By Takura Zhangazha*
There are a number of causes and actors for the mass action
that occurred in Zimbabwe on Wednesday 6 July 2016. Some reasons being more immediate than
others, and some actors being more key than others, but all contributing at
varying levels to the national strike/shutdown (whatever you prefer to call it.)
The particular difference with this one day mass stayaway
was that it was not quite like the ones some of us would remember from the late
1990s which were organized by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions
(ZCTU). This one, though heavily
involving the teachers unions and the civil service associations, did not
require mobilization as of old. There were few public meetings, fewer physical paraphernalia
such as fliers to be distributed on the streets and no ‘boots on the ground’
door to door campaigns.
A key question that then emerges is so what could have
motivated so many to act in unison at the same time, even though for various
reasons. The easy answer for unionists would
be that it was the issue of unpaid salaries for teachers and civil servants
that made a majority of urban citizens stay at home. Political, social media and civil society
activists would argue it was the intention
to send a clear political message to the current government that citizens are
tired of its incompetence amidst non-ending corruption scandals. Others, still would argue that it was the
fear of the unknown consequences of going to work that ensured the stay at home
and wait it out strategy.
In all of these explanations there shall also be claims made
by the various activists, especially the teachers unions and the civil service
associations, the activists/social media activists (#ThisFlag, #Tajamuka, Occupy
Africa Unity Square) of having provided the determinative leadership of the
stay away. Or at least as to having been the most listened to by the majority
of citizens that chose to stay at home. For
this, there is no one final answer, and it will always be contested terrain
until the next planned, unplanned, coincidental mass action. The contests however do not take away the
full political import of the stay away.
But there is the one actor that, until the day of the mass action
itself, was not viewed as a standalone factor.
This player is the internet and its offshoot social media platforms.
Especially the Whatsapp application which was used by all actors and players in
their calls for strikes, protests and stay-aways. Not only because it was briefly shut down
(neither government nor the mobile phone companies have taken the blame), but
also because the very act of shutting it down, for the same period, became the
major talking point on other platforms such as twitter and facebook. Not that the strike itself was not important. But the medium also became the message.
It was knowing about the strike via our mobile phones that
became even more important. The medium/technology
we were using to communicate became not only key but also fundamental to how we
perceived or understood not only the strike/stay away but also our roles in it.
All of this based on the fact of the
speed with which the medium i.e the internet/Whatsapp/ mobile telephony allowed
us to relay or receive messages, and how close, personal and beyond government control
it is. We determined what we wanted to
read and what we wanted to believe on this social media platform as
individuals, as groups and by default as people with access to this one aspect
of the internet.
This to the extent that even where in some cases exaggerated/dishonest
stories were received or relayed on the platform, a good number of Zimbabweans
chose, quite literally, to believe these stories in aid of what they wanted the
strike either to become, or to continue as. And mainly in either video or
pictorial format especially when posting about something burning or equally
dramatic.
More significantly was the fact that in the build up to what
was initially a civil servants planned strike, the various incidences that
occurred at the Beitbridge border post, at Africa Unity Square, at Rainbow
Towers Hotel, in Chitungwiza had all been varyingly posted on social media. On
Whatsapp they were posted and re-posted to various ‘groups’ thus extending the
reach of the information/knowledge about sometimes unrelated events/actions. In the process, Whatsapp replaced what would
have been routine/ regular mobilization strategies of bigger meetings and
mainstream media campaign strategies. The Whatsapp groups became the small town meetings and gathering points. And here I mean all
sorts of groups, from those related to churches, families, sports, social
clubs, informal traders, formal companies and human rights/civil society organizations.
The particular significance of this is that the mobilization strategies
of old are not always going to be as effective. And that the existence of
social media, where it is an integral part of combining evidently direct causes
such as those relating to late payment of salaries, will always find credence particularly
because of the speed at which information can be shared and above all, owned
and believed in order to be minimally acted upon by millions of citizens at a
time. That on its own, is a potential revolution waiting to happen. Hence someone wanted it shut down. Even if
temporarily.
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity
(takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)
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