Following Iran’s 2009 "Green Revolution" and the Arab uprisings in 2010/2011 (Lynch, 2011), there has been academic debate about the transformative power of social media in toppling authoritarian regimes (Gukurume, 2017; Mare, 2014). Op timists described social media platforms "as new tools of protest" (Eltahawy, 2010) and "new protest drums" (Mare, 2014). Most of these scholars foregrounded the ‘rhetoric of revolution’ associated with digital technologies. Others have watered down the power of social media, among them Esfandiari’s (2010) dismissal of Twitter’s role in the Iranian Green Revolution in line with three groups of scholars: social media optimists, realists, and pessimists. Despite the debate between the three main camps, it is increasingly being acknowledged in mainstream literature that there is a need to go beyond the unnecessary language of binaries (optimists versus pessimists). The idea is to take social media realists’ views into account when they fag the complicated roles that digital technologies assume in terms of empowering citizens on the one hand, whilst disempowering them on the other hand. This approach provides a much more textured approach in appraising the potential of social media in facilitating political change.
In contexts like Zimbabwe, the use of social media as protest tools has been criticized for failing to materialize in offine spaces (Chitanana, 2020). However, instead of debating whether social media has potential or not, it may be impor tant to locate its potential within various socio-economic and political contexts (Gukurume, 2017). This is particularly so in places like Zimbabwe characterized by political repression and policies that restrict freedom of expression (Chitanana, 2020). These restrictions do not mean social media does not have potential. This chapter argues that calling for social media protests to quickly materialize offine might not be ideal for all situations. In fact, as argued by Couldry (2010), dismiss ing the effectiveness of social media voices simply because they cannot result in immediate removal of authoritarian regimes is tantamount to denying people a voice for the sake of assumed effective results. Contexts differ and movements have different resources at their disposal. If Gramsci’s (1994) process preceding a revolution is to be taken into consideration, it might give a role of social media that is also important than just offine materialization. This is the role of social media as a platform for people to gain awareness about their own value and place in history, their function in life, including rights and duties. According to Gram sci (1994), this awareness is gained through intelligent and critical refection of how certain situations came about as well as how they can be transformed. It is this chapter’s argument that under repressive conditions where offine protests may be a challenge, social media can serve as a platform for critical refection and conscientization. This critical refection is a form of voice that allows everyone, for voice is a social aspect where all participate in the process of valuing different forms of social organization involving resource allocation (Couldry, 2010). With time, even in the face of naked repression, this voice can create a cultural shift whereby the oppressed challenge their oppressors.
This chapter advances this argument using the #ZimbabweanLivesMatter movement which echoes the #BlackLivesMater catchphrase hashtag to counter the government’s call upon citizens to join a gala to protest Western sanctions on the country on 25 October 2020 (Murwira, 2020). The Zimbabwean government has always attributed the country’s economic problems to Western sanctions while citizens argue it is bad governance and corruption (Hall, 2021). This polarized view on the causes of the ‘Zimbabwean crisis’ has created deep-seated political divisions pitting the ruling party, Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), and the opposition, Citizen for Coalition Change Alliance (CCC). Thus, mobilizing a counter response to the government-sponsored demonstration, journalist Hopewell Chin’ono posted on his Facebook page that for him, 25 October 2020 was an anti corruption day. As such, he urged fellow citizens to take the day as an opportunity "to refect on our spaces about the damage that corruption has done" (Chin’ono, 2020). It must be noted that this hashtag was a continuation of the July 2020 protests which mobilized around the theme of systemic corruption. Amidst COVID-19 lock down, journalists had unearthed massive corruption amounting to US$60 million. Outraged by this, citizens planned to protest against corruption on 31 July 2020, under the #ZANUPFMustGo hashtag. This protest did not materialize due to the government crackdown of perceived ringleaders leading Zimbabweans to launch the #ZimabweanLivesMatter Twitter hashtag (Machirori, 2020). It is this hashtag that was revived again around 25 October. Considering that it was only meant to refect on how corruption had damaged the Zimbabwean economy and not result in physical protests offine, this chapter critically examines the potential of this counter-hegemonic exercise in laying the groundwork for a potential ‘revolution’ by facilitating necessary cultural shifts as postulated by Gramsci (1994). Discursive weaknesses from this #ZimbabweanLivesMatter hashtag will also be considered.
The chapter, thus, analyzed the discourse around #ZimababweanLivesMatter generated between 22 and 28 October 2020. The major aim here was to interrogate how ordinary people can construct their own counter-hegemonic discourses in Gramscian terms to challenge the state in a way that foregrounds the way they perceive the world. This is being taken from a Gramscian perspective which argues that how people perceive the world is crucial to their understanding of reality which is important to their challenging of the status quo (Crehan, 2002). It is this chapter’s contention that key to the shaping of perception is the way in which people are rep resented as speakers in the social world or action (Machin & Mayr, 2012).
In the following sections, the chapter introduces its conceptual framework and research questions that guided it before looking at the methodology employed. This is followed by a look at how Zimbabweans engaged in intellectual refection that sought to identify the source of the country’s problems in a way that connects them to the real agents. At the same time, the fndings also interrogate how in certain cases, the discourse fails to match up to this by hiding the agents of human rights abuses.