MENA Revolts: Social Media Activism or Mass Revolutionary Organization

MENA Revolts: Social Media Activism or Mass Revolutionary Organization

The current growth in online activism such as social media platforms (Facebook, twitter, YouTube, blogs, etc.) and their politicization is a product of the growing radicalization going on in the society especially among youth. Youths, fired up by enthusiasm to end regimes of corruption and perfidy deployed various social media to beam life pictures of movement, and expose the lies of the combated regimes. Mass mobilization of people within and outside countries was facilitated by social media. Western mainstream media that could have ordinarily censored various stories were compelled by social media news dissemination to air news of the revolt. Government propaganda instruments were circumvented by live news from social networks and real-time online reportage. All of these show that at time of social upheaval, the best of technologies are deployed by mass of workers and youth to advance revolutionary movement. Furthermore, mass initiatives, hitherto buried and wasted by capitalism, are pushed to the fore.

Consequently, some commentators, both left and right, have opined that social media will now be another avenue of mass organization. It is also suggested that social media can replace hierarchical structures of organization in mass movement. However, overemphasis and centralization of all struggles around online campaigns is not only misleading but also a reflection of the demoralization occasioned by bankruptcy of the official platforms like trade unions and so-called opposition parties. This is in addition to the lack of genuinely anti-capitalist, revolutionary platforms across the world against the neo-liberal ‘democracy’ (read dictatorship of the market) that only ensures the recycling of thorough-bred, scrupulous capitalist politicians, who hide under different banners to implement the same neo-liberal and imperialist policies of the previous government, if not on a higher and more scrupulous level. As a result of this, social media is seen by many, who felt betrayed by leadership of traditional organizations of the working class, as alternative to democratic organization. For the anarchists, this is an opportunity to put to practice their rejection of any mass party, while the right-wing commentators, being mouthpieces of capitalism, hope that these revolts and revolutions can be curtailed and derailed by amorphous social media activism.

Indeed, every technological improvement of the society has been used by the working class movement to advance struggles of the working people. The working class utilized the Postal Services to disseminate ideas and programmes, and build their organizations in the early turn of the 19th century while working class intellectuals used printing technology to produce intellectual work and journalistic activities for the education, information and organization of the working people in this period. Also, in the early 20th century, the availability of telegraph and radio was exploited to communicate to a wider layer of the working people.

Therefore, the current availability of social network facilities like Facebook, YouTube and twitter is only a continuation of the past, albeit on a more sophisticated level. The only difference is that unlike in the past where there are mass organizations of the working class and militant left-leaning unions and organizations that maximized the use of these technological platform for better organization, the current ‘uni-polar’ world and collapse of these mass organizations or their transformation to pro-capitalist mouthpieces, has made the use and availability of the InfoTech facilities, despite its enormous potentials, to be limited in depth. If there have been revolutionary mass-based organizations, built from the grassroots, the use of InfoTech would have meant better-organized and democratic platforms as such platforms will openly stream MENA uprisings to grassroots of every nation.1 This will mean that the oppressed people especially in the downtowns will be able to know what is going on and be able to participate in debates and decision making through networks of the revolutionary platforms/organizations. This will surely resonate to other nations especially in the third world countries. What you have on the contrary is huge InfoTech potentials but no platform to utilize them for revolutionary purposes, as the trade unions and so-called opposition parties/organizations are very bureaucratic and indeed caught unaware during these MENA uprisings.

Notwithstanding this shortcoming, these online platforms can help to disseminate ideas and discussions, and seek clarifications on fundamental problems facing mass movements and the society. This means that if just 1 percent of the 500 million subscribers of the social network, Facebook, are engaged in discussions about the next stage of working class movement, it is possible to build new generation(s) of youthful revolutionary cadres that will shed off the burdens of capitalist propaganda and the effects of the collapse of Stalinist ideas. This is interpreting the Karl Marx’s idea about the capitalist class' internationalization of its gravediggers i.e. working class.

It should however be pointed out that these online and mass media cannot substitute for revolutionary organization of the working class, no matter their potentials; but they can serve as veritable tools of interaction and dissemination of ideas and examples. This is even more important today, where the experiences and strength of revolutionary forces vary widely from country to country. The politicization of these mass media reflects the growing desire of youth and working class people to vent out their anger against capitalism; seek revolutionary ideas and change their conditions. But this cannot be achieved on online websites but through mass and fighting revolutionary organizations of the working class and youth from grassroots to the national level, using the best communication technology as a tool. To show the limit of the online protest platforms and other mass media; it is a known fact that majority of the people, especially in the third world do not have access to information technology while it is mostly middle class people, even among the youth who have access to the infrastructure. Yet, the downtrodden i.e. working class, urban poor and rural masses, plays the decisive role in these movements. Left to the state apparatus, it is easy to deal with middle class as a class, but the working class and the urban poor are a different ballgame entirely because they hold the decisive stake in revolutionary movements. This is clearly reflected in Tunisia and Egypt, where decisive entrance of the working class from factory and workplaces coupled with the shift of rank-and-file of armed forces to the left, actually weakened the ousted regimes. That these leftward shifts did not lead to ouster of capitalism is a long historical development already analyzed above.

