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| Protestors in Egypt |
Like the Russian Revolution, the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 (or the Egyptian ‘uprisings’), began with a poor government system. There were many problems in Egypt before the uprisings began, such as the presence of police brutality, a lack of free elections and freedom of speech, corruption within the government, economic issues, inflation in food prices, and low minimum wages. While these issues were already in place before the uprisings began, it seems as if the uprisings have made these problems clearer, and forced government officials to hear the peoples pleas for change. Therefore, the Egyptian Revolution is similar to the Russian Resolution in how it began. In both the Russian and Egyptian Revolutions, the Peasant’s rebelled and started to protest against the government because of the poor government system. However, my main question which i am going to answer, is what causes a revolution? I believe that in all revolutions there is a spark, something such as an event or a protest, which pushes the revolution forward. In my opinion, the spark of the Egyptian revolution was oppression.
For one to understand the ‘spark’ of the Egyptian Revolution, one must understand the history leading up to the ‘spark.’ Protests started on Tuesday, January 25, when several people began to take to the streets to protest poverty, unemployment, government corruption and President Mubarak, who has ruled the country for thirty years. The government, who had not seen such protesting in nearly 30 years, responded poorly and oppressed the people (note the ‘spark’) by blocking Twitter, which was being used by organizers, mostly of young age (15-30), to coordinate protests. The people were protesting because it was hard for 700,000 graduates to to compete for 200,000 job spots. The protests were quickly shut down, and this only enraged Egyptian citizens while bringing a large amount of national attention to the uprisings. Over the course of the next two days, the government proceeded to stop Internet, mobile, and satellite devices. Once again, further oppressing the people which only resulted in anger and caused widespread violence. In my opinion, President Hosni Mubarak should have resigned as president. Unfortunately, a few days ago Mubarak released a statement saying ‘although [he] would take less control over the government, he would not resign.’ This speech resulted in protestors chanting, "Down, down with Mubarak." I believe that the Egyptian people are more than capable of figuring things out without Mubarak in power, keeping him there only makes the situation worse because he is a corrupt leader, and most are not fond of him. It's like saying that 'Britain should have stayed in power over America.'
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| Tahrir Square, 2011 Egyptian Protestors |
Although the oppression of the people was the ‘spark’ that pushed the revolution further, the Egyptian Revolution would have happened anyway because of existing conflicts that were going on before, just like Russia. What do you think the ‘spark’ of the revolution was?
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What's puzzling about the spark of course is that what counts as a spark under some circumstances will have no effect at other times. In 1978, the Shah suppressed protests, but that just made things work. In 1964, however, suppression of protests didn't have that effect. So the real puzzle is, why did suppression of protests in Egypt in 2011 have that effect? It wasn't like that was the first time the Mubarak government suppressed protests.
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