Texting for Democracy

Like many Americans, I waited this past weekend in anticipation for the big text message announcing Barack Obama’s running mate.  I have to admit, I found the gimmick to be an interesting piece of a larger trend: youth and technology are shaping this presidential campaign.  We have never seen anything like this before.  But, as we marvel over online ads, active blogospheres, online networks, and text messaging, it is important to recognize that America is not the only place where youth are using technology to shape their futures.

 On Monday in the early evening, I got together with some friends to talk politics.  This is an almost unavoidable activity in Washington; but it was in this conversation that I realized we are failing to make the connection between what is taking place in our society and in other parts of the world.  After all, America isn’t the only place where young people are using technology to shape their future: In Iran’s March 2008 parliamentary elections, a group of youth seeking to exercise their right to vote without doing so through the corrupt process, arranged for 177,000 Tehranis to vote for Mickey Mouse by text message.  In the same repressive country of Iran, people can’t criticize President Ahmadenijad openly, but they made a video spoofing him as a dirty buffoon, uploaded it on their mobile phones, and achieved such wide dissemination that it actually made the rounds to the president’s phone.  In Zimbabwe, civil society organizations organized a parallel election by text message just a few months ago so as to juxtapose those results against those of the rigged election.  And, in Syria, kids wander through the urban alleyways texting complete strangers over Bluetooth inviting them to do things they are not supposed to do—this can be an underground gay rave, or a political club.

I am giving the text message examples because that was the theme of this past weekend, but, the ways in which young people are using technology in the Middle East are more remarkable than text messaging and Bluetooth:  young women in Saudi Arabia use popular online social networks to petition for driving rights; Egyptian students and young professionals use Facebook to organize nation-wide labor strikes; and in Iran, we see YouTube as popular platforms for expression and circumvention of regime restrictions.  These stories are becoming a familiar part of every day resistance in one of the world’s most restrictive regions.  During my two years in graduate school, I witnessed this on the front lines of the scattered youth movements in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestinian camps.

And, what is most shocking is that the same forums where Middle Eastern youth are texting for democracy, Facebooking for freedom, and YouTubing for opportunity, are also the places where the majority of America’s youth are spending a significant amount of their time.  But, like two ships passing in the night, there is little if any interaction between American and Middle Eastern cultures on these forums.

The things we do in our dorm rooms—Facebook, YouTube, SMS—are more than just recreation, they are our opportunity as Americans to be brandmakers to shape America’s image in the world.