ISLAMABAD: Political work on the ground remains the most important aspect of activism for the rights of marginalised communities and groups, but since the Internet has now become a significant part of many people’s lives, it must also be used effectively for such causes.
This was the summary of a political dialogue held at Awami Workers Party Islamabad-Rawalpindi office on Sunday.
Party activist Ammar Rashid asserted that the Internet was not essentially capitalist since it was created by governments with tax payer money. He cautioned against the tendency of being anti-technology, and also raised concerns about threats to Net neutrality.
Earlier, Alia Amir Ali argued that for many activism or politics occurred in a superficial manner just in the realm of the cyberspace. She also reminded the gathering that surveillance in the cyberspace was much as in the physical space, if not more than that. State officials were empowered to track users and speech policing via legislations like the cybercrime bill was a reality that needed to be reckoned with, she said. “It can be good to be ‘off the grid’ but it is also essential to be part of the arena of global ideas”. Waqas Malik shared that there have been some social media successes of activists. The I-11 katchi abadi evictions were one topic that social media was able to create awareness and empathy about and ultimately also lead to a suo moto notice by the court, he said.
Amna Mawaz agreed that social media had served as an avenue to successfully take up progressive causes. She reminded the gathering that the recovery and return of activists like Salman Haider, Ahmed Waqass Goraya and Asim Saeed was in some part due to the ruckus created by activists on and offline. “Abductions of activists by personnel from state agencies have become an increasing problem including the disappearances (and returns) from Karachi University this week,” she said.
The dialogue was held on the following question: ‘how shall we use technology? Can we exit the isolation of screaming alone in a closed room or preaching to the choir in a cacophony of repetitive echo chambers in a World at War with ideas?’
Shahzaib Raja presented a comprehensive talk on the Internet and democracy. He mentioned that 44 million people now use the Internet in Pakistan, and the President of the USA uses Twitter as a primary medium to share policy statements.
The core reading was by Jake Shenker and is a commentary on the phenomenon of the Tahrir Square revolution. In Egypt, the uprising was triggered among other things by the shut-down of the Internet in January 2011 to quash dissent against the Egyptian government. The Internet brought people together although the system in Egypt was entirely capitalist. Tahrir Square created an egalitarian community from all walks of life.
“Political dialogues are facilitated by the Internet and political workers know that it is a place rife with opposing opinions. Technology is ideally just a tool that can be used in a better way to unify more people and broaden the conversation rather than just creating alienated or vehemently opposing groups through echo chambers. The question of agenda setting arises in who or which algorithm decides what we see at the top of search results or our newsfeeds.”
Published in Daily Times, January 8th 2018.
