As police in the USA intensify anti-protest action in Ferguson tweeters start sending advice and sympathy from Gaza, especially on how to withstand armed forces’ terror tactics…
Do not expect Obama to travel to #Ferguson, unless it is to show solidarity with the police.
Wow…A man picks up burning tear gas can and throws it back at police pic.twitter.com/qiLwujczqrwujYourAnonNews @YourAnonNews<Not just a man…a dread! Jah RASTAfari!!!!
Presenting a Storified tweetshot of reactions from those of us in the Global South as our representatives at the World Cup in Brazil surged ahead on the day that the Black Stars (Ghana) and the Super Eagles (NIG) made their presence felt–race, religion, colour, ethnicity, nationality–all came in for comment. For example, the following tweet from Jean Lowrie-Chin in Jamaica: @chinhubert saw a tweet during #GHAvsUSA: “Not sure who to back – Ancestors from Ghana but remittances from USA” ☺ #Brasil2014. Check it out…
The ethnic makeups of the 32 squads at the World Cup reflect the sedimentary layers of global migration over the last 500 years. The European colonial destruction of indigenous Americans gives us the almost wholly European squads of Chile, Argentina and Mexico; Australia can be considered an Oceanic version of this.
Why the gap between Jamaican media and latest technologies?
Can’t afford the rights to this cartoon, but am carrying it with a link to the original site as free advertising…
Recently I heard Naomi Francis and Emily Crooks on Nationwide Radio exclaiming how Twitter has changed the way they consume content, especially television and other live streaming content, and how much they enjoyed watching The Voice while commenting simultaneously along with so many others on Twitter. A heartfelt Hallelujah. Our media has finally got it. Not a moment too soon for this is the end of 2013 and one day scholars and analysts will want to know why Jamaican media were such late adopters of new media in general; the first big-name journalist to start blogging here was Dionne Jackson-Miller in 2012.
There were several younger, lesser known journalists who started Twitter accounts in the early days and used social media tools (Laura Redpath was one of them), but there seems not to have been any recognition on the part of their media houses that what they were doing was valuable activity, that should have been taken up at the highest levels.
For those plebs like myself who started blogging in 2008, and tweeting in 2009, it remained a mystery why the media here seemed to be spurning the most revolutionary news and opinion-gathering tools to come along in decades. For us the Tessane Chin moment Ems and Nems were describing on Nationwide had happened in 2008 when we watched Obama’s historic win, while talking to each other on Twitter, not only regionally but globally.
I’d really love to know why it took Jamaica’s top media fraternity another five years to get clued in on the powers and pleasures of Twitter. I suggest it behooves them to take a good, long look at their own foot-dragging in this context and ask what it means. What does this hostility to change imply for Jamaica’s future? The world as we know it is irrevocably moving from analog to digital modes of communication. Abandon hope all ye who insist on ignoring this fact or who convinced themselves that social media was just a fad that would go away. If it might help let me quote from a post I wrote in January 2010, “Jamaica’s Twitter-shy Media: When will the would-be watchdogs of Jamaican democracy wake up?“:
I wonder if 2010 will prove to be the year when Jamaican journalists finally discover Twitter. Their silence on/in this increasingly crucial new medium is deafening. Where are @Boyne, @MartinHenry, @Wignall, @Hughes and @emilycrooks? Don’t you know that Twitter is how news is telegraphed nowadays and audiences created?
Ah well, i continue to scratch my head in perplexity at the lagging behind of those who claim to be our watchdogs. Their caginess and timidity would be amusing if it wasn’t so tragic. While the formal, English-speaking posse bury their heads in the sand the Patwa-speakers are off and running with the new technologies. I was able to get a blow-by-blow account of the rather uneventful Sting finale this year because the dancehall massive and crew were tweeting comments and photos, alternately transmitting their disgust at the lack of clashing and fear when shots were fired amongst a range of reactions which i wouldn’t have missed for the world.
