A Question and a Note

There has been much talk about facebook and twitter revolutions in the Middle East, but given the internet’s rather low infiltration rate in Yemen – I think roughly 200,000 lines* – this begs a question: can you have a revolution without the internet?

There is, as I said yesterday, still much to be decided in Yemen and I don’t think anyone knows, which way it will go at this point.  But at some time in the next few weeks there will, I think, be a “big event,” one in which the protests either pass the point of no return or fade away.  This hasn’t happened yet in Yemen.  But one way or another – either for Salih or against him – it is coming.  What the event is and which way it will go, will probably only be discernible in retrospect.  But as I keep saying the next several weeks are critical

*Note: the 200,000 lines can be a bit misleading in determining how many people in Yemen actually have access to the internet, thanks to internet cafes and line sharing.