Revolution 2.0. Wael Ghonim

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      We all craved an alternative. We needed a savior, and we were ready to pour our hopes onto any reasonable candidate. Finally, two years after the April 6 movement began, Egyptian activists believed they had found one.

      Mohamed Mostafa ElBaradei, the former chief of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is a patriotic Egyptian who had worked in politics since he received his law degree in 1962. ElBaradei showed great skill as a diplomat. His diplomatic career began in 1964 in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with postings at the United Nations in New York and in Geneva. He rose to become special assistant to the foreign minister in 1974. He earned a law degree from New York University and then returned to the foreign ministry until 1984, when he became a legal adviser to the IAEA. In 1997 he became its director-general. ElBaradei and the IAEA received a Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 in recognition of efforts to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the world.

      Here was a man whom the Egyptian regime could neither eliminate nor easily tarnish. At first the regime tried to embrace him. State media hailed Dr. ElBaradei as a source of national pride. He was granted the highest state honor, the Order of the Nile, by President Mubarak in 2006. As the fourth Egyptian ever to win a Nobel Prize, he was lionized on the street.

      In 2009, as his third term as director-general of the IAEA was nearing an end and he prepared to return home, ElBaradei told Egyptian newspapers that he was unhappy with the way Egypt was governed. He focused his criticism on the lack of democracy and the low levels of public health and education. Not surprisingly, he disappeared from our state-owned media.

      Nonetheless, his popularity could not be easily snuffed out, thanks in part to Internet activists. A university student by the name of Mahmoud al-Hetta decided to start a Facebook group called “ElBaradei President of Egypt 2011.” ElBaradei had been asked by CNN if he would run for office, and he had replied that it was premature to answer such a question. That indefinite reply left the door open, and young Egyptians began mobilizing support for him.

      Many of the young people aspiring for real change in Egypt joined the Facebook group. Finally we had an answer to the question “If we don’t vote for Hosni Mubarak, who will we vote for?” Tens of thousands of users joined the Facebook group, and among them I recognized many personal friends who hitherto, like myself, had never been involved in politics. We all saw a glimmer of hope for reforming Egypt. Mahmoud al-Hetta and others used spontaneous online methods to invite ElBaradei to nominate himself for president. Shortly thereafter, the group’s popularity crossed the 100,000-member mark and ElBaradei announced his desire to play an active role in Egypt’s movement for change. His wish was for Egypt to reclaim its historic status and become a true democracy, not just a nominal one.

      The Egyptian regime was taken by surprise and lost its balance. Instantly the powers-that-were launched a defamation campaign. The man who most represented our national pride was suddenly subject to a series of false accusations. In record time he was depicted as an ally of the United States, with a Western agenda, and even portrayed as the main reason for the United States’ war on Iraq, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis (ElBaradei is known for his opposition to the war on Iraq and his attempts to contain crises through diplomatic means rather than bloodshed). He was said to be a glutton for power; after three terms at the IAEA he now wanted to rule Egypt. Proponents of the regime claimed that he lacked political experience. They even started a rumor that he held Austrian citizenship (since he had lived in Vienna for many years). The absurdity reached its peak when the chief editor of the nation’s largest newspaper claimed that ElBaradei had been a failure as a schoolboy and that his grades were the worst in his class during one of his elementary school years.

      The Facebook group was undaunted by these transparently absurd charges. The poet Abdel Rahman Youssef emerged as the campaign manager for the movement created by the group in an effort to try to venture out into the field. In December 2009 the independent newspaper Al-Shorouk published a long interview with ElBaradei, two months before his planned return from the IAEA. Over a span of three days, he told the reporter about his ambitions for change in his country.

      The highlight of that interview was ElBaradei’s conviction that change was inevitable in Egypt. He added that he refused to run for president in a sham election, if the regime was to exploit lifeless political parties again to project Mubarak as the country’s only option. ElBaradei’s refusal to grant legitimacy to the regime was his first confrontational step. Yet the constitutional amendments that he urged as necessary before he could run for president were perceived as farfetched by most people.

      As the political scene in Egypt was changing, so was my personal life. Ilka was getting very frustrated with life in Egypt. She found it impossible to drive in Cairo’s jungle of a traffic system and simply could not adapt to the pollution. She struggled with Arabic as well, and had trouble managing day-to-day activities. For these reasons, among many others, she was not happy living in Egypt, even after seven years of residency there, and my regular absence from home only served to reinforce her feelings of alienation. At the same time, Google’s Middle East team was beginning to centralize in the UAE, and it was gradually becoming more convenient for my career to move there. When I consulted Ilka, she was strongly in favor of a move. I was quite hesitant, as I preferred to stay in Egypt, yet it was becoming clear to me that this would be a selfish thing to do. Finally, in January 2010, I relocated to Google’s office in Dubai, but fortunately the nature of my work would take me to Cairo on a regular basis. Ilka was thrilled to be in Dubai, and I must say that I enjoyed it as well, although my heart remained in Egypt.

      I continued to follow the heated debates back home closely. I accessed the Facebook group on a daily basis to read the discussions, but I was not yet actively involved.

      Dr. ElBaradei’s return to Egypt was scheduled for February 2010. Many of the country’s political forces organized a reception for him at the airport, in the form of a few hundred activists who were willing to face the consequences of publicly opposing the regime. Several Egyptian public figures joined them, including the veteran TV presenter Hamdy Kandil, whose show had been taken off the air because of his outspoken criticism of the regime. What was new, alongside the old opposition guard, was the presence of many young people who ventured out for the first time in support of change.

      I was still not ready to make a public statement by attending. I had a lot to lose. My employer, Google, was a dream company voted often to be the world’s best employer. I was responsible for Ilka, Isra, and my son, Adam, who had been born in 2008. I also believed, despite my optimistic outlook, that change in Egypt was a difficult challenge that would take time. But so as not to miss out on the chance to be an active part of the movement, I finally decided to leverage my media, marketing, and Internet experience to help develop what later became Dr. ElBaradei’s official Facebook page. My aim was to establish an ongoing communication channel between him and his supporters.

      Personally, I have always hated hailing individuals as saviors, and I do not believe in magical solutions. What I do believe is that real change entails a change of policies and methods, not a mere substitution of leaders and individuals. Egypt’s salvation, in my opinion, would never come at the hands of a benevolent dictator. I might not have agreed with Dr. ElBaradei on every single issue, yet I did not hesitate to support him as a presidential candidate. My enthusiasm was for the idea rather than the person, but the only way back then was to support an idea through a person. The regime resembled a wall of steel. It had to be weakened little by little. Egyptians needed to be offered alternatives.

      The thing I admired most about ElBaradei was his self-perception. He asserted repeatedly that he was not a savior and that the Egyptian people needed to save themselves. He put himself forward as only a tool in support of the cause. To me, he was a professional, well educated, someone who could speak to the ambitions of Egypt’s youth.

      As an experienced Internet user, I knew СКАЧАТЬ