May i recommend that our celebrated journalists…take a crash course in Twitter? The lagging behind in use of new technologies from the most literate segments of Jamaican society contradicts the ‘English is better than Patwa’ message that the English-speaking elites are constantly advancing, claiming that English is necessary to ‘move ahead’, converse with the rest of the world, keep up with new knowledge and so on. It would seem from the example that they’re setting that English is actually holding back the learned, speaky-spoky elites.
Even the latest Shebada play Serious Business, pivots on the plot-bending detail of ‘Facebook and Twidder’ for he plays a Revival preacher from New York, with 5000 Facebook friends and 3000 Twitter followers. Those are his qualifications for being hired to replace the crufty, corrupt old Preacher who is busy ripping off the Church at every opportunity he gets. It’s an amazing development when the less literate massive and crew get the new technologies before those who benefited from the highest education this country can offer. What can it portend for the future?
I’ve also tried, unsuccessfully so far, to interest my colleagues at the University of the West Indies in logging on to things digital, for Twitter and Facebook are prime hunting grounds for researching social opinion, commentary and discourse in general. With a few exceptions (Damien King, Sonjah Stanley-Niaah, Donna Hope, Julian Cresser, Marcia Forbes) most UWI academics have spurned these new modes of communication and research. While it may once have been possible to claim to be world-class without having to prove it, be warned that the lack of a significant digital footprint today in any enterprise that claims to be cutting edge, immediately betrays the falsity of such truth claims.
Meanwhile according to a Daily Beast article listing the 10 most popular journalists on Twitter: “MuckRack…reported that the New York Times has the most journalists on Twitter, with 502 tweeting reporters, editors, and photographers. Reuters was just shy of the lead with 496.”
The other day Richard Drayton asked a number of us on Facebook a provocative question: “…why do you commit the energy and time you do to Twitter?”…
I proffered a number of reasons but chief among them is what i think of as ‘locality’; how Twitter gives you the ability to tune in to any locality you wish as long as there are people from there on Twitter. This means that I’m now in touch with events, opinions and news from Pakistan, that shoulder that was chopped off the torso of India in 1947 leaving the citizens of both countries strangers to each other. Some of my favourite tweeple are the tweeters from Pakistan i follow, chief among them @BhopalHouse. This morning she tweeted the link to the post below which offers a perspective on the rage sweeping through the so-called Middle East that I’m happy to have come across. It offers a neat counter to international media narratives of overheated Muslims succumbing to irrational rage threatening to take us all back to the so-called Middle Ages…
“The world has clearly gone crazy. That a lame movie trailer (does the actual movie even exist?) made in the US by some kind of Coptic Christian can induce people to attack branches of KFC or the German embassy in Khartoum is simply too bizarre for comprehension.
So can I just point out the fine example of Pakistan for a moment. This country, usually portrayed as a steaming cesspit of crazy, beard-wearing nutcases intent on destroying the West, managed to broadly treat the “Innocence of Muslims” movie trailer with the contempt it deserved, for the most part ignoring the amateurish provocation for what it was.”
PS: This blogpost was clearly premature. Within a few days there were violent protests all over Pakistan. Read an account of the US consulate being stormed here.
Terry McMillan announced this morning that she’d be taking a one-month break from Twitter to write her next novel. In a series of tweets she explained her predicament before making her exit:
Terry McMillan @MsTerryMcMillan
After much deliberation, I have decided to take a one month leave from Twitter in my quest to complete a rough draft of my novel.
Terry McMillan @MsTerryMcMillan
Please know how much I look forward to hanging out with you all on an almost daily basis, but I’ve lost my focus and want to get it back.
Terry McMillan @MsTerryMcMillan
I’ve never written a novel under the influence of Twitter (!) and it is difficult to do with so much going on in the world that disturbs me.
Terry McMillan @MsTerryMcMillan
However, in order to concentrate, sometimes you have to eliminate distractions. It’s lonely, but ultimately, gratifying.
