Social Media Delivers Digital Diplomacy in Egypt
Last week Masrawy.com, a popular Egyptian-language news and information portal, hosted a Q&A session between the country’s youth and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. As reported on the State Dept.’s blog DipNote, users submitted over 6,500 questions via Twitter, YouTube, and Masrawy’s website in a powerful demonstration of new media’s ability to connect governments and people. Watch the video and read the transcript here.
The State Department’s decision to work with Masrawy was no accident. The largest web portal of its type with 600,000 daily visitors, Masrawy’s users are predominantly young Egyptians under age 35. This same demographic is widely credited with playing a major role in the January 25th revolution against autocratic ruler Hosni Mubarak, who had enjoyed U.S. support for years.
Because of the U.S.’s prior support of the Mubarak regime, last week’s digital Q&A session presented a unique opportunity for the people of the revolution to speak their mind about America’s involvement in Egyptian politics. Many of them used the forum to challenge U.S. foreign policy in Egypt over the years. Here are my favorite and most direct questions, submitted over YouTube and Twitter (some are direct translations from Arabic):
Does America really support democracy? If yes indeed, why the U.S. was late in its support for the Egyptian revolution?
The attitude of the U.S. during the Egyptian revolution was to support the Egyptian regime first. Then, when the revoluation turned successful, the U.S. switched sides and supported the Egyptian youth and the youth revolution, and the U.S. said that we learn from Egyptian youth. Why was such a delay?
Over the last 30 years, why the American Administration shook hands with such oppressive regime and treated them like we treat other true democratic government?
Does the U.S. Administration prefer to see the presence of a true democratic system in Egypt capable of ensuring stability and peace in the region, or does it prefer to see only a partial appeasement that put on the face of a democracy but only to serve its own interests over those of the people of other nations?
Don't you think that the latest American veto was just a clear reminder that hte United States loses any credibility as a fair and honest partner in the Middle East peace process?
My point here isn’t whether U.S. foreign policy in Egypt is controversial (I don’t know nearly enough about the subject to take sides on that). Rather, my point is that this conversation, enabled by social media and increased web access around the world, provided the outside world with a transparent window into the thoughts of the Egyptian youth. More importantly, these young, passionate people actually used this opportunity to speak their mind. Through videos filmed in Tahriri Square and tweets posted from Internet cafes, Egyptians presented challenging, candid, and intelligent questions to Secretary Clinton.
And most importantly, this whole conversation wasn’t a tame P.R. stunt. The host didn’t toss softballs at the Secretary, choosing instead to ask valuable and honest questions, and Sec. Clinton answered them, streaming her responses around the world. The Masrawy conversation was as raw as we could have hoped for. So as far as digital diplomacy goes, last week’s Q&A session between Secretary Clinton and Egypt’s youth was a resounding success. And as the web of digital connectivity continues to spread to other regions of the world, we can look forward to more substantive and honest conversations between the United States and citizens of other countries.
- Samhir Vasdev's blog
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