--- title: Wael Ghonim Speaks at the TIME 100 Gala Event | TIME description: The Eyptian former Google executive and facebook activist took the stage at the TIME 100 Gala in New York to discuss his country's revolution and the future of the region and the Arab people canonical: https://time.com/video/vxzrSMGo/ og:title: Wael Ghonim Speaks at the TIME 100 Gala Event og:description: The Eyptian former Google executive and facebook activist took the stage at the TIME 100 Gala in New York to discuss his country's revolution and the future of the region and the Arab people og:url: https://time.com/video/vxzrSMGo/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/vxzrSMGo/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Wael Ghonim Speaks at the TIME 100 Gala Event twitter:description: The Eyptian former Google executive and facebook activist took the stage at the TIME 100 Gala in New York to discuss his country's revolution and the future of the region and the Arab people twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/vxzrSMGo/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Wael Ghonim Speaks at the TIME 100 Gala Event > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Wael Ghonim Speaks at the TIME 100 Gala Event [Watch (HLS stream): Wael Ghonim Speaks at the TIME 100 Gala Event](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/vxzrSMGo.m3u8) (5:48)  _Published 2011-04-27. The Eyptian former Google executive and facebook activist took the stage at the TIME 100 Gala in New York to discuss his country's revolution and the future of the region and the Arab people_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:12 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Time 100 Gala: Full Event in Under 3 Minutes](/video/IYjXOV1N/) ### Time 100 Gala: Full Event in Under 3 Minutes [The TIME 100 Gala in Two Minutes](/video/cLgVSaHL/) ### The TIME 100 Gala in Two Minutes [TIME 100: Who Does Wael Ghonim Find Most Influential?](/video/S6d84vrN/) ### TIME 100: Who Does Wael Ghonim Find Most Influential? --- ## Transcript [ NOISE ] Hi everyone. Before I start I would actually ask all of you for a moment of silence for everyone who who lost their lives in the past few weeks in, in every part of the Arab world defending the rights to to have a free and democratic state. Thank you. so, I'm not a good public speaker. I know how to tweet and and write Facebook messages. But I'm not good with public speaking, so I hope you you don't focus too much on the way I will speak. And the second surprise is that I have not prepared anything for this. I never thought of what would I say, and I believe that it's, it's better to, to just speak out your mind than, than to prepare anything. First of all I think one thing I was thinking about myself coming here that I'm kinda overrated. I think I am, I'm in a, in a position where I don't deserve to be in that position. Because this was not about me, and despite the fact that the media likes to make it about one person or create a hero. This revolution there was no, not a single hero. There was, there was not the hero. There was, everyone in, in Egypt was a hero. Everyone have actually contributed to this and the fact is I did not call for the protests. It was actually angry comments on the Facebook page that called for the protests. After Tunisia happened a lot of the Egyptians were very very mad and felt very competitive. They were like, if, if that happened in Tunisia why can't it be happening in Egypt? You have to call for a protest. All what I did was very simple was to create a new event. Write revolution. Put 25th of January and publish. and, and that's basically my contribution to this revolution. And of course writing and convincing people that we've got to, to go to the streets. And today, I'm a proud Arab, I'm a proud Muslim, I'm a proud Egyptian. Because I, I felt very bad in the past few years seeing the image, of, of us being, in, in the whole western world being associated with all sort of terrorism, all the trouble- making guys. And I think today, the Egyptians have proved to the world, and, and, and the Arabs, as well, that we're just like everyone else. We're like one of, you know, we are one of you. We are, we're looking forward to a free life. We're not, we were not happy with our dictators. In fact we were super pissed off. and, we just didn't know what to do because we're living in, in, in a country where if you dare to speak. You're gonna go to jail, and if you dare to say no, you'll find thousands of things that will, bad things, that will happen to you. You know, randomly selection in airports is not one of them. They actually capture you and put you in jail right away. So I think what happened in Egypt, and what happened in Tunisia, what's happening in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, is just a, a wake up call. The nice way to say it. I say it in other places, a slap on the interna -, in the, on the face of the international community. All these politicians that thought, stability is more important than democracy. And that interests are much more important than values. And that, you know, we you know, let them have problems. As far as the, the region is stable let them live in misery. That kind of wake up call, I hope all of us will get that message. Today I think that if individuals can actually do big things for, for their countries using social networks and communicating with the public right away without any media outlets or brokers in the middle, I think celebrities have a bigger, a bigger goal in this world now. They have a bigger responsibility. I think you guys can actually help change the world, And it all started, it was within, I would say, one year ago that I am going to change Egypt and, you know, my wife she, she was very supportive but we always had these debates of my time being invested on doing this. I used to sleep three hours a day and my wife keeps on asking me, you know, what are you doing? Even when I'd go to the cinema with her, I have my phone down there and I was always writing comments on the page, so she asked me what are you doing? You're not gonna change the world, you know, wake up and I always believed that I can actually help. If every one of us starts from a belief that big thing can happen out of what they are doing, big things will, will happen and thanks of course to technologies, to the companies that. One, the ones like I, the one I worked for, and Facebook, and Twitter. Access to people became much easier. Yeah, one minute remaining [ LAUGH ]. so, so I just wanna close my remarks with, with two messages. One I wrote after I came out of jail. We were telling the Egyptian government we are gonna win because we don't understand your politics. We are gonna win because we have a dream and that dream is genuine. It's coming from our hearts. We are gonna win because our tears come from, not from our eyes, actually. Came from our heart. We're gonna win because you are not gonna be willing to defend your, your nightmare. And we're gonna, we are willing to die for our dream. The Egyptians, the Tunisians, and the rest of the people in the Arab world are proving today that the power of the people are much stronger than the people in power. Thanks everyone. 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