Terry McMillan @MsTerryMcMillan
I am accustomed to writing without thinking. Twitter allows me to think in 140 characters. Sometimes, I don’t want to think. I want to feel.
Terry McMillan @MsTerryMcMillan
So, off I go. I call it surrendering. Where you give your all to what you’re doing. Or don’t do it at all. I chose to do the damn thang.
Terry McMillan @MsTerryMcMillan
I hope all of you pray that I write with conviction & I will pray that you feel as much joy, strength, love & courage as possible.
Terry McMillan @MsTerryMcMillan
And we rock on.
Terry McMillan @MsTerryMcMillan
Grateful.
Meanwhile Columbia journalism professor and social media guru Sree Sreenivasan went on an all day Twitter and Facebook fast to raise scholarship funds. The following tweets are self-explanatory and following that I excerpt something from the Columbia School of Journalism page giving the fuller context:
Sree Sreenivasan @sree
#SilenceSree starts midmorning. How many of you give determines how long I stay off FB & Twitter: http://bit.ly/silencesree #cuj12
Sree Sreenivasan @sree
It’s #SilenceSree Day! Enough of you gave $5 to keep me off Twitter till 9 pm ET. Prolong my misery by donating today: http://bit.ly/sreesilence
Silence Sree Fundraiser
Can @Sree go a day without Twitter and Facebook? Maybe for charity! Donate to silence Sree!
Silence Sree
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Columbia’s chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is raising donations for a scholarship fund that will be awarded to one or several students enrolled in the incoming class. We hope this new tradition will continue long after the Class of 2012 graduates.
Boring.
The real cause? Getting Sree to stop Tweeting (and Facebooking, Posterousing, Pininteresting, and FourSquaring) for a day. Here’s how last year’s class raised money and kept Sree silent.
The goal is 200 people. The percentage of 200 that donates will correspond to the amount of time Sree will be silenced. (Maximum one day. Communication is kind of his job!) If 200 people give, then Sree is off for a day. If only 20 people reach in their pockets, then he isn’t staying off that long, about 2.5 hours.
1 dollar in person contributes to silencing Sree. There is a 5 dollar minimum if you donate online.
Finally, completely unrelated, but how many of you realized that today was the anniversary of Claude McKay’s death? I wouldn’t have known were it not for the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh whose twitter feed i follow:
Scottish Poetry Lib @ByLeavesWeLive
Claude McKay, the Jamaican-born poet, died in Chicago on this day in 1948…
Scottish Poetry Lib @ByLeavesWeLive
“There is joy in the woods just now/The leaves are whispers of song/& the birds make mirth on the bough/& music the whole day long” C McKay
Scottish Poetry Lib @ByLeavesWeLive
“For one brief golden moment rare like wine,/The gracious city swept across the line/Oblivious of the color of my skin.” Claude McKay
Scottish Poetry Lib @ByLeavesWeLive ”I must not see upon your face/Love’s softly glowing spark;/For there’s the barrier of race,/You’re fair and I am dark.” Claude McKay
A selection of tweets that appeared under the hashtag #bookswithalettermissing and how it spilled over onto Facebook…
A baby Dik-dik--a tiny East African antelope (via @biscuitzombie)
On August 3, 2011, someone on Twitter started a hashtag that unleashed a veritable firestorm of creativity from people around the world trying to think of whacky new entries for book titles with a letter missing. All these tweets were consolidated under the hashtag #bookswithalettermissing. I present a selection for your pleasure…
Brilliant! RT @bartandlife Franz Fanon’s – White Ski Black Mask
The Enigma of a Rival #Bookswithalettermissing<Paul Theroux’s lost book…
But it was after I posted the preceding title on Facebook that the Trinis took over the competition, betraying Bolt-like capacities. There was no keeping up with them so I retired from the fray and left them to dream up the following list of priceless titles:
Judy Raymond Came up with a couple: the book that sums up Salman Rushdie’s entire oeuvre: Same
Jonathan Ali On the Naipaul theme: A Hose for Mr Biswas (gardening)
Judy Raymond The gothic novel about Heathcliff’s rowing ambitions: Wuthering Eights
Judy Raymond A novel about typographers: And then We Came to the En
Judy Raymond A culinary memoir by Margaret Atwood: The Year of the Food·
Jonathan Ali A French woman’s struggle with infertility: Madame Ovary
Judy Raymond Nick Hornby’s novel about a deadly new plague…Fever Itch
Judy Raymond Michael Holding’s memoir, War and Pace
Judy Raymond Lottery winner mysteriously disappears in Gone with the Win
Georgia Popplewell Argh – just as I was about to retire for the night. There’s also Nabokov’s Madison Avenue screed – Ad. ·
Georgia Popplewell And Faulkner’s scathing indictment of the mink industry – The Sound and the Fur.
