By Takura Zhangazha*
So the American Congress wants to ban a social media application
known as TikTok. It is owned by a
Chinese based company but as with global financialised neoliberalism also has
owners on American financial shores. It
would appear the major problem with this social media platform is the fact of
its ownership by a company based in a country (China) that does not permit it
in its own geographical territory but is relatively popular in the global
west/north. Especially with young people.
It would also appear that there is no major political
dispute on this matter between either the Congress and Senate of the same
country on this matter. Unlike on health
care or abortion and in rare occurrences, the war in Ukraine. Or the genocide in Palestine.
There is however some sort of consensus between at least
what can be considered the legislature and the executive (presidency) on the
matter of the social media application that is Tiktok. Mainly because TikTok is
considered a Chinese threat in one cultural, political and economic form or the
other to American global (or at least) internet and intelligence hegemony.
I recently had no idea what this Tiktok application was or
is. Like many others it is downloadable
on Google Play Store or it’s competing opposite Apple. And probably among many other internet based
platforms.
The American Congress has now recently passed a draft law,
subject to the President of the United States (USA) Joe Biden’s
approval/signature it would make for any American shareholders to either buy
off the company in country or it will be shut down in the near future. Or else the platform would be banned in the
USA and probably with a similar follow up ban within the territories of the USA’s
allies
This all, again, being based on the assumption that the
TikTok platform is being used to influence young people’s minds via short, fashionable
and entertaining videos that arguably target their own age groups. Without
being algorithmically controlled from the Global North but the Global
East. Albeit in what is evidently an increasingly
multipolar world and with its alleged multiple proxy wars. Not just politically but also culturally.
So I also popped over to Zimbabwean TikTok online to check
it out with a little bit of trepidation. The latter stemmed from the fact that I
had always been told its about young people and their emerging issues and consciousness
in short self made video clips.
While asking myself about what this was all about, I noticed
that the platform appeared relatively harmless, Diaspora focused and morbidly
about lost loved ones (funerals) in our Southern African context.
What then struck me is that it is now part of our new
digital normal for young Zimbabweans. At
least for the young urbanites who have access to it and also platforms that
easily link up with it such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook (in that sort
of particular order).
So when you join/ subscribe to TikTok the most striking thing
is that fact of young cdes subscribing
to it. And then not asking any questions
about who owns it. Or why there is what
would appear to be an initially minor global power (China/USA) dispute about it. Then you realise, ah it’s about a desire for
actual recognition of their existence by many of our young cdes. They may either believe in their false
immortality (this is after all the age of Netflix where everyone is a superhero)
or only a few can become millionaires and mimic the Global North rich by purchasing
not only cultural or political icons, mimicking them (as they did with Obama) but
also by straddling a false, ahistorical national consciousness. (This is a debate for another day)
One that links up with a materialistic religiosity in which belief,
wealth and simplicity of existence are intertwined to no particular benefit or
avail for the betterment of collective society.
And not to sound like a broken record our labels of individualism have probably
been as high as they are now. “Angova mazvekezvake” (individualism) as
Thomas Mapfumo once sang.
What remains astounding however is what I refer to as the
formal hypocrisy of the global media and its repressive attendant Global North
hegemony. Almost as though you would
need to remind Africa and in tandem with other Global South cdes that whatever happens
to Earth, it happens to all of us together.
Be it in the proverbial political (kingdom, religious or apocalyptic) realms.
To assume free expression is not universal is to reverse progressive
history. In our African context, we must remain true to this value. We should feel no pressure to follow a
Chinese or American example on this issue.
As Nyerere once wrote, and I am paraphrasing here, “ In Africa, we sit
under a tree, until we agree.”
The proposed ban on Tiktok in the USA is reflective of
Orwellian tendencies that assume some animals, technologically, are better than
others. And that we, in the Global
South, can still not tell the difference. But in reality we can, we will and we
will eventually remember Amilcar Cabral.
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity
(takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)
No comments:
Post a Comment