Inside the Egyptian revolution - Wael Ghonim
[Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music]
This is Revolution 2.0. No one was a hero; no one was a hero because everyone was a hero. Everyone has done something. We all use Wikipedia; if you think of the concept of Wikipedia, where everyone is collaborating content, at the end of the day you've built the largest encyclopedia in the world from just an idea that sounded crazy. You have the largest encyclopedia in the world.
In the Egyptian revolution, the Revolution 2.0, everyone contributed something, small or big. They contributed something to bring us one of the most inspiring stories in the history of mankind when it comes to revolutions. It was actually really inspiring to see all these Egyptians completely changing. If you look at the scene, Egypt for 30 years had been going downhill; everything was going bad, everything was going wrong. We only ranked high when it comes to poverty, corruption, lack of freedom of speech, and lack of political action activism. Those were the achievements of our great regime, yet nothing was happening.
It’s not because people were happy or people were, you know, not frustrated. In fact, people were extremely frustrated. But the reason why everyone was silent is what I call the psychological barrier of fear. Everyone was scared. A few, you know, not everyone; there were actually a few brave Egyptians that I have to thank for being so brave, going into protests as a couple of hundred, getting beaten up and, you know, arrested. But in fact, the majority were scared. Everyone did not really want to get in trouble. A dictator cannot live without the force; they want to make people live in fear, and that psychological barrier of fear has worked for so many years.
And here comes the internet, technology, Blackberry, SMS; it's helping all of us to connect. Platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook were helping us a lot because it basically gave us the impression that, wow, I'm not alone. There are a lot of people who are frustrated; there are lots of people who actually share the same dream; there are lots of people who care about their freedom. They probably had the best life in the world; they were living in happiness, they were living in their village, they were happy, they didn't have problems, but they were still feeling the pain of the Egyptian.
A lot of us were not really happy when we see a video of an Egyptian man who's eating the trash while others are stealing billions of Egyptian pounds from the wealth of the country. The internet has played a great role, helping these people to speak up their minds, to collaborate together, to start thinking together. There were educational campaigns. Khaled S. was killed in June 2010. The photo—I still remember the photo; I still remember every single detail of that photo. The photo was horrible; he was tortured, brutally tortured to death.
But then what was the answer of the regime? You know, he choked on a pile of hash. That's—that was their answer. He's a criminal; he's someone who, you know, escaped from all these bad things. But people did not relate to this; people did not believe this because of the internet. The truth prevailed, and everyone knew the truth, and everyone started to think that this guy can be my brother. He is a middle-class guy; his photo was remembered by all of us.
A page was created; an anonymous administrator was basically inviting people to join the page. There was no plan; we didn't know what we were going to do. I don't know, in a few days, tons of thousands of people were there—angry Egyptians who were asking the Ministry of Interior Affairs: enough! Get those who killed this guy and bring them to justice. But of course, they didn't listen. It was an amazing story how everyone started feeling the ownership. Everyone was an owner of this page.
People started contributing ideas. In fact, one of the most ridiculous ideas was, "Hey, let's have a silent stand! Let's get people to go in the street, face the sea, their backs to the street, dressed in black, standing up silently for one hour, doing nothing, and then just leaving, going back home." For some people, that was like, "Wow, silent stand!" And next time, it's going to be vibration. You know, people were making fun of the idea, but when actually people went to the street the first time, it was thousands of people in Alexandria. It felt amazing; it was great because it connected people from the virtual world, bringing them to the real world, sharing the same dream, the same frustration, the same anger, the same desire for freedom.
They were doing this thing, but did the regime learn anything? Not really. They were actually attacking them; they were actually abusing them despite the fact of how peaceful these guys were. They were not even protesting, and things have developed until the Tunisian Revolution. This whole page was again managed by the people. In fact, the anonymous admin's job was to collect ideas, help people to vote on them, and actually tell them what they were doing. People were taking shots and photos, people reporting violations of human rights in Egypt. People were suggesting ideas; they were actually voting on ideas, and then they were executing the ideas.
People were creating videos; everything was done by the people, for the people. And that's the power of the internet; there was no leader. The leader was everyone on that page. The Tunisian experiment, you know, as Am was saying, inspired all of us, showed us that there is a way. Yes, we can do it; we have the same problems; we can just go in the street. And when I saw the street on the 25th, I went back and said, "Egypt before the 25th is never going to be Egypt after the 25th." The revolution is happening; this is not to be the end; this is the beginning of the end.
I was detained on the 27th night—one day, you know. Thank God I announced the locations and everything, but then they detained me. And I'm not going to talk about my experience because this is not about me. I was detained for 12 days, blindfolded, handcuffed, and I did not really hear anything. I did not know anything; I was not allowed to speak with anyone. When I went out the next day, I was in—seriously—with the amount of change I noticed in this square. I thought it was 12 years. I never had in my mind to see this Egyptian—the amazing, amazing Egyptian.
The fear is no longer fear; it's actually strength; it's power. People were so empowered; it was amazing how everyone was so empowered and now asking for their rights. Completely opposite; extremism became tolerance. You know, who would imagine before the 25th, if I tell you that hundreds of thousands of Christians are going to pray and tons of thousands of Muslims are going to protect them, and then hundreds of thousands of Muslims are going to pray and tons of thousands of Christians are going to protect them?
This is amazing! All the stereotypes that the regime were trying to put on us through their so-called propaganda or mainstream media are proven wrong. This whole revolution showed us how ugly, how ugly such a regime was, and how great and amazing the Egyptian man—this, the Egyptian man, the Egyptian woman—how simple and amazing these people are whenever they have a dream.
When I saw that, I went back, and I wrote on Facebook, and that was a personal belief. Regardless of what's going on, regardless of the details, I said that we are going to win! We're going to win because we don't understand politics; we're going to win because we don't play their dirty games; we're going to win because we don't have an agenda; we're going to win because the tears that come from our eyes actually come from our hearts.
We're going to win because we have dreams; we're going to win because we are willing to stand up for our dreams, and that's actually what happened. We won! And that's not because of anything, but because we believed in our dream. The winning here is not, you know, the whole details of the politics; what's going to happen in the political scene—the winning is the winning of the dignity of every single Egyptian.
I actually had this taxi driver telling me, "Listen, I am breathing freedom. I feel that I have dignity that I have lost for so many years." For me, that's winning, regardless of all the details. My last word to you is a statement I believe in, which is: Egyptians have proven to be true that the power of the people is much stronger than the people in power. Thanks a lot!
[Music]