did a prominent fellowship called the Knight-Wallace. Then I came back to Egypt in June. And because of that training I m involved in a new project in Al-Ahram on mixed media. But at the same time my dream is to have fully independent media. Al-Ahram is still owned by the state. We have state-owned media. We have so called independent media but it s not because it s owned by the businessman and they ve always been looking for their own interest. So during the revolution they told people that they are working that they should report a certain number of protesters (hundreds or thousands, not millions). And we have partisan media owned by parties. And so my dream is a fully independent media. Maybe NGOs that will launch websites. Or media service sharing on cell phones. It has to be the

6 youth and not just in Cairo, but from Alexandria, from all corners of Egypt. Independent. Get news from people to people. Ben Rowswell: Can you tell about your initiative too? Mona Shahien: I first want to talk about print media. It s surprising, or maybe not, that most of us are no longer buying the print material. We don t buy newspapers unless there is something that I really need to read. Who s gonna buy papers? You read whatever you want to read on phones. Every newspaper has a site that you can read. Al-Ahram lost credibility for me by not being in a good position and not fighting corruption. I was talking to one of my friends about creating a committee for professional journalism because we still feel that some people are writing for us as if, for example, an unknown source. We re not going to read this kind of news when we read that anonymous will attend some meeting. This happened today in Al-Ahram that anonymous will attend a meeting with the prime ministers and others. I get my information from blogs. From Masrawy, from BBC, from Al-Arabiya, from the Egyptian one. I depend on that, I don t go for print. Sabah Hamamou: Back to your question about old people. Are they connected. I agree with you that in time we won t see print media any more. But the problem is not my generation or yours, because there s about 10 years between us. But people in their 60 s, 70 s still read print media. A whole generation is not online and need to be connected. They see things on TV, but this reminds me of a famous cover page of the Economist Who killed the newspaper. The newspaper won t be the prominent medium, but especially in Egypt it will still be there because there is an offline generation that needs it. Because even as new media gains prominence, there will be a need for it. Ben Rowswell: Can we turn to Abdel Rahman, we have a question that he would be best placed to answer. There are many different organizations that represent the youth of the revolution. What steps are being taken by these organizations to work together to shape the parliament that will come after these elections and the constitution, or choosing the people that will write this constitution. Can you talk a bit about how organizations are coming together to work on this common aim? Abdel Rahman Fares: First I d like to say that alternative media has been important in the period when Al-Jazeera was stopped in Egypt and Tunisia. There was no state media, so people could reach the world and tell people what was happening through internet. In Libya, using as resources people and Facebook. In Syria, since there is no free media oppressive regimes sometimes stop these sites. Another point about press and state newspapers, I used to think that the regime is using these newspapers to cheat the people, so even now people don t trust these newspapers. They remember that these people are indirectly part of the regime. A newspaper like Al-Ahram is the bestseller state newspaper. Many people did not yet believe that Al-Ahram, they still believed Ahram but when they say this to their children they could not

7 Ben Rowswell: How are activists preparing for the elections? Have they started organizing, building coalitions, political parties? How are you going to translate this dynamic mobilization from protest to political participation and representation in the formal institutions of governance? Abdel Rahman Fares: Egypt has not changed yet. There was the downfall of one person, Mubarak, but the regime and its corruption remains. Only the small ones were arrested; the big ones are still enjoying it. We still have a long battle on two parallel roads. One is to demonstrate on the street, through sit-ups, etc, and this will continue. It will not stop until the entire regime changes. Because we cannot replace faces with others engaging in the same corruption. This was the aim last Friday when we called for the Revolution Rescue Friday because we saw the revolution being robbed by hypnotizing the street through promises. Second is the constitutional fight which has its own way with parties and new parties. As the Revolution Youth Coalition, our vision is that we will not turn into a party, at least in the transitional period, because we see our aim as larger than turning into a party. That was not the important thing. It s a more important to transition Egypt to a more civilized period. The higher aim is changing the homeland. We have a vision. We will make a list of the Revolution Youth Coalition. The title will be the Revolutionary Spirit and Keeping the Principles of the Revolution. Now in our meetings we will discuss the principles of this list. It will not be just for the youth but open to anyone who believes deeply in these principles. Ben Rowswell: We have received one question that I can answer myself because I am looking at it. The question is have the street organizations that prompted the revolution survived and are they still active? So Abdel Rahman s initiative is one that was active and still is. The other is the Revolutionary Youth Union that Mona talked about before. I wonder if we can change from specific political initiatives to broader social and civil society questions. There s one here about women, are there names to watch. I think we have two here today. Another question on women, what do you see for the role of women. Do steps for equal rights need to come now or can they come later? Mona Shahien: In the Union, we don t differentiate between anyone that joins. Women and men are equal. To be honest, we find that a particular number of women that join the political scene it is hard to keep. It takes more time. And I think people need to organize around a cause, not just a party or an election. I join the Union, founded the Union, now I m founding another project to educate people about their rights. This is my cause. Political parties for me I m already a minister in the shadow government for two years. I do everything I can do. But there aren t many like me that want to be in the political life. Many youth still feel like the political life, politics for them is a dirty job. They call it the dirty job. I don t want to participate, I already have my car, apartment, a good life. Why do I need to be in political life? But this changed after the revolution. People joined political parties because they believe more. With women, they re coming. That s our role. I m going to universities to talk to young women to get them to join the Union, political life. We re trying to get more people involved. I m also trying to empower them with education. The UN was here in Egypt and I pointed out something important. Ban Ki Moon (Sec-Gen of UN) was talking about empowering women. And that was big to have

