As I debated with myself what the most significant event
of the year was, I logged on to my Facebook account to find a pop-up revealing
their latest idea – the timeline. The introductory video that followed portrayed
the life of one Andy Sparks, your average thirty-something American, right from
his birth to his high school graduation, from his wedding day to the birth of
his first child, neatly accompanied by his likes,
places he’s visited, status updates and shared links. In short, they want your
entire life, from your cradle to your coffin, to be documented online for your ‘friends’
to see. The implications of this advent
are yet unknown, but you can just imagine them, can’t you?
No one can doubt the major part social media played
in the Arab Spring, arguably the most historic
bit of this year’s timeline. A movement sparked by the self-immolation of a
struggling shopkeeper in a corrupt Tunisia - that caused the spirit of protest
against one’s government to rapidly spread across the Middle-East and North Africa.
Egyptians rallied their protests from the vast legions of the internet to a
massive revolt at Tahrir Square in order to terminate the 30-year-regime of President
Hosni Mubarak, Libyan rebels fought tooth and nail against supporters of their tyrannous
leader Moammar Gadhafi while similar uprisings took place in Syria, Bahrain and
other parts of the region. People who shared a common interest in democracy
built social networks to organize political action and spread their ideas –
with a multitude of activity on Facebook, millions of opinionated Tweets and
gigabytes of YouTube videos causing a viral fervour of uprising on the World
Wide Web.
The same means were used for questionable ends in
the United Kingdom, as viewers around the world were shocked by scenes of night-time
rioting, looting and arson by hooded youth on the streets, causing politicians to
furiously debate the feasibility of suspending the social media sites on which
the disgruntled youth had coherently plotted their uprising. An inquiry into
their motives brought to light the widening gap between the rich and the poor,
an outcome of misguided capitalism. Capitalism took another crunching blow,
this time across the Atlantic as protesters gathered for the Occupy Wall Street
Movement against policies that favoured the concentration of wealth in the
hands of a few amidst an ever-increasing debt situation. Economic woes were
characteristic of 2011 as the eurozone crisis continues to drag on with no foreseeable
solution to look forward to.
The year saw its fair share of natural disasters
with earthquakes, tsunamis, floods and hurricanes hitting different parts of
the world at various points in time. Japan suffered the most, as a
9.0-magnitude earthquake off its coast triggered the worst tsunami in years,
destroying everything in its path and leading to widespread displacement and
loss of life. To add to their woes, radiation leaked into the air and
contaminated water spilt into the sea due to a meltdown of three reactors at
the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility, with scientists fearing grave
consequences. The social media community could only upload innumerable ‘Save a
Life with Just a Click’ campaigns leading to furious clicking the world over.
High-profile deaths were also a prominent feature in
2011 and internet communities paid elaborate tributes to some while heaved vocal
sighs of relief at the demise of others. Somewhat opportunely, the first news
of Osama bin Laden’s death was not
via Barack Obama’s victorious announcement at the White House, but a Tweet from
one of Bin Laden’s Pakistani neighbours, complaining irritably on Twitter about
the presence of a US helicopter in his backyard. The joyous scenes outside the
White House and across the United States were interpreted by many as a vile
display of foolishness, sinking lower than the so-called terrorists themselves.
The killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, an outspoken American citizen of Yemeni origin,
by a US missile was disturbing, in the least. YouTube videos of the scholar
allegedly propagating anti-American sentiments were sufficient cause for the US
government to dispose off one of its own citizens without any substantial
evidence or a fair trial? It highlighted the prevalent double standards within
the US democracy. Another American, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, received
unending tributes online for the way he changed the digital world.
October brought with it the news of Moummar
Gadhafi’s death by NATO forces resulting in a shift of power in Libya. Two months later, American politicians
struggled to hide their glee at the death of their long-standing foe, North
Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, a man whose face hangs from portraits in the living
rooms of millions of Korean households. The
announcement of his death, and the subsequent appointment of his inexperienced
son Kim Jong Un as the “Supreme Leader” has lead to a mass influx of opinions
by concerned bloggers, Tweeps and pseudo-analysts alike. Perhaps 2012 will
bring with it some clarity in the sphere of politics, God only knows.
The News of
the World phone-hacking scandal left many with a bitter taste in their
mouth in 2011. A murky uncertainty about everything followed: people questioned
who was viewing their personal information, people questioned their governments
and their far-too-evident lack of honesty and people eventually questioned themselves, as to why the world has been caught in this tangle between truth,
reality, violence and the role of the internet in all of this. Perhaps that is the hallmark of 2011, more than any
particular event – the sheer scale of the impact
that one event somewhere on the planet can have on everybody else, because
its a smooth touch, some rapid typing or even an innocent click on the word ‘Like’
that can change everything. ∎