It is necessary to state that this does not imply that the middle class radical mood cannot instigate revolutionary uprising, but it is fundamental for working class to play a decisive role as a conscious class in such movements. This is basic since the working class is the most organized class, being the livewire of capitalist economic foundation. The working class of course cannot achieve revolution alone, but it has to be a decisive force in the revolutionary movement, without which the revolution lacks the spark to overrun capitalism. The working class can however be woken to duty by radicalization induced by middle class movement of intellectuals, students/youth or even struggles amongst various trends of the capitalist class. The ability of the working class and youth to build revolutionary ideas and programmes to lead these movements is vital. While events can rapidly forge revolutionary idea and leadership in time of need, only a painstakingly built revolutionary platform and leadership, tested in idea and on the field, can provide a long lasting opportunity to change society. This has been underlined by various massive events such as the Chilean revolution in 1973, Spain in 1930s (and later in 1981-84) and France in 1968. Even in advanced capitalist countries where access to internet and mass media is high, Facebook, twitter or blackberry cannot replace mass meetings at local, state, regional and national levels, to review and democratically discuss ideas, evaluate events, plan programme and more importantly build confident collective force that will undermine the coercive, repressive and propaganda apparatus of the state. This does not undermine the role that various technical apparatus can give to revolutionary movements as historical examples cited above have shown.

Mass media and information technology can help to galvanize support and solidarity, communicate better and in some instances undermine capitalist mainstream propaganda machine, but they cannot replace the building of mass organizations. Therefore, those pundits raising the idea of online media replacing mass organizations are only talking from petty bourgeois or anarchist standpoint. As Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Soviet Revolution in Russia in 1917 said; revolution is firstly an idea, then programmes and then organization. All these require direct mass involvements of workers, youths and the downtrodden in the workplaces, factory line, communities, etc. This can be greatly enhanced by commitment of sacrificing youths using platforms of information technology to disseminate ideas and mobilize.

However, as information technology is useful for revolutionary movement, so it can also be used by the capitalist/imperialist ruling class to undertake massive propaganda against the working class, as the coup against Hugo Chavez government, supported by many western media in 2003 revealed. It can also be used to undermine mobilization movements by imperialism directly investing in these social platform so as to blunt the political sharpness of these politicized platforms, the same way many pro-democracy and civil society groups and even trade unions were bought over, infiltrated and even transformed into a platforms for the dissemination of capitalist ideas in a seemingly innocuous manner. Already, the US imperialism, recognizing the role these online resources play in mobilizing and disseminating radical ideas, is trying to emasculate these platforms by injecting funds in developing them with the aim of diverting the anger of the masses, especially youths to safe channels for imperialism. For instance, the now-former US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, in the wake of the Egyptian revolutionary movement, was quoted to have said “… We (US capitalist ruling class) are providing funds to groups around the world to make sure that those tools get to the people who need them in local languages and the training they need to access the internet safely”1 (emphasis mine). Underline the ‘training’ and ‘safely’ to mean training to limit their activities to safely tolerable channels for the US capitalist imperialism. With the amorphous character of social media activism and its leadership, derailment and disorientation of revolutionary movements is much easier than under a bankrupt leadership of traditional organizations of the working class. A disoriented working class organization can be reoriented by workers themselves; social media derailment has no traditional base.

More than this, mass media and information technology, under capitalism, are still owned by capitalist bosses, who will not support mass revolts and revolutions that will upturn their system. But with democratic organization of the working class from the grassroots up to the national levels, it can be possible to prevent attempt by the ruling class to use mass media and information technology (including social media) to undermine revolutionary movement. For example, with mass organization and democratic discussions, workers in mass media and information technology can decide which information to pass to their revolutionary comrades; they can strike against attempt at misinformation and misrepresentation of revolutionary movement and they can censor ruling class’ (including their own employers) propaganda. This can only be achieved when there are revolutionary leadership with a genuine socialist alternative programmes.

Revolutionary movements and platforms are not built as a virtual movement but as a living one organized from the grassroots, involving local campaigns and struggles that will give the working oppressed people opportunity to build confidence in their collective strength and the ability to struggle for victory.