8 someone in an important position talking about empowering women. But what about the men? They need to accept women in political life. It takes both sides. We worked one side but neglected the other. I met one woman who wanted to get elected and she got divorced because here husband didn t support her. And her family also. It needs both sides, men as well to accept that kind of activity. For example, I have problems with my family because I m doing too much political work. My mom nags me for this. I try to tell her I have a cause. So we need to spread this culture, and also get me to accept the idea. That women are also equal and should be part of the political life. Not just in my segment, where I got a good education. But also other women, they need support. Ben Rowswell: Do you have that issue as well? Sabah Hamamou: Well I have a little bit different point of view and I will mention two cases I ve seen in Tahrir. One was a mid 30 mother of two kids I met Thursday and I asked she looked well-dressed and she looked well off and I asked here why are you here, what do you do. She said she owned a factory and I asked why are you here. She said people that working for me, even though I pay them a fair wage, they eat from the garbage. So I m here for them. I said what about your kids. This was after the Day of the Camels, the attack, I said aren t you worried about your kids. She said if something happens to me, God will look after them if something happens to me. The other, a lady in her mid 50 s or early 60 s, she had grandkids all grown up with kids, and I asked what are you doing. She said she participated since before Kefaya came out to the streets in 2005, because there is a whole generation looking for change. And if I and my generation does not, who will? Also a third example, I have been dismissed from my work as a rebel. And many have been suspended. Several other women. Including a famous blogger. So I agree with Mona that men don t totally accept our participation and look at us to work at home and do our normal role. But it s not the traditional women who stay at home in the kitchen, it s changing. Me and Mona and others will need to keep working and share. Ben Rowswell: I have my own anecdote to add. During our time here in Cairo it s been astonishing how many women have come forward. I think it s been over 50%. We didn t seek women out particularly, but I don t think its coincidence that 2/3 of our panel is women. Mona Shahien: You asked for names of women. They can follow Nawara Nig daughter of Ahmed Fouadland, Asmaa Mahfouz of the April 6 movement, Sally Toma, Dr. Heba Raouf Ezzat of Cairo University and the mother of Naguib Sawiris, the famous businessman. Ben Rowswell: Our next question is probably best for Sabah Sabah Hamamou and then we can turn to Abdel Rahman because it touches on something you mentioned earlier the shift within your organization from pro-regime to supporting the protests (propeople). The question is at what point did Egyptians feel comfortable expressing dissent in public with their name attached? Was the transition from anonymity gradual or did it happen all at once?

