People attend a prayer ceremony for protesters who died recently in the town of Bishoftu, Ethiopia, during the Irreecha festival for the Oromo people. The government blames social media for exaggerating the loss of life. (Tiksa Negeri/Reuters)
The annual U.N. General Assembly meeting provides an
unparalleled opportunity for world leaders to take to the bully pulpit of the
U.N. chamber and trumpet their country’s achievements or slam their enemies.
Last month, presidents,
kings and prime ministers talked about the dangers of climate change, progress
made in development goals, the threats of terrorism or their responses to the
global immigration crisis. But when Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Hailemariam
Desalegn took the podium Sept. 21, the global challenge he had in mind was
perhaps unexpected: social
media.
There were many other things he could have discussed,
including Ethiopia’s impressive investments in infrastructure like
hydroelectric dams and its high growth rates — or even a devastating drought
that the government and its international partners have confronted this past
year.
“We are seeing how misinformation could easily go viral via
social media and mislead many people, especially the youth,” he said. “Social
media has certainly empowered populists and other extremists to exploit
people's genuine concerns and spread their message of hate and bigotry without
any inhibition.”
The state has singled out social media as being a key
factor in driving the unrest now gripping the country. Sites like Facebook and
Twitter are now largely blocked in the country, as is Internet on mobile
phones, which is how most people in this country of 94 million find their way
online.
For much of last year, Ethiopians, especially in the
vast Oromo community, have been protesting the government over corruption, lack
of jobs and poor administration. Their efforts have been championed by many
Ethiopian dissidents living abroad, especially in the United States, who have
held rallies for them and bombarded social media sites with denunciations of
the regime’s harsh suppression of protests.
After at least 55
people were killed in a stampede at the Irreecha cultural festival Oct. 2,
overseas activists called for “five days of rage,” and for the next week,
factories, government buildings and tourist lodges were attacked across the
Oromo region in a spasm of violence that prompted the government to declare a state of emergency Oct. 9.
While Ethiopia is nominally a democracy, the ruling party
and its allies hold every seat in parliament, and it is described by the
Committee to Protect Journalists as one of the most censored countries in the
world and a top jailer of journalists.
Now, however, with the Internet and
the technologies it has spawned — which the government has spent millions
developing the necessary infrastructure for — more and more dissident voices
are being heard, but often without the restraint or commitment to accuracy of
more mainstream media.
“I am fairly certain the restrictions they have put in
place now are less about silencing Ethiopians and more about restricting the
influence of the diaspora,” said Nicholas Benequista, a former journalist who
worked in Ethiopia and is now the research manager for the U.S.-based Center
for International Media Assistance.
“Ethiopia is more vulnerable to the rumor, misinformation
and provocation coming out of the diaspora because it has prevented an
independent, professional and ethical media from growing inside the country,”
he added. “I actually think they are beginning to realize that.”
In the wake of the Irreecha tragedy, Jawar Mohammed, a
Minneapolis-based Oromo activist and head of the opposition Oromo Media Network,
posted on his Facebook page that troops had fired on the crowd with live
ammunition while helicopter gunships mowed down innocent protesters — something
that journalists and witnesses there said simply did not happen.
In a strange twist, the government, which often interferes
with foreign journalists attempting to report across the country, ended up
citing Western media reports that none of the victims exhibited gunshot wounds
to bolster their version of events.
Mohammed said he provides the protest movement with
tactical and strategic advice on civil disobedience and has actively called for
attacking businesses to wound the regime economically.
#OromoRevolution There is more severe destruction coming your way as long as you keep killing our people and...fb.me/8bYy6xNj3
A tour through his
Facebook and Twitter account reveals postings in three languages — Amharic,
Oromo and English — describing protests, shootings and riots across the
country, as well as incidents like soldiers shooting their commanders and
the use of artillery against unarmed civilians that have not been described
anywhere else, and which are a bit hard to swallow.
“We have tens
of thousands of activists taking pictures and photos as they take part in
protest actions. They pass it to us, we verify the story using various
mechanisms and share with the public,” he told The Post in an email. “When
Internet is down, we have alternative ways where critical information reaches
us, although the volume significantly drops.”
The degree to
which social media actually translates into direct activism has long been
debated. Some maintain that the role of Facebook in coordinating and fueling
the Arab Spring uprisings has been vastly exaggerated.
Ethiopia, with
its impoverished countryside, has an Internet penetration of between 4 and 12
percent, with few being able to afford the smartphones to take advantage of the
3G network — when it hasn’t been shut down.
Mohammed,
however, says that all it takes is a few people accessing his messages through
proxies or special software and then passing it on through word-of-mouth or
phone calls to other activists on the ground.
Yet others
active in Ethiopia's social media environment prefer not to overestimate the
influence of people like Mohammed, ascribing the unrest more to people's
well-founded anger rather than following orders from abroad.
Daniel
Berhane, an Addis Ababa-based blogger and editor of the Horn Affairs Network
news site, said many times in the past, Mohammed and others have called
for “days of rage” and there had been little response. It was only in the wake
of huge loss of life at one of the most sacred festivals of the Oromo people
that there was so much violence.
His website
has hosted a number of articles critical of Mohammed, and he dismissed the
veracity of much of Mohammed’s reporting, but admitted that knowing through
social media that others were angry helped sustain the movement.
“Social medial
tells you if the other district is protesting and it makes you feel like you
are not alone,” he said. “It sends a signal that the rage already exists on the
ground.”
The problem, according
to Berhane, is that there are not many online voices disputing the exaggerated
narratives of the diaspora activists. The government relies on its monopoly of
traditional media like radio and television and leaves the world of social
media uncontested.
“The
government doesn’t have a clue for using alternative voices even to support
their own policies,” he said. “They can’t tolerate even a 1 percent
deviation from their own view.”
Source:
Washington Post
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