Judy Raymond That classic of little creatures on the riverbank, Harry Otter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Jonathan Ali What about Joyce’s novel about a teenage writer who has a baby? Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ma
Georgia Popplewell If you let me remove two letters, I’d recommend Graham Greene’s paean to Chinese fast food – The Pow and the Glory. (But I know that’s cheating).
Judy Raymond New World archaeological text: Ur Man in Havana
Jonathan Ali Bet you never read Greene’s novel about his mother’s trip to Cuba—Our Ma in Havana
Judy Raymond Or the one about the female Hannibal Lecter-style mass murderer, The Ma in the Iron Mask
Dudus on Twitter? and a satirical look at the Mannatt Commission of Inquiry in Jamaica.
Guess who's on Twitter?
@dudusfromtivoli Awaiting Trial Businessman. Entrepreneur. Philanthropist. Peacekeeper. Proud Jamaican goes the bio on the Twitter page of the purported Don who was extradited from Jamaica last June. As The KD Knight Show, otherwise known as the Manatt Commission of Inquiry (an expensive investigation into the circumstances that led the Jamaican Government to allegedly hire the services of Washington law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips to influence the US Government to backpedal on its ‘request’ for Dudus’s extradition to the US to face drug running and other charges), rolls into its third or fourth week the Jamaican Twittersphere has suddenly become twice as interesting with the entry of someone tweeting as if they’re the imprisoned don, Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, languishing in a New York prison.
The Twitter persona @dudusfromtivoli comments sardonically on the proceedings of the Inquiry. He also solicits company on Twitter:
Tweeting till lights off at 10pm – who keeping me company? #twitterafterdark scary in prison.
Below, I’ve listed his tweets in ascending order…that is, you’ll have to scroll down to the bottom and read them bottom up if you want to be chronological. And while you’re down there you may as well check out the videoclip of Anthony Miller/Entertainment Report’s priceless take on the Manatt Inquiry from TVJ in which footage from the Inquiry is played in slomo to the theme music from Perry Mason.
Both of these (and the cartoon below) are cause for celebration, political satire is alive and well in Jamaica. Enjoy!
Prison life babes. RT @mummasuss: Is this person bored! RT @Moosie928: follow @dudusfromtivoli now for free digicel credit
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
10pm boss. RT @Moosie928: @dudusfromtivoli nigga lights out a pass ur bed time
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
Its called “prison” RT @MsRaine: @anniepaul LOL!!! Some people really have a lot of time on their hands…i.e. ———> @dudusfromtivoli
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
@bruceJLP Is this the PM or the Party Leader speaking? Put me on to NDM Bruce please.
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
Who said digicel? I do not recall. #misrepresentation RT @Moosie928: follow @dudusfromtivoli now for free digicel credit
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
Conjugal visits coming up 😉 RT @JBooMc: @dudusfromtivoli … lol I will be ur company
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
Former “gunman” on CVM – I see you still wear that shirt I bought you 6 years ago. I see you hater!
