Newswise — “The events of the last few weeks have shown that – as in earlier cases decades ago– cycles of protest can rapidly cascade from one country and population group to another. Superficial western analysts have seen twitter and facebook as the responsible mechanisms for the rapid spread of the revolts in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen, but there were no such mechanisms available in the past, yet they spread just as rapidly and powerfully.
“What was most striking about these cases is the rapidity with which protest has spread from “the usual suspects” to the middle class, religious groups, and defectors from their regimes.
"What will happen now? Clearly Egypt is not Tunisia. The Mubarek regime is more deeply entrenched, has a stronger economic basis, and a security apparatus that is better trained and more experienced than the Tunisian one. Much depends on the way in which repression is used and whether it is effectively combined with reform.”
-- Sidney Tarrow, professor of government at Cornell University and expert on revolutions and social movements.
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