Mosa’ab El Shamy, an Egyptian activist and photographer who spent the 18 days of the uprising in Tahrir, told The Next Web, “I thought we would only have to counter all the local corporates here, which were trying to claim credit for the revolution and share a ride on the bandwagon, but Wikileaks, is to me, the worst of them all.”
Many local companies have been accused of playing both sides in Egypt, bowing to the regime before the uprising, and in a lightening quick chameleon change, their colours were suddenly an entirely red, white and black display of supposed patriotism and pride in Egypt’s revolution.
El Shamy goes on to explain his views on Wikileaks conceding, “I believe it’s changing the world in its own way and their effort is a prime and noble one, but it’s ludicrous to hear Mr. Assange in the ad declare with a cheeky grin as he watches the imagery of protesters pushing police forces back from Kasr el Nil Bridge that ‘the world changing as a result of his work is priceless.’”
In fact, as Egyptian blogger Zeinobia pointed out in her response to the parody ad, most of the Wikileaks cables relating to Egypt were never translated or published in local media for a variety of reasons, ranging from a fear of retribution to simply a matter of bad timing, with more important issues taking the attention of the Egyptian media and its audience.
Ironically, much of the information that the Wikileaks cables revealed about the Egyptian authorities was already common knowledge. Egypt is a country that saw bloggers and journalists imprisoned for voicing their opinion. Egypt is a country where questioning the president’s health was punishable with imprisonment. It is not a country which was waiting for Wikileaks cables to spark a movement that was years in the making.
via thenextweb.com
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