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
Always marry rich. RT @Jherane_: Am I the only one who thought Veronica should’ve gotten with Reggie?
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
RT @ToniToneTonz: YO @dudusfromtivoli say free credit for all new followers!! <— 3rd baby mother now taking bribes for credit “contracts”
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
Tweeting till lights off at 10pm – who keeping me company? #twitterafterdark scary in prison.
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
No pin. Cellie jealous #prisonlifehard RT @Moosie928: @dudusfromtivoli send me u pin waa link u off air
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
Free credit for new followers #electiontime RT @thereallyquiet1: “@anniepaul: Follow the don! @dudusfromtivoli … http://tmi.me/7jrLg
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
Bought it from a guard 2nd hand #prisonlifehard RT @Moosie928: freedom is a must @dudusfromtivoli a which bb u a work wid?
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
Both. Conjugal visit coming up 😉 RT @NinaRazzi: From real jail or twitter jail…??? Lmao! RT @Moosie928: #free @dudusfromtivoli
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
RT @ToniToneTonz: all hail PREZI!<;— 3rd Jamaican baby mother
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Dudus
@dudusfromtivoli
@anniepaul <—- new Indian baby mother
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli
#endorsed RT @Mark_N_Amos: Mannat enquiry imo, is a waste of time, no time for the stupid politicians that jamaica has…..
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli
#celebrity RT @phcjam: RT @panmediajamaica: People are heading home early just to watch the Manatt/Dudus Commission’s proceedings.
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
Christmas gift. RT @musicmala: Go deh Babsy! Show dem di BB Torch! Raaaaeeeeee LOL
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
Link up. Always looking for foot soldiers. RT @frass28: @dudusfromtivoli me waan me the boss miself yah enuh buss a link nuh…
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
#politricks RT @JcSkyline: Lol, Babsy a wave the Torch though…. At least I’m seeing where my money goes.. Lol #TvJNews
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
Smart woman RT @MeishMGM:’In this age of technology you do not need to be in office to get your work done’; Babsy as she waves her BB
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
Best friends stab you in the front. RT @anniepaul: @corvedacosta yes, is Babsy there as Dorothy’s best friend? A handmaiden to justice?
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
Pray for me. RT @JBooMc: @dudusfromtivoli …. omg u answered hope all is well with u bossy babylon system is real messed up !
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
Ustream link? RT @CassiusWatson: I’m sometimes confused as to where #DarienHenry #TVJ is either filing a report or Anchoring the newscast
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
You’re telling me? Idle hands here in lock up. RT @jt_ninja: inactivity can be just as devastating.
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
Hope that happens in my case. RT @LifeinJamaica: Judge on strike! over salary issues
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
Smart woman. RT @JBooMc: I asked my mom who runs downtown like how #Dudus is in prison my mom said the babylon lol …. only in #Jamaica
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
#notonmyteam RT @lauraredpath: There’s a man sitting beside me fondling his crotch #manatt-dudus commission of enquiry
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
Keep walking. RT @frass28: @Skittleshoni no walk towards the light @Skittleshoni dont get dragged in u mite meet dudus and lie bout it.
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
A form of dyslexia? She knows my name. RT @gocharms: Why does she keep calling him Christopher Coke Dudus? #mannatt
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
Pretty girl like you should’t be working. RT @sweetsultryshen: Yes manatt/dudus commission going til 4…there goes my day
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
Imagine watching it from jail. RT @ProdigalJa: Dudus, President, Prezi, Shortman, General….. sometimes seeing and … http://tmi.me/7jnYJ
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
The lord is my shepard. RT @kookiekare: God Kno Dudus RT @nadyapatrese: God kno?? @donRwil @KookieKare
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
Babylon system. RT @nel_cc_nic: So since buju’s fate is set….whatever happen to Dudus? ‘Got lost in the system’?
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
@bruceJLP Boss link up. I’ve got internet privileges in prison now.
