Gil Scott-Heron once sang that the revolution will not be televised. The Tunisian revolution, and the continuing Egyptian uprising, would seem to refute the great man’s chorus.

It is the greatest drama to shake Egypt since the killing of Anwar Sadat in 1981. Huge nationwide protests have challenged the long rule of President Hosni Mubarak, threatening to dislodge him. As yet, the denouement remains unwritten.

When the people rise up, there’s no guarantee they’ll succeed. Just ask a Burmese or an Iranian. Egypt’s revolution has a number of counts against it, the main one being the hollow core where Egyptian civil society ought to be.

With armies of reporters from Al Jazeera and Alhurra and slews of other news media organizations covering the Middle East, one wonders how the seeds of anti-government sentiment in Egypt were not detected before streets were filled with protesters and now police violence and death. Diplomats in Washington and other world capitals seem to have been similarly blindsided.

Cries for President Hosni Mubarak's ouster in Egypt are being echoed in Jordan with antigovernment protests and a "day of rage" planned for Syria this Friday. But in the Palestinian territories, it's the silence that is most notable.

Those who said that 'winds of change' were blowing through the Middle East were right. The past few weeks have seen a stunning series of political shifts in response to widespread discontent and popular opposition that once went unacknowledged.

As the number of young people in South Africa increases and access to the Internet improves, so too will access to the kind of resistance we’re witnessing in Egypt and Tunisia, writes guest blogger Khadija Patel.

Leaders around the globe joined a chorus of condemnation Wednesday over the eruption of violence in Cairo as embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak struggled to maintain his grip on power.