Thank you Facebook! Thank you Twitter! Thank you YouTube! Thank you to all the new media with all their tools, contents and users as they allowed the Arab youth enduring oppression and injustice to express the suffering of the elders and put forward their projects without any fear from the security fists and the partisan and ideological grips. Thanks to the new media which allowed the people to topple regimes and governments that controlled them for long decades. Thanks to the new media that terrified governments which never cared about the people and refused to adopt reforms. Thanks to the independent high-toned fast-paced media which documented the pictures, triggered hope and prompted the people to shake the dust of regimes and governments accustomed to whipping their people and to expanding the limits of bureaucracy, selfishness and nepotism. Thank you Twitter for these brief words that act as “punches” in the chests of governments that eliminated the role of the youth, thus forcing them to adopt reforms and change their rhetoric. Thank you Facebook for making those who disregarded the capability of the new media inquire about you, open accounts to communicate with your friends and write on your pages. Thanks to the media that exposed the unyielding regimes which refused to cooperate with the causes and demands of their people, thus allowing the youth to agree over “national” revolutions and draw up a new media rhetoric that is different from the “revering” one of these governments. Thanks to the new media which enabled the Arab youth to develop their tools and voice their problems via social networking websites, thus breaking the siege imposed on their energies and capabilities and inaugurating a world of change. Thank you Bouazizi. Thank you Khaled Saeed. May God have mercy on the souls of all the martyrs, because you have triggered a real revolution in the minds of the youth and restored the people's revolution and ability to fight injustice. Thank you for giving hope to millions of youth, thus prompting them to contribute to the building of their future and the their country and to restore their rights. The Arab youth only escaped poverty, unemployment and marginalization in the real world by turning to the social networking websites after years of frustration and the absence of any hope. This gave them the courage to think, coordinate and express their wishes and aspirations, before rising toward change, leading the revolutions and toppling the governments. The new media changed a thirty-year reality in Egypt in eighteen days. Before that, it changed in 22 days a ruling regime which lasted 23 years in Tunisia. Now, the oldest Arab ruler Muammar al-Gaddafi is being faced with revolutions in Benghazi, Tripoli and Al-Bayda despite the policy of oppression he is applying, while Yemeni President Ali Saleh is also facing the revolutions of the people with pledges and the denial of the bequeathal of power. As for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, he is witnessing tensions on the Algerian street on a daily basis, and in Bahrain, half the population took to the streets, whether to support the government or to demand its resignation. In the meantime, some leaders rushed to conduct rapid changes and reforms to extinguish the tensions and meet the demands of the people, as it was seen in Jordan, where Jordanian Monarch King Abdullah II ousted the government following wide demonstrations calling for the introduction of political and economic reforms. The Kuwaiti government, for its part, offered a package of direct allocations to the people, while some leaders announced they had relinquished the idea of transferring the rule to their descendants. Poverty, unemployment, frustration, the absence of social justice and the bad allocation of the wealth remain the main source of the threat facing the Arab governments. If they do not tackle the people's livelihood conditions and the future of the youth and do not draw up strategies to exploit the national capacities, provide job opportunities, a decent living, freedom and independence, they will continue to be besieged and toppled by popular revolutions. Some Arab countries failed to achieve development, democracy and justice, which made the Arab electronic anger spread like a “spark” to reach the states of “stalemate” and convey the popular positions via the new media outlets through pictures, blogging and comments, without the oppressive or censorship apparatuses being able to tamper with their contents, their broadcasting or the way they enter homes and communities. In light of the awakening of the Arab youth, their “electronic” communication and their wild wish to achieve their dreams inside their countries, the changing of the governments' rhetoric, the continuous pledges to introduce reforms and the denial of bequeathal are not enough, unless the people see the implementation of these promises on the ground and unless the governments start expanding the margin of popular participation. If not, the people will “reset the counter” - as opposed to the wishes of the Yemeni president - and the crowds will take to the streets and squares while raising the banner “The people want to change the regime”!
