I would like to think that with digital media present during the South African struggle we would never have endured apartheid for 46 year. We could have had our freedom sooner. It would have taken Half the time!
MASS MOBILISATION
Every person with the ability to share content (video, text and pictures) could have been a journalist and able to pass information much faster. Mass mobalisation would have been quick and cheap and the uprising would have much harder for the government to control, truly making SA ungovernable. That is why countries such as China have banned social network sites such as twitter and Facebook under the country’s policy of internet censorship.
DISTRIBUTION OF INFORMATION
Digital media infiltration to the masses is not that great, internet data is very costly for most people of Mzanzi. So if you take your mind back to 1976 we all know that there was one obstacle and that was the watchful eye of the then South African Bureau for State Security. Being swift and agile when distributing content was key. I certainly would not want to be caught with Black Consciousness ideology in my DropBox but I think I could perhaps have a few banned books in a memory stick.
A World of Strangers by Nadine Gordimer. A Banned African Books
FAMILY BONDS
On a lighter note, a lot of families had to be separated due to the struggle. Parents left their children to Mkhondo we Sizwe. A lot of the exiled members at times felt as though they are excommunicated. They did not always know small pleasures that bring joy to your parents on a daily basis. They did not know what their children look like until they had come back to the country. Thanks to Instagram you could safely post a #selfie, a meal without even mentioning recipient. Every now and again a parent in exile would have the pleasure of eves dropping in your life
Umkhonto we Sizwe (abbreviated as MK, translated as “Spear of the Nation”) was the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC), co-founded by Nelson Mandela in the wake of the Sharpeville Massacre
If we had social media we could have had our freedom sooner. It would have taken Half the time. Let me put this in perspective don’t you sometimes wonder what Steve Biko’s Twitter timeline would have been like?
Nelson Mandela’s Digital Timeline by Prezence Digital
Now let us not take our social media liberties for granted. Let us use all these tools as an opportunity to push greater agendas that affect us presently; The fact that SA has estimated 3.7 million orphans, there will be no job for many of the tertiary graduates. Don’t you sometimes feel the pressure to use the social platforms for something bigger? Don’t you want to start a movement?