The television show Frontline did an interesting show about the revolution in Cairo last January. This show by Frontline was very hard to watch, there will horrible images that were really upsetting. The story seemed like a Hollywood movie more than real life. It seems impossible that a handful of people in a tiny crummy office could overthrow a president of a country. I did not know any part of this story about the revolution in Cairo Egypt so I learned a great deal from watching this Frontline episode. A handful of people led by a man named Amr Mosq were upset that the Cairo government and the police were torturing people that did not support the. The most upsetting parts of the show where the videos of people being tortured which really did not add much to the story other than to upset people. The most interesting part of the story was how Mosq used social media like Facebook to communicate with hundreds of thousands of people. Mosq watched videos from Serbia and Tunisia about how the younger generation got what they wanted by demonstrating in the streets but not using violence. The government of Egypt was so far behind the times they didn't even understand how sites like Facebook worked.

 

The group that Amr Mosq started was called the April 6th movement. This group used a national holiday called Police Day to have a gigantic demonstration. They texted each other and used phones and their computers to talk but didn't really know if hundreds of people would come to the demonstration or thousands. As it turned out hundreds of thousands of people came in the demonstrations that ended up lasting 18 days. The Egyptian government captured and tortured people involved with the demonstrations but they were outnumbered by the people of Cairo. The government responded to the big uprising by turning off the Internet and peoples cell phones. The April 6 movement took over many of the streets of Cairo and the government couldn't arrest everybody. Eventually the government sent in the Army but that was a mistake because the Army was on the side of the people in the street. The president of Cairo Mubarak stepped down 18 days after the first demonstration. It's amazing to think that a handful of people using the Internet could change the president of Egypt. I believe people could learn a lot from watching this episode. I don't believe a lot of people will watch the show because of the graphic torture scenes. If they took out the graphic torture scenes and just tell you what happened in them I think it would open up a lot more discussions because more people would watch the show. I highly recommend that people watch this video and just fast-forward through the gross torture scenes. It's amazing to think that you can change the entire government using your cell phone and a laptop.