Egypt Bans Internet, People Meet in Person, President Resigns.

The news is out and everywhere – the web, the net, cyperspace, the blogosphere, the cloud, all reverberating with the resignation of Egypt’s Mubarak.  Social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter have been given much credit for making it all happen, for galvanizing a discontented people, bringing their critical mass to a boil, finally driving them out on the street in resolute protest.  But how did that happen in a country where all internet was reportedly switched off?  How did the internet bring revolution to a people without internet?

From the corner it looks like it was the very absence of the internet, the inability to Tweet or Facebook, that compelled people to network in the most social way of all: to go outside, meet people, wave a flag and get mad.  It got them out from in front of their computer screens, into the street and talking to each other face to face.  In the "wireless-less" space of Tahrir Square the most social of all social media appeared reborn – the mass protest.

The “Pharoah” has now gone and announcing his departure, hard-man Omar Suleiman invoked special powers: “May God . . . help us all”.  With the military now in charge, and many of its generals on the former payroll of the ex-president, historical trends might suggest the worst is yet to come.  However, Egypt so far has managed to avoid many negative trends to a degree.  With good people at the levers, the new Egypt could prove revolutionary in so many more ways than one.  But without them, they will need all the help that God can get.