Over two thousand years ago, the big question was whether the Greek-Roman or the Phoenician-Carthaginian culture would dominate the North African- Mediterranean areas. The Carthaginian general Hannibal was one of the greatest military leaders in history. His most famous campaign took place during the Second Punic War around 200 BC when he caught the Romans off guard by leading elephants across the Alps. After Hannibal’s death, Roman power was not seriously challenged for almost six centuries and the city of Carthage, in Tunisia, was obliterated by the Romans.
Today, once again, Tunisia is the catalyst for change. Five years ago, Tunisia’s first private television station began broadcasting under the name "Hannibal TV". President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali praised the station for paying homage to Tunisia’s "authentic civilization".
Last week, the first overthrow of an Arab police state in half a century took place in that same country with the middle class rejecting the government of President Ben Ali. While revolutions need more than communication, information is a prerequisite for action and the uprisings were mobilized largely on the Internet.
The protests rocking the Arab world this week have another thread uniting them: Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite channel whose aggressive coverage has helped propel insurgent emotions from one capital to the next.
Tunisia, with its capital, Tunis, has the highest percentage of people with Facebook accounts. (18%) and Ben Ali’s government was long a regional pioneer of cyber-censorship. In Tunisia, the interim government issued an international arrest warrant for the overthrown president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. Meanwhile Switzerland announced that it had blocked tens of millions of dollars in funds connected to the Ben Ali family.
According to the New York Times, the Egyptian government intensified efforts to crush protests on Wednesday, the day following the original demonstration, decreeing a new ban on public gatherings and sending police equipped with clubs, teargas and armored carriers against small groups that defiantly gathered in Cairo to oppose the 30 year rule of President Hosni Mubarak.
As the uprisings spread to Egypt, Mrs.Clinton pressed Cairo not to block the social-networking websites that activists have used to organize demonstrations. President Mubarak, fearing that Facebook, Twitter, laptops and smartphones could empower his opponents ignored her advice. Egypt originally denied any clampdown on Twitter and Facebook, according to the BBC News.
An article in the Wall Street Journal, commenting on how the Mideast unrest challenged the United States, stated that any major shift in Cairo, similar to Tehran, would have profound impact through the Middle East, as Egypt is the Arab world’s most populous nation.
Turmoil in some countries, including Jordan, Yemen and Algeria have been inspired directly by the popular outpouring of anger that toppled the Tunisian President. In Lebannon, the militant political party , Hezbollah, constitutionally toppled the pro-western government of Said Hariari.
A confidential diplomatic cable made public by the anti-secrecy group Wikileaks paints a vivid picture of the delicate dealings between the United States and Egypt, its staunchest ally. The balancing of private pressure with strong public support for Mr. Mubarak has become increasingly tenuous.
Officials acknowledged that the United States had limited influence over many actors in the region and that the upheaval in Egypt, in particular, could scramble its foreign-policy agenda. Although many of the protesters’ demands were legitimate there remained the concerns that the Muslim Brotherhood would hijack the protest movement.
The Obama administration faces significant risks in taking a more activist line in Egypt and other Arab states. Cairo has been a central player in U.S. efforts to combat al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.
Looking back, Tunisia has, once again, brought about a momentous change in the world.