Fighting for Change is Good, but to What End?

A Tunisian Case Study.

If you go by the thumbnails of the ‘viral’ videos in social media, we are going through a hundred of revolutionary developments everyday. Even if we are not, The Revolution is just around the corner.

What is that Revolution though? What will come after that?

For answer to those questions, please watch our next video. And so on.

This is how the click-bait cottage industry in social media survives. I guess this pattern holds true pretty much everywhere in the world today where big firewalls are yet to be erected around the internet.

If you end up clicking the revolution-calling thumbnail of a video and watching it, the contents will be underwhelming compared to the headlines but still riveting and sensational enough to leave you slightly more agitated and disgruntled than you were prior to watching it.

Who are you agitated or disgruntled against? The villain in the nuance-free videos is often obvious but may vary depending upon which society and political system it is trying to cater to.

In democracies, mostly it is the government or some other establishment. In managed or illiberal democracies where the quasi-authoritarian ruler has control over the dominant narrative in the society, it is often the opposition.

Or, it may be civic groups advocating for human rights and rights of the underprivileged including the LGBTQ+ and other minority communities.

Let’s focus on the impact of such a media ecosystem for the first category of democracies.

In Nepal, my observation is that the youngest and the oldest are among those most riled up by the status quo and longing for change, any change at all.

The youngest are riled up mostly because the government of the day is severely underperforming, failing to create enough economic opportunities for them. As they have grown up with social media, they know no world other than the one steeped in agitation and disgruntlement but with little actual organizing and constructive resistance.

The oldest are riled up because, having gained digital literacy later in life, many of them can only scroll the video platforms. And boy, the platforms are pumping them up with egregiously sensational and apocalyptic content.

Mostly it is Tiktok (which was banned in Nepal recently even though the implementation of that ban seems to be patchy and the courts are yet to come up with a definitive verdict), Youtube or Facebook. Let alone explore things in a browser, many elders never even learn to use the search box in Youtube.

The result: the algorithms of those platforms are now THE single most influential parts in their lives.

And the democracies.

That is because it is those elderly who cast the ballot the most faithfully election after election.

So what happens when a majority in a democracy is fed up of the status quo and is ready for ANY kind of change? Who gets to benefit from it? Does such change, brought in an desperate attempt to get rid of the status quo with little thought given to the outcome, necessarily move the society ahead?

I have been inquiring along these lines for many years now. Some early results are now in: a piece (in Nepali) chronicling the descent of Tunisia from a dysfuntional democracy to an even more dysfunctional and oppressive autocracy.

As the reading audience keeps dwindling at a record pace, I have experimented with a video summary of the piece. And the good news: it is in English and I hope all of you can understand it.

Needless to say, you’ll feel a strong urge to like the video and comment below it! Suggestions to make my videos more watchable are most welcome as I am just gaining literacy in the AV medium after honing my skills for the written word for 15 years.

As the ground below the media ecosystem tilts in favor of the AV content, you will see this experiment repeated frequently in the future. You can comment about this trend below this post also.

You may also comment or write to me about how the trend in the social media in your society differs from or resembles with the same in Nepal.

For those of you who missed my first edited video (in Nepali; all the previous videos were recorded in one go as any editing was beyond me), I strongly recommend you to watch it:

Now please forward this mail to a couple of your friends. See you soon in another post!