You can watch Nabila Ramdani and the rest of our panel expand on the issue of unrest in the Arab world this evening. The last few tickets are still on sale on our website and you can also watch live online.

Ahead of tonight’s emergency panel at the Royal Geographical Society, ‘Turmoil in the Arab world: is the genie of democracy out of the bottle', Tony Curzon Price spoke with panelist Nabila Ramdani, the renowned commentator and broadcast journalist. In this interview French-Algerian Ramdani, discusses the role of new media in the recent unrest and underlines the roles it has played in uniting downtrodden Arab civilians, as well as shining a light on Western hypocrisy.

Ramdani starts by underling the importance new media and the Internet have played in facilitating democratic protest in the Middle East. Poo-pooing new media-sceptic Evgeny Morozov, she argues that sites like Facebook and Twitter have played a vital role in exposing the despotism of dictators, coordinating demonstrations, galvanising internal and external support, and even wrong-footing the security forces. Attempts by the governments in Tunisia and Egypt to shut down these digital platforms are testament to these digital platforms’ perceived and actual threat.

She also rejects Malcolm Gladwell’s argument, outlined recently in the New Yorker, that the revolution ‘will not be tweeted’. For Gladwell reform needs complex organisation and deep relationships – social networks only provide easy ‘clicktivist’ relationships. Given the sense of uncertainty and absence of an obvious leader to direct the revolution, surely his argument has some truth. Absolutely not, says Ramdani, the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia provoked unprecedented camaraderie cemented around one immediate aim: to topple their respective despots. They now have the freedom to develop their states' political structures however they wish.

She also highlights the wider implications of a rich and vibrant Internet; namely that it has betrayed the West’s practice of promoting democracy publicly, while privately fraternizing with Arab autocrats. Using her native France as an example, she cites a litany of friendly meetings between President Sarkozy, the French Foreign Secretary and the French Prime Minister with Morrocan King, Tunisia’s Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak respectively.

And finally, Ramdani touches on the pros and cons of playing out a domestic revolution on the world’s media stage.