L. Fituni, I. Abramova Resource Potential of Africa and Russia's ...

to the downfall of the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. In a domino-effect,
they enflamed public disorders and widespread, sometimes
bloody, unrests in Algeria, Yemen, Jordan, Iran, Bahrain,
Libya and Morocco. The seemingly spontaneous demonstrations and
uprisings received crucial technological, infrastructural, political and
organizational support from the West.
This support was crucial primarily in two aspects. One was the
steadily increasing political pressure upon the African and Middle
Eastern heads of state and governments by the leaders of virtually
all Western democracies, who (a) expressed their support to the
“uprising masses” and (b) restrained the local governments from
taking any decisive measures to stop the demonstrations. The second
was the provision of technical capabilities and financial support
for spreading the unrests beyond their original limited nuclei.
The media used for those purposes were formally “nobody’s in
particular” (Internet, mobile phones, social networks, email, satellite
TV and short-wave radio, etc). However, it is an open secret,
that the so called “social” media and many providers of information
services are closely connected and dependent in many visible
and invisible ways upon the official authorities and their agencies.
The latter allow them to use servers, communication capabilities,
manage the transcontinental networks or allow using satellites for
their purposes.
The reality and the level of such influence is clearly visible in
the situations, when the flow of “free’ information is considered to
be undesirable by the West. The recent examples of governments’
capabilities to harness the free and “unmanageable” social media
were the uniform controlled reporting on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan,
or Georgia.
In the case of Middle Eastern revolutions the West not only took
a “pro-change” position, cold bloodedly betraying its decades-old
allies and supporters (like moderates Ben Ali in Tunisia, or Mubarak
in Egypt). Very serious financial resources were in the least not prevented
from reaching the opposition. It is unclear, for example, what
amounts of funds were paid to secure the expensive long distance
international dial-up connections to telephone numbers in France,
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