9 Sabah Hamamou: Let me give an example from my position. When we started this reform battle in Al-Ahram we started a Facebook page Save Al-Ahram Front. I ve noticed that there are many people with fake names on accounts even after January 25 th. People still don t have the full courage, they don t feel comfortable. Because we won t change 30 years of oppressive regime overnight or in two months. Change the culture is the most important challenge. Not everyone is comfortable. But it will happen. When you see your neighbor or colleague talking freely, it will happen gradually. Ben Rowswell: We ve had a few similar questions. I m wondering if we can ask Abdel Rahman for his answer. It s about the role of outsiders. What kind of help would be both needed and welcome by activists like yourself as you seek to bring change to your country? Is there a way that academics like those watching today can be helpful to activists like you as you begin to build a future academic state? Or are there limits to what outsiders can do because it has to be a purely Egyptian process? Abdel Rahman Fares: Maybe I can be severe in this point. Before the revolution, there was a remarkable number of girls who gave a lot of their freedom and time. They were many times arrested. I will not forget the day of the constitution of 2006 when girls were attacked. It was a big crisis in the society. Two of them were injured and one of them died as a result. She was dragged from her clothes through the street. The other had to migrate to Canada. In the protests in Tahrir, men and women were equal. The other point is your question. Let us differentiate between peoples and governments. We refuse the help of any government whatsoever because governments have their own calculations with regimes of the world. During the revolution in Egypt, when USA supported the regime first, other European countries hesitated. In Libya it was the same. But we usually count on popular support. People to people support. Abroad, Egyptians and Arabs abroad made demonstrations in front of embassies and brought pressure worldwide. We welcome support that is not from the government. It is welcome. Because we don t want government support even if it is with goodwill because it can affect this. Because the regime at the time said the crowds in Tahrir are supported by foreign forces. Anybody who can help us with any idea, with any development, and ideas politically or strategically in the street, we accept this. Ben Rowswell: One dynamic of the revolution is that Islamists and secular people came together, people from all different political perspectives came around a single goal. Mona Shahien: Secular has many different translations in our culture. Ben Rowswell: Let me just ask the question as our audience stated it and you can respond. As it s stated here, Islamists and Secularists, and here they put the Kefaya movement as an example of a Secularist movement Mona Shahien: So people who don t want the country to be a religious country.

10 Ben Rowswell: they made an alliance to bring the regime down. Do you think this alliance has a future or will these differences over religion divide the revolutionaries? Mona Shahien: Most the people who work in the revolution, not just Kefaya, all the movements, don t want a religious country but a civil country. Since day one we have called for a civil country and a civil constitution. Ben Rowswell: And if I understand correctly a civil state is what we in North America might mean as a secular state in that the country is not run by religious authorities but elected officials. And even members of the Muslim Brotherhood can take part Mona Shahien: Yes. Yes. But the constitution will not be on a religious base. Or we won t elect our president because of his religion. But the constitution s Article Two says Islam is the source of legislation to some of the laws. But also we all agree it should be a civil country. Sabah Hamamou: Your question that the revolution brought all the Egyptians together and now will be divided. I see clearly differences between Muslim Brothers, Kefaya, but I don t see any conflict between any other parties. I see it as democratic transition. And even within the Muslim Brotherhood there is a democratization process. For example, the Muslim Brotherhood just held a conference for members who wanted to voice their voice inside but aren t being heard. So they held a conference to say different opinions. Ben Rowswell: And apparently the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood were against the conference. Sabah Hamamou: Yes. The leaders were against it. However the youth of the Muslim Brotherhood were really ingenious. And I sat in the room and was very proud of them. Not because they are Muslim but because they are Egyptian. And within every organization, within Al-Ahram, every community, there is this process. This diversity. This is not going to break the revolution. The country. There will be no civil war. This is Egypt. So put that out of your mind. I m happy to see this happen. Ben Rowswell: So you re not worried about instability or a takeover by Salafists? Sabah Hamamou: No. If you remember Egyptian history we ve never attacked another country. We re not a bloody people. We always did that in a civil way. I m not afraid. The army protected the nation even though it used to be kind of an arm of the regime. So this is Egypt. This is different. Ben Rowswell: It has been a remarkably nonviolent revolution. Sabah Hamamou: Yes. And I ve been protected by a Christian woman who hosted me. Even though this happened January 25 th, 25 days after the massacre in the Church that really at this point it was a critical point. I was scared even my friends or colleagues who

