“From Social Hostility to Social Media: Religious Pluralism, Human Rights, and Democratic Reform in Africa,” in Religious Rights, Lorenzo Zucca, ed. (Ashgate Publishing, 2015). (original) (raw)
Related papers
2014
In this article, I examine the new terrain of religious freedom and human rights in Africa, with particular attention to role of social hostilities in restricting religious. In the current environment of “postsecularism” and the global resurgence of religion the relationship between government restrictions and social hostilities is particularly complex in Africa, in light of the high degree of religiosity and the notably intertwined relationship of religion, culture, politics, and law, in marked contrast to the secularist and separationist paradigms that prevail in Europe and North America. Paradoxically, though the restrictions on religious freedom in many African nations stem from or have been exacerbated by social hostilities, including pernicious and inflammatory uses of social media, solutions to social hostilities may depend a great deal on empowering religious and civil society groups in the creative and constructive use of social media to change the normative perceptions, attitudes, values, and that underlie successful constitutional and democratic reform. Indeed, some of these creative uses of social media are already happening, but are threatened by crackdowns on freedom of expression and social media by the state. This article will examine uses of social media both to inflame and to reduce social hostilities in recent elections and constitutional referenda in Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia.
In many African countries, since the nineties, there is a subtle contest going on between religious and political leaders. At the heart of this contest is what Rosalind Hack-ett described as the redefinition of the categories of power and status, which cease to be primarily tied to material wealth or political connection, but rather to spiritual authority and revelation. This is a struggle for the hegemonic control of the society in the Gramscian sense of the term. While political leaders may use the coercive arms of the state-military might as well as their control of the financial resources of the state to impose their authority, religious leaders on the other hand assume the posture of moral icons, personalities endowed with superior knowledge based on divine revelation. As these contestations are played out in the public sphere, the way the leaders are able to portray themselves to their public will determine their followership. This explains the importance of mediation in the p...
Historicising and Theorising Social Media and the Demotic Turn in Communication in Africa 1
Digital Dissidence and Social Media Censorship in Africa, 2022
This book reflects on the rapid rise of social media across the African continent and the legal and extra-legal efforts governments have invented to try to contain it. The relentless growth of social media platforms in Africa has provided the means of resistance, self-expression, and national self-fashioning for the continent's restlessly energetic and contagiously creative youth. This has provided a profound challenge to the African "gatekeeper state", which has often responded with strategies to constrict and constrain the rhetorical luxuriance of the social media and digital sphere. Drawing on cases from across the continent, contributors explore the form and nature of social media and government censorship, often via antisocial media laws, or less overt tactics such as state cybersurveillance, spyware attacks on social media activists, or the artful deployment of the rhetoric of "fake news" as a smokescreen to muzzle critical voices. The book also reflects on the Chinese influence in African governments' clampdown on social media and the role of Israeli NSO Group Technologies, as well as the tactics and technologies which activists and users are deploying to resist or circumvent social media censorship. Drawing on a range of methodologies and disciplinary approaches, this book will be an important contribution to researchers with an interest in social media activism, digital rebellion, discursive democracy in transitional societies, censorship on the Internet, and Africa more broadly.
African Studies Quarterly, 2016
One of the overarching messages of this work is that political liberalization led to the deregulation of media fields and thus religious leaders, activists, and netroots were able to appropriate radio, television, newspapers, magazines, computer mediated technologies (CMCs), and mobile phone networks for their own purposes. These purposes ranged from gaining public recognition in a contested religious marketplace, advocating and promoting inter-religious dialogue, and strengthening and expanding their constituencies. It must be said, at the same time, that media have also been utilized to ostracize the religious "other" and curtail the effect of other communities, which in different places and different ways led to tension, conflict, and explicit violence. This multidisciplinary volume engaging scholars from media studies, religion, anthropology, history, and others illustrates how media are never neutral vehicles of expression and analyzes the mutual imbrications of media and religion during times of rapid technological and social change in various places throughout Africa.
Technology no doubt is the engine that drives the modern world, both for destruction and good; and one of the wonders of modern technology is the computer and the allied internet. Modern communication network now relies on the internet using the computer and mobile telephones. In fact, there is no place to hide with the internet and the handy smart phones with which calls are made and pictures and videos recorded and transmitted across boundaries and continents. The advancements in the computer and internet systems in the last decade of the 20th century produced radical changes in both internet connectivity and features available to users through which people are linked across the globe. The three most basic of these internet features that have radically shaped modern communication are, Facebook, Twitters, and the U-Tube, among others. The three are the most popular and core elements of the social media compartment of our modern internet system. Computer technology has broken the boundaries of closed societies and systems, making actions and activities in such systems open and available to the wider world. Through the internet and its core elements, repressive regimes have been exposed and activities going on in liberal societies are shared. Interestingly, Africa became the starting point for the agitation for political change, which was bolstered by the social media. The so-called “Arab Spring”, which first started in Africa through expositions of social media, saw the dismantling of three despotic and ruthless regimes in Arab North Africa, thus giving vent to agitations for an end to dictatorship and illiberality in other Arab states. The paper will examine the role of the social media in political transformation and change of dictatorial regimes in Africa and the consequences such would have on the overall political template of Africa.