2 Mar
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Dudus
dudusfromtivoli Dudus
New to this Twitter thing. Big up to my supporters!
2 Mar
A selection of tweets i favourited in the 24 hours leading up 11.2.11 Egypt’s day of reckoning….
Data visualization of Egypt's Tweets:
So the Egyptians got their Friday of Departure after all–congratulations to them! This is a heady moment for all of us, Egyptian or not–
What a rollercoaster of a few days! 11.2.11 has proved to be unforgettable for all Egyptians except one: ex-President Hosni Mobarak who probably wants to erase all memories of Jan 25 and its ineluctable aftermath.
I found Pioneer editor Kanchan Gupta’s analysis of the tumultuous events in the Middle East to be comprehensive and useful (though i don’t share his fear of a Muslim alliance):
…As Egypt burst into celebrations, a bitter realisation began to sink in: If the US could abandon Mubarak, it could also say goodbye to others without allowing friendships of the past to weigh too heavily on its conscience.
Ironically, it is this perceived callous indifference of the US towards a beleaguered Mubarak in his last days in office that has left many flummoxed in Arabia. Egypt under the Mubarak dispensation, backed by the Army, was the best bet for peace in the region, especially in regard to Israel. It was also the best defence against the rise of radical Islamism whose practitioners see themselves as the alternative to incumbent Arab regimes. With Mubarak gone, the Muslim Brotherhood is preparing to make a dramatic appearance either through collaboration or alone in Egyptian politics; through Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamists have seized power in Gaza; in Lebanon, the Hizbullah, which has toppled the Hariri Government and put into place a regime controlled by Islamists, increasingly and frighteningly calls the shots; in Tunisia, dormant Islamism has come alive after the long-exiled leader of the till recently outlawed Islamist party Ennahdha, Rachid Ghanouchi, made a triumphant return home; in Jordan, the Friday street protests are being led by Islamists sustained by the Ikhwan’s ideology; in Yemen, Islamists are waiting for the palace to fall under their assault; in Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, a deep undercurrent of radical Islamism is waiting to burst forth.
A gleeful Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has described the Egyptian uprising as the unleashing of an “Islamic wave”. His protégé and Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has described the Egyptian uprising and the collapse of the Mubarak regime exactly 32 years to the day of the fall of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi on February 11, 1979, as the “emergence of a new Middle East that will doom Israel and break free of American interference”.
On the subject of social media’s role in the recent ‘revolutions’ I found Global Voices Online co-founder Ethan Zuckerman’s comments thought-provoking:
– While there’s been extensive debate about whether social media helped organize or promote the protests in Egypt, I think the interesting story to watch will be whether social media can help Egypt in the transition to democracy. Power now rests with a council of military leaders, and there have been suggestions that this group could be complemented by a council of civilian “wise men”, giving a seat at the table to figures like Mohamed El-Baradei.
In lieu of having anything compelling to say myself I’ve decided to put up tweets I ‘favourited’ it in the last 24 hours or so (Twitter’s ‘favourite’ feature is a phenomenal tool which i use with abandon). Some of them reference Egyptian events and some don’t, but for what they’re worth here they are…with the most recent ones from this morning leading…
Why Gladwell is wrong about the recent revolts in the Middle East from Iran to Egypt.
Protesters take part in an anti-Mubarak protest at Tahrir square in Cairo February 1, 2011. At least one million Egyptians took to the streets on Tuesday in scenes never before seen in the Arab nation's modern history, roaring in unison for President Hosni Mubarak and his new government to quit. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem58. Protesters hold a banner during a demonstration in Cairo January 30, 2011. Egyptian opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei told thousands of protesters in central Cairo on Sunday that an uprising against Hosni Mubarak's rule cannot go back. REUTERS/Asmaa Waguih
I’d bet my bottom dollar that somewhere in Tahrir Square today they’re blasting Bob Marley’s revolutionary lyrics while chanting down Babylon. We’re going to chase those crazy baldheads out of town–Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights–Rebel Music–Burnin’ and lootin’–almost every one of his songs yields a line of sheer rebellion and his music is all-pervasive. As @kristainchicago said on Twitter today: Universal truth: no matter what country you’re in, there’s a bar somewhere playing No Woman, No Cry.
