The Twitter Revolution for Activism
The twitter revolution is being seen as a tool to help gear up for country changing activism – recently Foreign Policy magazine published an article on how twitter is helping young Moldavian fight for their rights,
Foreign Policy: Ever since yesterday’s announcement that Moldova’s communists have won enough votes to form a government in Sunday’s elections, Moldova’s progressive youth took to the streets in angry protests. As behooves any political protest by young people today, they also turned to Facebook and Twitter to raise awareness about the planned protests and flashmobs. Led by youth NGOs like HydePark and ThinkMoldova, the protests began very peacefully – as a flashmob, where young people were simply supposed to hold lit candles in the vicinity of the square.
However, things got out of hand – and, with or without Twitter’s help, the crowd got much larger, reaching as many as 10,000 people, who first picketed Election Commission headquarters, the president’s residence (windows are reported to be broken – and there are also reports that this building has been stormed), and other government buildings before storming the building of the Moldovan Parliament, which happens to be just across the road.
Watching the events unfold on twitter I’m glad to take solace in the fact that even we here in Pakistan were part of digital history during the Long March to have harnessed this power and maybe put it to good use – we even had the hashtag #LONGMARCH as one of the most trended topic during the five days when Pakistan screamed for Judicial Independence
I had a discussion yesterday at the Media & Activism seminar at the Goethe Institute where we discussed extensively on how to harness this technology and put it into better use for the future for Pakistan, many ideas came through and I hope we can contribute enough to make a difference
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Pakistani media should increase their presence on twitter so that the world should know latest news about Pakistan.
#Longmarch was a great example of activism in Pakistan
here is an interesting re-cap…
#Longmarch: A Story of Revolution from Twittering Pakistanis
http://buzzpick.blogspot.com/2009/03/longmarch-story-of-revolution-from.html
Damn Technology ,it is evolving everyday and it is hard to keep upto pace with it.I mean you buy one mobile and by the time you learn your new phone number and all the functions it is out .
@Waqar
God save us from Pakistani press.If one reads all the papers and editorials to be honest all is garbage.
Catchy phrases and spin stories.Twisted people with all nice words.
Yesterday I had a conversation at a blog.Women rights etc.
All the men had twisted brains ,every one is their sister and they have God send right to correct every female on the land .
How can they talk about Woman rights???
God save us ,for the very first time I think pakistan is a dangereous place .
We cannot differenciate between who is saying what actually and stands for what?
Excellent post, and very interesting to hear about Pakistan’s experiences with #LONGMARCH
I’ve been working on a draft post on Twitter *is* a strategy and will add this in as well — thanks Zee for the link!
jon