more share options...

RSS

‹ Back

Revolutionising mobilisation

2011-02-02

Revolutionising mobilisation

By Cees Bruggemans, Chief Economist FNB Cees@fnb.co.za

01 February 2011


Disagreement is a daily occurrence. When many start to disagree, finding focus and unity among themselves, one can start speaking of a movement.

If masses feel similar, we may have a mass movement and can change be enacted if it can overcome Authority.

In other words, focused disagreement is power in action and can make the earth shake like herds of passing elephants or buffalo.

Historically, technology was slow to feature in mobilizing such movements. The main early 'modern' examples are books and spreadsheets (the printing press).

Technology found on the side of Authority was still most powerful, suppressing such disagreement, mainly through propaganda, and if that failed a show of force, through the law and if need be backed up with real force (modern weapons).

The French Revolution, the overthrow of established order, knew an active media presence and was mainly a word-of-mouth operation which was ultimately so successful in mobilising Parisian crowds (and from there into the hinterland, spreading like a bushfire) that it became strong enough even to overcome Authority, with as little as its concentrated venom and pitchforks.

The American Revolution, which preceded it by a few years, also involved a man and his horse (Paul Revere), famously spreading his warning about the coming redcoats.

But that was about it where technology was concerned.

In our time, telegraph and telephone among leaders and radio and television aimed at mass audiences became part of the coordinating and mobilising ability.

Aimed against an individual (for being a poor politician), against a company (for sinning against the environment, against public health or the public interest generally), against an entrenched government (for thwarting peaceful change where change was overdue, as it no longer represented the popular wishes).

Colonial authority was partly overthrown that way in many countries over many decades (according to Mao through power growing out of the barrel of a gun).

Apartheid died that way, through internal and external mobilization, mostly still through use of printed media and limited telephone and television use internally, while far more pervasively using global media coverage (the printed word but especially radio and television) to draw attention to a searing plight.

This took decades.

Far more abrupt was the transformation effected in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s.

Discontent had been brewing there also for decades, ever since the Russians walked in. There had been active global mobilization for the cause, with Radio Freedom beaming from Luxembourg. But for long this got nowhere.

As Western Europe grew richer in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, while Eastern Europe fell far behind, remaining isolated in its enforced travel and media cocoons, it was television that became the great can opener.

East European households also acquired television (a fatal mistake of their regimes?) and tuned increasingly (and illegally) into Western stations, seeing with their own eyes what they were missing. A lack of freedom, relative backwardness and missing family links were reason enough, but the display of wealth and opportunity across the Curtain was deeply galvanizing.

Communism was implacable, its guns many and cruel, and Eastern populations remained suppressed and docile, even if the wish for freedom was poisoning the well.

And then in a rush change came, as mass movements came into being that started to test their prison walls and finding them crumbling, only half-heartedly fought by failing regimes as common sense increasingly won out.

What took certain countries in Eastern Europe years to accomplish, others accomplished in a year, six months, three months, a month, a week, a day, as country after country encountered this phenomenon which succeeded faster and faster, culminating in the complete breakdown of Communist Authority across the region.

The issue was public discontent and the wish for change. The weaponry included old-fashioned word-of-mouth. Modern (tapped) telephones were used, but actually seeing changes on (global) television emboldened more and more to also try.

Technology was no longer mostly one-sidedly involved on the side of Authority. Especially communication technology had become the essence of networking and mass mobilization.

But greater revolutions awaited.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, a generation has gone by. The world population will shortly (2013) reach 7 billion (up from 1 billion in 1900).

And last week we heard 2 billion are now internet-connected and 5 billion already own cell phones. Facebook is racing towards 1 billion members and is readying to jump the fence to even greater penetration.

Total electronic penetration (90%-95%) looms eventually worldwide, with yet more generations of even cleverer gadgets and networking abilities ahead of us.

This kind of interconnectivity they could only dream about a mere generation ago when the most excited thing that happened was to unite nations in front of the television screen and watch the national soccer team in action against passionately hated opposition (the new Opium of the People).

But today this social communication revolution does not remain limited to rediscovering old friends or making new ones. It is also ultimately a mobilization facility. And with increasingly the Middle Man cut out.

It can be directed against companies. But mainly it seems to be focusing on political issues. War atrocities have been publicized by using cell phones (in Iraq and Afghanistan). In Iran festering discontent has seen cell phone technology used to publicise its plight.

More successfully, there was the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine a few years ago. Two weeks ago there was the successful Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia. Last week and continuing this week it was Egypt's turn to be subjected to this virus, with Authority interrupting cell phone and internet access (but to little apparent avail in stemming the public uproar once underway).

Who's next?
-----------------------
The world isn't finished forcing change, especially where majorities can be mobilized successfully against recalcitrant minorities and Authority overcome.

How will this modern technology affect South Africa's evolution, now that its 50-million strong population own over 50 million cell phones (with a likely 'effective' user penetration of 70% or 35 million).

There are some 6.2 million internet users (of which 3.2 million broadband). Facebook membership exceeds 3.4 million. Only Twitter surprises in being still relatively small in scope (considerably less than 100 000 actives).

One prediction is that despite income disparities, the technological penetration will increase as costs fall and especially urban dwellers join networking movements.

In the process, the way Democracy is lived starts to change. Electorates no longer need to wait five years to express their opinion once. Instead, like financial markets daily, new electronic means allow masses of people to express their (majority) will continuously and act on it if they so choose.

This can be for the universal good, though not exclusively so.

In recent years South Africa has seen outbreaks of xenophobic attacks, especially in the poorest townships and informal settlements, often aimed at the successful small business people from elsewhere in Africa living in their midst.

Though some of these outbursts may have been spontaneous, much of it also appeared coordinated, breaking out all over the country at about the same time, even using the same pamphlets to spread warnings.

Many of these attempts come across as old-fashioned ways of eliminating unwanted competition, beloved of all early lawless capitalists and not limited to our own.

But if this is the ugly side of the new communication abilities, its abilities stretch much wider.

It can be used to focus on unwanted politicians, but it can also be used to promote specific causes.

Politics won't remain passive for long this way, with large audiences mostly only watching evening television, with relatively few people actively participating at regional political meetings and national conferences.

Instead politics can become increasingly participative, as has been seen in so many overseas instances now.

Mobilising the Street it is called. Getting people involved in promoting a cause. Undoing wrongs, addressing unfairness, demanding better this or that, free this or that, demanding their say, now, today.

A dream come true for populist politicians, now able to nearly effortlessly mobilize masses of people, trying to capture hearts and minds, not merely through the printed word (still elitist) or television and radio (passive mass mediums) but through direct appeal, via cell phone, facebook, twitter and other futuristic means.

Stand and be counted. Enact your aspirations, expectations and entitlements instantly, today. Don't just vote for me (that takes far too long). Follow me! Onto the Street and Beyond!

Is all this relevant to the economy of the country, how we produce and consume, and especially redistribute?

How we build an attractive common home to which we hope to attract foreign participants to support our many efforts? Or putting them off completely, in the process undermining our common financial health?

It probably is. And the real revolution has hardly begun.

Cees Bruggemans
Chief Economist FNB
Cees@fnb.co.za

Register for free e-mail articles www.fnb.co.za/economics






Revolutionising mobilisation

Copyright © 2024 KwaZulu-Natal Top Business
x

Get the Flash Player to see this player.