Clovis, Sunday Observer, February 6, 2011
Malcolm Gladwell has been shooting off his mouth insistently about whether or not social media played a role in the latest set of insurrections in the Middle East. His thesis is that revolutions took place before Facebook and Twitter from which he concludes that the recent uprisings had nothing to do with social media and even if they did, this is ultimately fundamentally unimportant compared to the reasons for the respective revolts.
People protested and brought down governments before Facebook was invented. They did it before the Internet came along. Barely anyone in East Germany in the nineteen-eighties had a phone—and they ended up with hundreds of thousands of people in central Leipzig and brought down a regime that we all thought would last another hundred years—and in the French Revolution the crowd in the streets spoke to one another with that strange, today largely unknown instrument known as the human voice. People with a grievance will always find ways to communicate with each other. How they choose to do it is less interesting, in the end, than why they were driven to do it in the first place.
A respondent to Gladwell, AliaThabit, succinctly pointed out the flaws in his thesis:
I just got back from Egypt last night. If the internet were of no consequence, the govt would not have shut it down–along w/ the mobile network in Cairo, and FB and the SMS network over the whole country, which is how most people there communicate–everyone has a mobile, and sms are free (calls are not). I spent most of the first week of the revolution in Aswan with a hotel full of Cairo students who were on holiday–we (and the whole town) were all glued to the television, and they were also glued to their phones. Information raced around the country. The French may not have had Twitter, but they would have used it if they had. There are twenty million people in Cairo alone. How many lived in Paris?
There is a crucial point that the prolific Gladwell (whose mother is Jamaican) is missing. The celebrated revolutions of yesteryear all had heroic leaders around whom sustained acts of dissent, rebellion and revolt were mobilized. What is noteworthy about the recent wave of popular uprisings everywhere from Iran to Tunisia to Egypt is that they have been ‘leaderless revolutions’. This marked change in modus operandi between traditional revolution and its contemporary counterpart is worth studying; the reasons for the shift are attributed to the speed with which information is collected and disseminated by groups of people using the new social networks. The era of the charismatic leader may be over.
I’m indebted to Nicholas Mirzoeff and his new blog For the Right to Look for these insights:
Whether or not the revolutions will have been fully successful–and no-one has really defined that success–there is a palpable and electric sense of change, not just in North Africa but globally. The events have revealed that there is already a network for change and how it has worked. One tweet widely circulating from Egypt outlined the method: “Facebook used to set the date, Twitter used to share logistics, YouTube to show the world, all to connect people.” The dispersed co-ordination shows that the network has learned from Iran that social networking can also be used by the police to track down activists. Mubarak tried to cut off all Internet access, hoping that this would quell the street actions. Facebook went first, followed by Twitter, then all connections. It was a revolution watched on social networks, but acted in the streets.
…The result has been the now-characteristic “leaderless” revolutions, as the Western media have depicted them, as if expecting new Castros and Lenins to materialize. Unable to comprehend networked change, those working in hierarchical companies are already writing banal opinion pieces predicting the collapse of the revolutions for lack of the very kind of leadership that provoked the uprisings. Should the revolutions fail, it will be following the combination of local state violence and globalized governmental and corporate hostility. Israel and Saudi Arabia found an unusual point of agreement in opposing the Egyptian revolution, while stock markets plunged on January 29 as it became clear that the revolution was not going to be crushed. Oil prices hit $100 a barrel on January 31, the usual profiteering from democracy. Israel has begun leading a movement to support Mubarak for fear of the unknown.
