Patricia Mukhim
We have entered the age of virtual activism. Every other day there’s an email from Change.org asking us to sign a petition seeking redressal of a grievance. We are also asked to share what we signed with other friends and better still to put up the same on our Facebook page or tweet it. The more the signatures, the better the impact! These signatures are intended to impress the powers that be because, after all, in a democracy numbers matter. It is also easier to start an online campaign than to come out to the streets every other day to protest against too many things that are not working. For a person from Meghalaya there are just too many issues to protest; too many aspects of governance which have all but collapsed. If the Public Works Department (PWD) were to be assessed on a scale on 1-10, it would probably score a poor 1 or 2 marks only. Ditto the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED). Till date there are many areas even within Shillong city that get water only on alternate days. And no one sees anything wrong with that. The other alternative, you are told quite bluntly, is to get no water at all so you would have to buy water @ Rs 300 for 2000 litres. So do we start an online campaign to address these issues? Will it work? I have my doubts because that is Slacktivism!
Malcolm Gladwell the renowned author of, ‘The Tipping Point,’ among others was the first to coin the term Slacktivism. Writing in The New Yorker in 2010, Gladwell defined Slacktivism as a new style activism where people just sign online petitions and shares on Facebook, instead of the processions and banner waving, old fashioned street style activism. Slacktivism therefore is an action performed via the Internet in support of a political or social cause but which requires little time or involvement. Online petitions have become the in thing now in India. Slacktivism is therefore much easier than grass roots activism. Having been an activist for many a cause but mainly while leading Shillong We Care (1995- 2005)during those militancy afflicted days, I know how much hard work it is to be going around holding meetings in public spaces every evening after my teaching work is done. There was no time to look after the family. It was a full time commitment. Shillong We Care members would patrol the streets of Laitumkhrah in the evening and request shop owners to keep their shutters up until at least till 7 pm because everyone downed their shutters at dusk and people hurried home to safety. Shillong had become a ghost town then, thanks to the HNLC. I recall we had street plays organised by Ampareen Lyngdoh and her students from the Department of Mass Communication, St Anthony’s College. Street plays were held in Police Bazaar and Laitumkhrah as these were the busiest areas, to sensitize people on the diminishing returns of militancy. Shillong We Care members also violated the bandh calls by the HNLC on January 26 and August 15. Ampareen then was a member of Shillong We Care. It was only when RG Lyngdoh became Home Minister (2000-03) and took the bull by the horns that militancy went on the wane. Later, I was also part of the Peoples’ Rally Against Corruption (PRAC) along with other pressure groups such as the KSU, FKJGP, and SSSS etc. We were able to bring down a government on corruption charges. Activism takes a toll because the street is where you spend the bulk of your time. But in terms of dividends it’s where you make real impact.
So as far as I am concerned Slacktivism has a limited impact because the target of your campaign has to be on social media otherwise it makes no sense. In a state like Meghalaya where MLAs/MDCs don’t even have a Twitter handle or a Facebook page it cuts no ice to rave and rant on Facebook or Twitter. So far only Mr Vincent Pala, the Shillong MP responds to Facebook rants. He manages his own FB page, unlike others who outsource it to agents who respond on their behalf. Even internationally there are organisations like UNICEF which have come out to say that people who actually want hungry, sick children saved need to donate money and supplies — not just virtual support. The UNICEF Director of Communications Petra Hallebrant says, “We like “Likes,” and social media could be a good first step to get involved, but it cannot stop there. “Likes” don’t save children’s lives. We need money to buy vaccines.” The UNICEF poster says, “Like us on Facebook and we will vaccinate zero children against polio. We have nothing against Likes but vaccines cost money.”
Slacktivism is therefore a derogatory term that the Oxford dictionary describes as, “the practice of supporting a political or social cause by means such as social media or online petitions, characterized as involving very little effort or commitment“. It basically means insincere activism where the person concerned isn’t really doing something for the cause they claim to be pursuing. However, proponents of the Slacktivism narrative argue that by participating in politics in easy ways on social media, young people are initiated into voluntarism in later life.
This is not to discount the power of social media. In fact, I often wonder why this platform is called social media when most of us actually engage in political activism via that route. If one does a study of what post gets the maximum likes and reactions then it has to be a political rant on something that is not working or exotic pictures. Anything that’s more philosophical and requires a deeper engagement gets few likes. So even social media has a peak and a plateau!
Now, as elections get closer there will be multifarious groups on Facebook and countless Facebook warriors who will take on even formidable opponents in the same manner that the BJP uses its army of trolls to trounce the voices of opponents to their ideology and the present Government’s style of functioning. But will Facebook posts alone change the contours of elections in Meghalaya? No they won’t. The reasons are many. Firstly the hoi-polloi in the rural outback, many of who actually elect candidates who pay them money, are their relatives or clansmen and are from the same religion, are not on Facebook, leave alone Twitter. To change the electoral behaviour of such voters requires more physical effort. Multiple methods need to be used to communicate to voters the importance of not pawning/selling their votes. Street plays, theatre, small group meetings and a consistent personal interface with voters might bring in some change. Television is also a powerful medium as it includes more sensory organs.
Those of us in the city may want change but try asking anyone to define that change and what you get is an amorphous wishy-washy reply. It means that we as voters too are unclear as to who to vote for and what to vote for. There is no consensus as yet in Meghalaya as to what our priorities are since no one has come out with a Peoples’ Manifesto. As a result political parties will come out with their neat little write-ups that are neither here nor there. Neither political parties themselves not the electorate takes those manifestos seriously. Has any group come back after five years and done an audit of the manifestos placed before us in 2013? Does anyone remember the Congress manifesto or the UDP one? I guess not. Political parties take their cues from the voter. A confused electorate is a boon for political parties and candidates. And pray who amongst the present set of candidates or political parties actually want change? No one! Everyone loves the status quo because that is a comfort zone. No one wants to move out of the comfort zone into the learning zone.
So if you ask me whether 2018 will bring change my question will be – does the electorate really want change? Hence Slacktivism is not going to change anything. People are talking to themselves about their own problems and angst and none of the candidates actually care about what is posted on social media, except for Zenith Sangma and his cohort of about 2000 followers.
If people really want change there is no alternative to grassroots activism. Period. Slacktivism? Thumbs down!