Egypt Facebook Group Offers Kernel of Hope

"Revolution, Facebook-Style"
MM34, Sunday 1/25/09
By Samantha Shapiro

Samantha Shapiro offers a much-needed look at Egypt’s budding pro-democracy movement. Aside from the Muslim Brotherhood, there is nothing else typically described as challenging the Mubarak grip on power.

This piece focuses on a growing (70,000+) “April 6 Youth Movement” that has coalesced around Facebook, due to a relatively unregulated internet in Egypt. The opening describes how Facebook groups, including “April 6” organized Gaza protests.

Searching for some of these diverse groups online, she “found a group called ‘With all due respect, Gaza, I don’t support you,’ which blamed Palestinian suffering on Hamas and lamented the recent shooting of two Egyptian border guards, which had been attributed to Hamas fire.”

Shapiro doesn’t point out how small the group is, but it's assumed, and while she also spends the first page of the piece describing Egyptian groups rallying against Israel, it’s nice to see some dissent when it comes to Israel exists. A kernel of hope is better than nothing.