Tunisia exploded first, and a domino effect spills over multiple countries. Yemen, Algeria, Jordan. And now Egypt, cradle of humanity, that threatens to remove the Mubarak cancer by the force of the protesters…
…I wonder: why not Cuba? As I watch TV, listen to the demands of the volatile Egyptians. Listen, for example: “We got tired of lies, misery. For decades we endured the dictator Mubarak who has ruined this country.” We hear Egyptian scholars say:” I am a lawyer and live like a beggar. I earn $60 a month, and my rent alone is $75.” And we can not avoid the immediate association with our island.
I’ve heard all the arguments of the Egyptians. And I do not think there is one, I repeat — not one — which does not apply to my country. The same hunger and hopelessness, the same distaste for an inept government; the very low wages that don’t stretch even to survive, the underground corruption; the warning, just look at the living standards of the ruling class; and now, ironically, Cuba is also added to the list of countries with high unemployment.
And then there arises, inevitably, the pointed question: Why not Cuba?
If I had to respond I would start by pointing out a subtle reality: The control of information in my tranquilized country is, aberrantly, more fierce than in countries such as those that have just exploded. For those who don’t believe information has such an important role, I suggest they ask themselves: Why has the opening act of every classic dictatorship in History been to seize the methods of communication?
So this is what Gladwell glibly elides–how messages of revolution are transmitted is crucial–this is why as Licea observes dictators and powerbrokers have always tried to control the media, whether these were the drums of the enslaved signaling revolt on Caribbean plantations or more contemporary forms of broadcasting which now include Twitter and Facebook. Sorry Malcolm you can’t just blink this one away…
*Please note that God as portrayed by Clovis in the cartoon above does not appear to be black. #justsaying
Well, Tropical Storm Nicole tittupped across the length and breadth of Jamaica like a woman scorned, ripping the country’s attention away from it’s favourite Rasta to matters of life and death. But not before a couple of hilarious Buju-inspired exchanges on Twitter that ranged from the sublimely funny to the ridiculous. The latter first. I got into a lengthy exchange with Queen Sheba1302 who was sending out anguished tweets from Germany asking why there was a worldwide ‘media blackout’ on Buju. Perhaps the rest of the world had more urgent matters to attend to i suggested? To which i got this response:
Well, it’s a pressing matter here in Jamaica where Buju comes from i said, so naturally he would receive coverage here, the rest of the world however… No, no, insisted Queen Sheba, he’s an international celebrity, why they even devoted so much time to the likes of Dudus, and Buju is much bigger, much bigger.
But 73 people died in the process of extraditing Dudus, that’s why he was awarded so much international coverage, I tried to suggest, but the Queen wouldn’t be persuaded. The Jamaican media doesn’t cover Bollywood i said, but i can assure you it’s not because of a ‘media blackout’, its just lack of interest, after which i gave up because it was clear that nothing would appease Queen Sheba. I urged her to organize a worldwide Twitter campaign on Buju’s behalf and left it at that.
Of course the other fallout from the Buju saga is a certain amount of nervous paranoia expressed in jokes about the situation (A key piece of evidence produced against the singer was a conversation he had had with the passenger seated next to him on a flight from Madrid to Miami in which he bragged about his coke deals). Peter Dean Rickards, headed to the Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival, vouchsafed on Twitter that he was keeping his lips zipped on his flight to Trinidad and Tobago; another tweep @Grindacologist found himself trapped on a bus next to a garrulous Israeli. The following flock of tweets he issued that morning had us convulsed with laughter:
Meanwhile the US courts seem determined to keep the Voice of Jamaica captive even though the jury was split down the middle (like Barbican Road) and couldn’t deliver a verdict. A new trial is slated for December. Sigh. It doesn’t look good for Jamaica’s beloved Rasta. He seems to have bad kismat. Hope he lives to rule his destiny once again.
But the residents have not been “rioting.” It just isn’t true. Protesting: yes. Outraged: yes. Clashing with police: yes. Rioting: No
Active Voice 