11 are Christian would see me as the enemy. Yet a Christian woman hosted saved me on the night of the revolution. We are all Egyptians. We will see some other movement. But we will get through this and the transition will happen peacefully with no civil war and negative consequences in my opinion. Ben Rowswell: There is another division within Egyptian society in this country between people like you here in Cairo who are well educated and have access to the internet and people in the country who are illiterate and don t have access. There have been many questions about access. Do people in villages share the same views as urban activists, are they connected, and if not, how do you build coalitions and reach out to unite across this urban-rural divide? Mona Shahien: Face-to-face. We have to go to the street we have to go face-to-face conversations and be ready for that. When you talk about Salafists, I agree that we are not worried about the future. But we must work by educating and talking to people and going door to door and talking about their rights and then we will win our battle. I have said with my friend, we believe that this revolution is not yet over. The revolution just started. And we need all kinds of ways to reach people in the rural areas to go and talk to make them hear about what is going on. We need to educate them to help them. Ben Rowswell: And you have an idea about how to do that? Mona Shahien: Yes. We are here in Tahrir Square, which is also Tahrir Lounge where we have launched a project to train some people, get them from the provinces in other cities. And they should be political activists. And we will know how to connect with them through internet and teach them how to use internet connections to connect with us later. There will be simple workshops on writing articles, or doing video reporting or blogging or starting a campaign. We want people in other cities in Egypt to know. We will use that in elections. We are sending 4 buses we need support in this and they will do events on civil education in other cities. This is what we are launching. The idea of spending a week talking to people and then we will talk to the activists who have been there many years. And they can use that knowledge, get people moving on the ground, join a protest. We will cooperate with them, get on the ground. And then we will move from the internet to the outside world. Sabah Hamamou: I was in a small remote town in the West of Egypt and I remember I saw a small mud house that had become a cyber [café] and inside the mud house people were sitting in front of computer screens so internet penetration is spreading. Not everyone is connected, but it s a good way to connect and mobilize people. Mona Shahien: We ve also thought about developing a simple mobile application because everyone has a mobile. Not everyone has a smart phone but everyone has a mobile. So we came up with the Call and Tell campaign. It should be an application on Facebook where you join the group and then you will have the message on the group and you can make a free call to the outside (like Skype) and can tell people about something. When you switch off, it should be directly a message with what Call and Tell is targeting.

12 I founded this idea with an epidemiologist to fight epidemics because in Egypt we have 15% of population has Hepatitis C, so we want to fight that. We want people to know the provider is the one that provided them with the disease. So we want them to know to confront the provider and say, Hey you, you are a dentist and your equipment got me Hepatitis C. They should know about their rights. Not just politics but education. You should know whether you are getting a good education. Call and Tell is targeting awareness in the people and getting out from the internet. Ben Rowswell: One of the comments we ve gotten from the audience is that they d like to write to Mona s mom that she is doing amazing work. I d like to turn to Adbul Rahman for the last word, on the general question of whether the leaders emerging now through the revolution are ready to fill the void left by Mubarak? Is anyone of that stature likely to fill the void? Abdel Rahman Fares: Mubarak himself was a void. He was an empty drum. Big voice but inside empty. He left no space and no vacuum. We did not believe he was a real president. Just a dictator who worked for his own and personal interests. He caused many Egyptians to feel humiliated in Egypt and abroad. And all Arabs. Before Mubarak, people respected Egypt even when we had differences with some Arab countries. But with Mubarak, we had no value. He only listened to dictations from abroad. He was just a puppet to the US and others. I think the future will witness big change. Egypt will never be as it was. The president will think before he acts knowing the people are there. Before that you had a question about aid from abroad. I think there can be exchange of information between us and others abroad and we can visit each other. The point that all people especially students should pressure their governments to keep their hands off other governments, especially in the Arab region. We don t want foreign interference or foreign measures. If you want freedom for your people, you must accept freedom for the Arab region, especially Egypt because it has a big role in the region. So our message to the young people: tell your governments hands off Arab governments. Mona Shahien: When you ask about Mubarak s regime, if we will get rid of it in two days or one month or one year. No it will take time. It was built for 30 years. And this is like a cancer in the body of Egyptian community. We re not going to kill all the NDPs. 1 They will be here. So we have to be logical and create a framework they can work in. But leaving them or excluding them from political life will not happen. They will change their makeup and come back. Or support someone else. But it s our role to create rules and keep our eyes open and follow them. And this is the role of the journalists and the activists. Sabah Hamamou: I just want to stress the point that the international civic society, NGOs, need to get involved. We are a tiny village. So we need them to be there to change ideas and experience. And let s have this as a start and first step. We need more of that. I ve been abroad, I know many Egyptian youths would like the opportunity to travel and know and learn. So thank you for hosting us. 1 Members of Mubarak s National Democratic Party

13 Ben Rowswell: On behalf of the Canadians and Americans and other non-egyptians watching, thank you so much for not just participating but all you ve done to bring a better future to your country. You ve been an inspiration to all of us and I think we have a lot to learn from you in your innovations about democracy and bring them back to our countries. Thank you to the Goethe Institute who loaned us this space, Tahrir Lounge, which is a gathering place for activists. Thank you to my colleagues in Cloud to Street, Farhaan Ladhani who has been handling the off camera work, Shuvaloy Majumdar at the University of British Columbia, and Gerard Russell at Harvard. Thank you to the three universities that helped make this happen. And thank you to all Egyptians who are taking such courageous steps to bring a better future to their country. We will continue to watch with awe at everything you re working to accomplish.