Cyberdemocracy: weapon or sheild?

So in last week’s post I wrote about e-voting and whether it could offer a solution for election disputes in Africa. It surprised me then to see that the very first comment on that post was all about the xenophobic attacks that hit front pages worldwide all of last week. At first the comment seemed just a tad misplaced…but then I thought about further.

Well, where better to have your say than on a blog that has stated that “with the power and wide use of the internet, public opinion can now be disseminated with greater ease and the traditional routes to democracy can be bypassed”.

If it is indeed true that “the web is an open medium that allows the average man a voice louder and more far-reaching than any other” then maybe the comment was perfectly placed to test all that I have said.

So this week I decided to put my money where my mouth is. If cyber-democracy opens new space for social commentary by the average citizen then I open this post as one such space.

Every day for the past two weeks, the nation tuned onto the news to see men with machetes walking the streets, shacks being set alight, whole townships ablaze and women singing “mawahambe amakwerekwere” (the foreigners must go).

And it was only 14 days later that the National Assembly sent in a task team to investigate the attacks. It was only on Sunday that the president spoke out in response to the crisis. It was only after 56 had been killed, 324 shops had been looted and more than 50 000 had been displaced that Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula could bring the situation “under control”.

All I want to know is, what happened South Africa and when?

When did we move from being the rainbow nation to being a nation that stands aside while people are set alight because they “do not belong here”? Since when do we owe no gratitude to our neighbouring countries for the role they played in our liberation? And since when does it take a government with a whole police force and the army (not to mention military aid from the AU and the UN) at their disposal two weeks to act?

Never have I been more ashamed of being South African…not even when I realised that Zuma was leading the race for national presidency!

Last week I was talking to my dad and asked him “when you were my age and saw the injustice all around you, what did you do?” He said, “simple, I became president of Azapo.”

Well I see the injustice and I write. I spark debate. I get the thinkers thinking and hopefully inspire the doers to do.

Maybe e-politics is just the shield we cowards hide behind. But hopefully, it’s the new weapon for war.

Same ol’ politrix…just a different shade

Ok, so now we have the Internet, this new technology that’s open to all, allowing everyman expression. That sounds great!

The notion of democracy is based on issues of representation and participation. For any democracy to be strong it needs the masses to be politically active, engage in public debate and be able to express their views and concerns.

The web is an open medium that allows the average man a voice louder and more far-reaching than any other. The gate-keeping mechanisms that come with traditional journalism can be bypassed with great ease.

It’s really simple; you start up a blog about cyber-politics and publish your own work…for free. No printing units, no media houses, no distributors, just you the masses and your opinion.

The connectivity and interactivity of its users allows for networks to be created between users with the same views, interests and concerns.

In my third year politics class, our lecturer went on about how the details of where South African parties get their funding for political campaigns was hidden and near impossible to get a hold of. Clearly he never Google searched “who funds South African politics”.

With the Internet information that was previously, near impossible to get a hold of is now just a couple of clicks away. From who funds local political parties to questioning why the ANC Youth League still exists, it’s all on the net, available to every user.

However this is in no way an answer to the question of political apathy or weak democracies. The Internet is open medium only to those who have Internet access and who are computer literate. A quick glance at local statistics, clearly shows that South Africa is far from celebrating the effectiveness, or even just the birth of cyber-democracy and cyber-politics.

Although Internet use increased from 5.5% in 2000 to 9.9% in 2005, these figures are extremely low. This becomes increasingly apparent when looking at the United Kingdom’s 55% and the United States’ 71% figures. The third world simply does not have the capacity to compete.

South Africa’s illiteracy rate is just alarming. Between six and eight million adults are not functionally literate, never mind computer literate. Statistics show that “65% of whites over 20 years old and 40% of Indians have a high school or higher qualification, this figure is only 14% among blacks and 17% among the coloured population”.

The digital divide speaks heavily to the issues of Internet access and use and to education levels. This means that even in the advent of this great cyber-democracy, those who were marginalised by the politics of the apartheid regime are still marginalised by the politics of this new virtual-democracy.

If democracy is about the majority, then we can only really speak of cyber-democracy when the masses can at the very least send an e-mail with a basic attachment.

The New Game Plan…Virtual Reality

It seems shows such as Matt Groening and David X Cohen’s Futurama were not as farfetched as they were once thought to be. In the show, Philip J. Fry is transported to the year 3000 where today’s virtual reality is lived reality.

The only thing that is far off though, is their over-estimation of when this ‘cyber-revolution’, as it were, would take place.In this era known as the information age, new information and computer technologies sit at the centre of every aspect of our lives.

Politics for a long time has been about people and power. The study of states, their governments and the leaders in those governments, has rested at the base of political and international studies. There are even political theorists who have argued that to understand how state and inter-state relations work, one needs to look at human behaviour and interaction.

From this, it becomes clear that people lie at the centre of politics. However this notion is being seriously challenged by modern technological advancements.

The notion of cyber-democracy has become ever more real and widespread. Politics is now moving, or it can even be argued that it has already moved, into a realm that’s beyond the physical. The political realm now has a more virtual quality to it.

With the power and wide use of the internet, political action committees can now be run from citizen’s homes, public opinion can now be disseminated with greater ease and the traditional routes to democracy can be bypassed.

In America, Richard Hartman ran what was called “America’s First CyberSpace Political Action Committee” from his home. Instead of following the regular channels, he used his PC and fax machine to get his message and information out. To justify this choice he said, “we could have sent the information by Federal Express overnight. Electronic media, however, lets us tailor the message to this precise audience instantly”.

In South Africa however, cyber-democracy has not become such a major part of our politics. This could be due to the lower online population. Africa makes up only 3.4% of the world’s online population. South Africa has 5.1 million Internet users, while China has 210 million and Germany has 53.2 million.

This though is not to say that SA politics has not begun to take on a more virtual quality. Many of the country’s political parties have websites to inform the nation about their party and its policies. However, there is a lack in user interaction with the parties.

The Independent Democrats website offers only a poll of whether or not users believe the government can solve the electricity crisis and a page for them to report any corruption on. The African National Congress’ webpage gives the option for users to subscribe to a number of their publications and news updates sent to their mobile phones. There is also a feedback page where people can complain, praise, make the party aware of problems or offer suggestions.

In the weeks to follow, I’ll look at the number of issues that rise with the concept of cyber-democracy in far more detail.  The question remains however, is this increasing virtual reality at all desirable or even just feasible, especially in South Africa?