The Janus face of social media and democracy? Reflections on Africa
Media, Culture & Society, 2020
The purpose of this issue of Media Culture and Society is to discuss the possible role of social media in the struggle for democracy, against authoritarianism, and over hidden power structures. The articles included in this volume are meant to offer empirical interventions to beliefs, some of them unproven, on whether the emergence of new media technologies has driven Africa towards democratic change. Papers in this Special Issue cover a wide variety of African countries delving deep into comparative studies of participatory citizens’ media on the continent. This introduction is an attempt to offer an explanation on African democratisation and authoritarianism before conceptualising the role of social media in political processes with the backing of current case study dispatches in Africa, demonstrating the dilemmas of digital disparities in promoting or denting democratisation in Africa.
Digital Dissidence and Social Media Censorship in Africa
2022
This book reflects on the rapid rise of social media across the African continent and the legal and extra-legal efforts governments have invented to try to contain it. The relentless growth of social media platforms in Africa has provided the means of resistance, self-expression, and national self-fashioning for the continent's restlessly energetic and contagiously creative youth. This has provided a profound challenge to the African "gatekeeper state", which has often responded with strategies to constrict and constrain the rhetorical luxuriance of the social media and digital sphere. Drawing on cases from across the continent, contributors explore the form and nature of social media and government censorship, often via antisocial media laws, or less overt tactics such as state cybersurveillance, spyware attacks on social media activists, or the artful deployment of the rhetoric of "fake news" as a smokescreen to muzzle critical voices. The book also reflects on the Chinese influence in African governments' clampdown on social media and the role of Israeli NSO Group Technologies, as well as the tactics and technologies which activists and users are deploying to resist or circumvent social media censorship. Drawing on a range of methodologies and disciplinary approaches, this book will be an important contribution to researchers with an interest in social media activism, digital rebellion, discursive democracy in transitional societies, censorship on the Internet, and Africa more broadly.
Religion and Politics in Africa: The Future of “The Secular”
This essay discusses the continued importance that religion holds in African life, not only in terms of numbers of believers, but also regarding the varieties of religious experience and its links with politics and the "public sphere(s)". Coinciding with the wave of democratization and economic liberalization efforts since about 1990, a notable growth of the public presence of religion and its political referents in Africa has been witnessed; alongside "development", religion will remain a hot issue in the future political trajectory of the continent. Its renewed presence in public spheres has also led to new understandings of what religion means and how it figures into both "world-making" and identity politics. This will prolong the challenges associated with the role and status of religion in the "secular state model" found in most African countries. Can these states, while "besieged" by believers, maintain neutrality among diverse worldviews, and if so, how? The paper discusses these issues in a general manner with reference to African examples, some taken from fieldwork by the author, and makes a philosophical argument for the development of a new kind of "secular state" that can respect the religious commitments of African populations.
2018
“Africa and Digital Media: The Challenge of Social Media to African Member Countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. A Case of Uganda” This work studied the challenge presented by social media to the stability and development of African countries that are members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Considering a case of Uganda, where social media platforms have often been blocked and a number of fiscal policies introduced to limit access, the study that was conducted in Kampala, Uganda from December 2017 to May 2018 investigated the extent of that challenge. It aimed to benchmark programmatic approaches of integrating social media into the development processes and stability of OIC member countries and Africa in general. It also sought to find how to limit the risk of distributing global Ummah resources from OIC, through Islamic Development Bank (IDB) to member states that face challenges emerging from exposure of African communities to social media content that is in Uganda officially referred to as ‘gossip.’ Tools—including, questionnaire, survey and library research generated vital information. Data analysis by quantitative generated statistical and conceptual generalizations that answered the research problem. The key finding was that whereas social media does not influence decision making, it can play a significant role in driving vital changes in government structures. Recommendations to both OIC and its African members –i.e. supporting democratic processes and intensifying internet coverage in accordance to the United Nations (revised) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on quality education and the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI)—can be used by developing countries in general and specifically African governments—both members and non-members of OIC as well as the global Muslim Ummah. OIC member countries are further advised to sensitize their citizens about the principle of verifying information as guided by the Islamic faith (Holy Quran, 49:6) .