The social media craze in Zimbabwe
going under the hashtag #ThisFlag has been around for a little over a month
now. The campaign is also heavily subscribed by Zimbabweans in the diaspora and
by other sympathisers beyond borders. As of the third week of May 2016,
newspaper editorials and opinions have begun to be written about the social
media campaign. Indeed, critical questions around the issues of corruption, abuse
of power, economic mismanagement and general lack of good governance are being raised
under the #ThisFlag campaign by Zimbabweans and other netizens.
Ambassadors and
government officials are also part of the showcase. What is missing and scary
about it, is that it has shifted struggles from the streets to the internet.
Many brave people whose track record in fighting democratic struggles in
Zimbabwe is undoubted, have also regrettably fallen for the exclusive social
media campaign and hashtagging.
The campaign, sadly remains an exclusively
social media one, without any meaningful offline presence. This raises
questions about its real objectives, ideology and program of action.
Respectfully it is a good idea, and
an attractive one for social media, photo galleries and for those wishing to
exhibit Photoshop expertise. But for any meaningful struggle against the
Zanu-Pf government or any government or oppressive system in the world, the
social media only works whilst mobilising for real-life protest, campaigns and mobilisation
efforts. This is what the Zimbabweans rallying behind the campaign have failed
to grasp. Characteristically, social media without offline presence is a demobilising
factor.
2016 is a year of resistance dumped on the internet
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| The Zimbabwean flag |
Any person who follows protests and
believes in them, would have regained hope in 2016 being a
year of resistance. There were powerful occupations and strikes at two giant
parastatals by disgruntled workers just a few months back. In…. workers stuck camp
and occupied the Grain Marketing Board’s (GMB) head-offices in Eastlea. Within
a few months, rail workers and their families embarked on another powerful industrial
action and occupation of the National Railways of Zimbabwe’s (NRZ) Rugare marshalling yard. The country’s
biggest opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T), after a
long period of sleeping on duty, eventually managed to mobilise and carry out a
powerful and massive demonstration in the streets of Harare. The latter action prompted
the ruling party’s youth league to organise its own ‘One Million Man March’ in support
of the 92-year old president of the Republic, Robert Mugabe.
Hence 2016 was promising to be a
year of the streets. Painfully, within a few weeks, all the anger that should
have been poured on the streets was relegated to social media. People began to
find comfort in tweeting the #ThisFlag hashtag with whatever issues they have
and ending at that. Even the so-called leaders of the #ThisFlag campaign, whom
this writer, shares certain WhatsApp groups with, openly declared that the movement
was not going to pour into the streets .In other words, #ThisFlag was going to continue
raising issues and expressing grievances with the way government was running
the country, but only by (ab)using individualistic methods of posing for photos
with wrapped flags, and posting the photos on social media. In a few weeks’ time,
street activists and faceless social media accounts began a backward trend of clicktivism
over activism.
Social media should supplement, not substitute direct action
Social media had been utilised and
achieved great results for physically protesting people (emphasis on ‘physically
protesting’) during the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt and Tunisia, the Occupy movements
in the United States, the #FeesMustFall campaign in South Africa (which this writer
was physically part of and of which he wrote an article on Nehanda Radio ), and
recently during the campaign of a socialist candidate Bernie Sanders in the
United States. In all these occasions, social media was used to supplement
direct action and to mobilise for living campaigns. Never was a government or
system removed by clicktivists using the social media aloneas their sole arena
for resistance as is the case with Zimbabwe’s #ThisFlag social media campaign.
Similar Flag but we are different Zimbabweans
Whilst the intentions of the organisers
of #ThisFlag may indeed be noble and innocent, real politics and ideological
understanding would show that trying to bunch together fellow Zimbabweans for
just being under the same flag, without regard to social classes, is a gross
and dangerous misrepresentation of patriotism. As a poor African, I have more
in common with a poor African in another country than I can ever have with a ‘fellow’
Zimbabwean government minister ,
capitalist or rich pastor or preacher. Hence to bundle all and sundry on the grounds
that we accidentally share the same nationalist flag takes us nowhere. A
genuine movement can only be class-based and even transcend borders and not be
brought together by a nationalist flag. The world is now a global village and
many of our citizens are more concerned with people to people solidarity across
borders and not fake comradeship under a flag. A company director, rich church pastor
or a cabinet minister may share the same nationalist, albert same flag with a
vendor, a sex worker or a street lawyer like myself, but we can never share the
same interests. That is a great error on the part of activists rallying under
the #ThisFlag campaign. What we want in life and in politics are different.
Just last year, most of us wept when the Supreme Court delivered an anti-labour
judgement, yet other Zimbabwean businesspeople ululated. It is inconceivable
that today we can stand side by side with such ‘fellow’ Zimbabweans, our interests
can never be the same just because we share the same flag. As the working class,
the poor and radical intellectuals, we will be our own liberators and we will
liberate ourselves on the streets not via Wi-Fi.
The Way Forward includes Offline Activism
As a way forward, activists should
either get off their backs and smartphones, scrutinise their allies, craft a
programme of action backed by progressive ideologies and solidarity with
genuine movements within and beyond nationalistic borders, mobilise and get
into the streets and face down police baton sticks, teargas and beatings if
they want governments to notice. Otherwise
this elitist social media noise only serves to entrenchexploitation,
alienate activists from the mass of society and demobilise and undermine people
who believe in genuine direct action such as NRZ, GMB and opposition grassroots
activists. Unfortunately, Zanu-Pf has already seen the power of offline
presence over social media with the adoption of the counter #OurFlag hashtag by
the party’s One Million Man March organisers. Photoshop, modelling for the
camera with brand-new flags and tweeting in the comfort of private bedrooms and
offices is a dangerous illusion that must be broken as soon as yesterday.
Having said that, it is indeed
naïve to dismiss the strategic role of social media, but it is only strategic
as long as it is used to mobilise and publicise real life actions. I am an avid
user of social media myself and an advocate for the use of alternative media as
opposed to mainstream media, which is usually controlled by financial or political
interests, but never once do I fool myself that when I am on social media alone
I am fighting a struggle. Social media is important and democratic, but only when
it is used as a support strategy by an action-oriented
people.
In that regard, I sign off with a quote from UK socialist Chris Bruno.
He wrote in a 2012 issue of the Socialist Worker newsletter: ‘As a supplement to, not a substitute for, old
tactics, social media plays an important role. It has the ability to reach
those who have neither the time nor
desire to participate in the existing political infrastructure thus far. It
provides another effective way to organize and mobilize for our actions, and it provides a truly alternative media — one that
is organically created by the masses and gives us a more complete picture of
what’s going on beyond our doorsteps.’ (emphasis mine). It is important that we acknowledge social
media for what it is - a mobilising tool for real life action - and utilise it
as such, but to substitute street action as is the current case, is a
historical disaster.
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