Leadership and Spin
In an interview two years ago, a French journalist asked me the tired question of whether the pitfall of the 25 January Revolution was the lack of a clear unifying leader. With exasperated breath, I explained to her that this was impossible for two very logical reasons: (1) If such a leader existed, he would have to be appealing to the Islamists, the MB, the communists, the liberals, the anarchists, the socialists (revolutionary and otherwise) and the reformists, which is impossible, and (2) It is incredibly unfair to demand that we find a leader when the whole world suffers from a leadership crisis. When she asked what I meant, I asked her if she considered either Sarkozy or Hollande to be her leaders, or if she knows any British person who believes in the leadership of David Cameron or an American that still considers Obama their leader. When she said “no” on all accounts, and asked me why that is, I simply responded: social media. Social media killed leadership.