A new kind of revolution
Posted on February 10, 2011 in Inclusion Debates
Source: Globe & Mail — Authors: Don Tapscott
TheGlobeandMail.com – news/commentary/opinion
Published Thursday, Feb. 10, 2011. Don Tapscott
In Tunisia or Egypt, there’s no George Washington or Mao Zedong ready to take power. So who or what is going to take charge?
Throughout history, revolutions always had leadership. Leaders articulated ambitions, co-ordinated logistics and planned demonstrations. They often obtained arms and provided military strategy. Sometimes, the masses were ahead of their leaders and, sometimes, there was a battle for leadership. But new leaders aspired to power when the old regimes collapsed.
But in Tunisia and Egypt, we see the contours of a new kind of revolution. Call it the “Wiki revolution.” Just as people can self-organize to contribute to Wikipedia, the computer operating system Linux, or the world’s biggest library of video content, they can participate in social change and coalesce into revolutionary movements as never before.
Enabled by social media, leadership is coming from the people themselves. Internet innovations such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter radically lower the cost and effort of collaboration. Social media are a game changer because they greatly facilitate citizens’ ability to organize despite censorship. They speed up the metabolism of dissatisfaction, enabling peers to come together to produce leaderless but nevertheless powerful movements for change.
Incredibly, a driving force in Egypt’s leaderless unrest is Khaled Said, a young businessman from Alexandria. He was reportedly beaten to death by police last year. But a Facebook page that bears his name has been a focal point for much of the current unrest. People don’t know who’s carrying his torch, but they flock to Mr. Said’s page to express their unhappiness.
True, as Malcolm Gladwell has argued, these activities may begin as weak links between people who don’t know each other. But, when taken together, the hundreds of thousands of weakly tied Egyptians marching in Cairo represent an unstoppable force. And nestled in these myriad weak ties are bonds that become stronger by every chanting hour.
Even without leaders, self-organization can be effective. In Tunisia, for example, much of the army sided with the protesters in the streets. When snipers associated with the old regime began shooting demonstrators, individuals took photos of the snipers and transmitted them to friendly army detachments that took them out. There were no disciplined revolutionary guards acting on orders from above. Self-acting individuals took the initiative to defend the demonstrators.
While new technologies make the organization of dissent easier, they pose a new challenge in revolutionary situations. Notwithstanding the power of peer production and self-organization, societies ultimately need organized leadership.
In Egypt, there’s a scramble under way to decide who will even speak for the mass movement. In Tunisia, the revolution happened so fast and the government fell so quickly that no leadership was in place for a successor government. This left thoughtful people everywhere scrambling to find a leadership to fill the void. I met a new Tunisian minister at the World Economic Forum who didn’t have a glimmer two weeks ago that he would be part of a revolutionary force. As a panelist, he didn’t have a nameplate – 24 hours earlier, he had no idea he would be in Davos.
Appropriately, Tunisia’s so-called Jasmine Revolution is being hailed as a model of social and democratic revolution in the Arab world. “We are going to leverage social media to build a horizontal democracy rather than a vertical democracy,” says Yassine Brahim, Tunisia’s new minister of infrastructure and transport.
His government hasn’t spelled out what a “horizontal democracy” actually means, but, in today’s Western democracies, citizens only play a role when they cast a ballot, with little or no influence between elections.
Could the first revolution born through peer collaboration lead to a new kind of collaborative government that engages its citizens in co-creating public value, democracy and social justice?
Don Tapscott’s new book (with Anthony D. Williams) is
Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World.
< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/a-new-kind-of-revolution/article1899638/ >
Tags: ideology, participation
This entry was posted on Thursday, February 10th, 2011 at 12:11 pm and is filed under Inclusion Debates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
266 Responses to “A new kind of revolution”
« Older Comments | Newer Comments »
Recent Comments
Hello there, just became aware of your blog through Google, and found that it is truly informative. I am going to watch out for brussels. I will appreciate if you continue this in future. Lots of people will be benefited from your writing. Cheers!
Hi, do have a e-newsletter? In the event you don’t definately should get on that piece…this web site is pure gold!
Hi there! I just wanted to ask if you ever have any trouble with hackers? My last blog (wordpress) was hacked and I ended up losing several weeks of hard work due to no back up. Do you have any solutions to protect against hackers?
Assume you are doing good linking to position you on the first pages of search engines.
What i discover troublesome is to find a weblog that may capture me for a minute however your blog is different. Bravo.
Thank you a lot for sharing this with all folks you actually recognize what you’re speaking about! Bookmarked. Please additionally visit my site =). We can have a hyperlink trade contract among us!
Nice blog here! Also your web site loads up very fast! What host are you using? Can I get your affiliate link to your host? I wish my web site loaded up as fast as yours lol
Hello there, You have done an incredible job. I will certainly digg it and personally recommend to my friends. I am sure they will be benefited from this site.
Im impressed. I dont think Ive met anyone who knows as much about this subject as you do. Youre truly well informed and very intelligent. You wrote something that people could understand and made the subject intriguing for everyone. Really, great blog youve got here.
My brother suggested I might like this websiteHe was once totally rightThis post truly made my dayYou can not imagine simply how a lot time I had spent for this information! Thanks!
I am glad to be one of the visitors on this great site (:, appreciate it for putting up.
I am glad to be a visitor of this perfect blog !, appreciate it for this rare info!
Nice piece of info! May I reference part of this on my blog if I post a backlink to this webpage? Thx.
You appear to know so much about this, and I see you’re a published author. Thanks
Developing a framework is important.
I like what you have to offer. Keep up the good work!
Woah this is just an insane amount of information, must of taken ages to compile so thanx so much for just sharing it with all of us. If your ever in any need of related information, just check out my own site!
I think that may be an interesting element, it made me assume a bit. Thanks for sparking my considering cap. On occasion I get so much in a rut that I simply really feel like a record.
However, it is virtually all done with tongues rooted solidly in cheeks, and everyone has absolutely nothing but absolutely love for his or her friendly neighborhood scapegoat. The truth is, he is not just a pushover. He is basically that special variety of person strong enough to take all of that good natured ribbing for exactly what it is.
Hello there! I really enjoy reading your blog! If you keep making amazing posts like this I will come back every day to keep reading.