Even yesterday, it would have been too much to say that blogger, tweeters, Facebook users, Anonymous and Wikileaks had “brought down” the Tunisian government, but with today’s news that the country’s president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has fled the country, it becomes a more plausible claim to make.
Of course there was more to such demonstrations than some new technology. An individual act of desperation set off the last month of rioting, as a college-educated young man set himself on fire after police confiscated his unlicensed fruit and vegetable cart. Tunisia’s high unemployment rate, rampant corruption and rising food prices added to the anger at Ben Ali’s 20-plus-year rule.
I doubt Tunisians needed the internet to learn that their country is a mess and their leader is a dictator. In fact, Tunisia had limited internet access until very recently, while all the countries with unlimited internet access continue to sleepwalk toward the apocolypse- that should tell you something about the usefullness of the internet in mobilizing effective political action. Maybe when everyone can go on the internet, when there is a crisis, they all go home and blog about it instead of taking to the streets like they did in Tunisia.
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