“Vigil-aunties”? Exporting the Worst Variety of Citizen Journalism

Controversial American investigative journalism is usually limited to things like Michael Jackson interviews. And when our reality television toes the line, it’s because of Fear Factor episodes where contestants come into contact with disagreeable animal byproducts. Sure, political arguments get heated; sometimes, even, we end up doing it live. But our media, in no small part thanks to the power wielded historically by the FCC, generally self-regulates. For better or for worse.

Not the case in Pakistan. Two weeks ago, a reality television show where participants act like Saudi mutaween, accosting couples appearing together in public, debuted on a major TV network. For an hour, a pack of women chased teenagers and young adults through the streets of Karachi in true religious police fashion. The New York Times writeup, one of many that have cropped up over the past week, describes the show which, most incredibly, was broadcast live, the best:

Panting breathlessly and trailed by a cameraman, the group of about 15 women chased after — sometimes at jogging pace — girls and boys sitting quietly on benches overlooking the Arabian Sea or strolling under the trees. The women peppered them with questions: What were they doing? Did their parents know? Were they engaged?

Some couples reacted with alarm, and tried to scuttle away. A few gave awkward answers. One couple claimed to be married. The show’s host, Maya Khan, 31, demanded to see proof. “So where is your marriage certificate?” she asked sternly.

This hourlong spectacle, broadcast live on Samaa TV on Jan. 17, set off a furious reaction in parts of Pakistan. Outrage sprang from the Internet and percolated into the national newspapers, where writers slammed Ms. Khan’s tactics as a “witch hunt.”

“Vigil-aunties,” read one headline, referring to the South Asian term “aunty” for older, bossy and often judgmental women.

We’ve given an exorbitant amount of credit to citizen journalists in the wake of the Arab Spring. In addition to funding technologies which will increase their effectiveness and safety, the United States is actively training whistleblowers around the world as part of democracy promotion programming. These are the individuals, proponents of this spending say, who hold the key to democratic transition in places we previously overlooked.

Americans and Westerners seem to love it when media is used “for good.” But is that truly a reasonable expectation in places, like Pakistan, where media self-regulation away from extremism is almost incomprehensible? A show such as this one in Pakistan seems like no more than a logical and cultural extension than the United States’ own To Catch a Predator, which, for those not familiar,  lures purported sexual predators into police sting operations using decoys posing as underage teenagers.

When the United States encourages a “gotcha” culture of new media soundbites, live feeds, and citizen activism, what more do we really expect? Journalists using new trends and technologies to enforce the moral code of a society should not surprise anyone.

Russia’s hot winter update

They did it. Russian activists gathered tens of thousands of people in a new anti-Putin rally in Moscow this Saturday, braving temperatures of 4F to ask for honest elections.

Wall Street Journal: organizers said 120,000 came out this saturday

Organizers said they had about 120,000 participants, so I guess we can believe at least half of that were present. It’s a huge number. Reporters from Reuters said it looked as large as last year’s rallies. A counter-protest in support of Putin had about 20,000 elsewhere in the city. In a month, we will see how far the anger will go in the polls.

Russia’s hot winter

Washington Post: Protests in Moscow, December 2011

Russian activists promise to shake things up again in the country with a new march this Saturday, February 4^th, to demand honest elections in a month, when Vladimir Putin will probably win the Presidency back. It will be a continuation of the wave of protests that occurred in Russia at the end of last year, when parliamentary elections were deemed less than free and fair. The uprising, if we may call it that way, has been compared to the Arab Spring and even to the American civil rights movement.

To me, it sounds a bit exaggerated. First, because results are not likely to be as dramatic. And second, because the goals are different.

On the optimists side, Leon Aron, from the conservative group American Enterprise Institute, says that the movement is more than a political wave. According to him, what is happening in Russia is a “moral awakening akin to the American civil rights movement”. “[Activists share] a profound sense that lasting liberalization of their homeland would come about only through the realization of a mature, self-aware civil society able and willing to control the executive branch.”

That shared sentiment has come not from a specific desire to form an opposition or get involved in politics. What happened, Aron explains, was that it became inevitable to deal with the government -and almost certainly to get in trouble with the Kremlin- if one was against anything that is part of the status quo, be it transportation taxes or the cutting of trees. Suddenly modest objectors got themselves elevated to civil society leaders.

In common with the American counterpart, in theory, the Russians have as an “ultimate goal dignity and equality before the law”. “And just like the leaders of the civil rights movement, Russia’s activists seek to effect vast political and social change by personal and deeply moral effort fueled from within” to achieve their goals, affirms Aron.

I’m not sure, however, if the comparison stands. Maybe the Russians want an awakening of civil society, but they are not protesting against the social building of the country. They basically want the system to work better, with less corruption, and to get Putin out. They do not plan to extinguish the current system and build another one with a different social structure. In that, I think it is fundamentally different than the American civil rights movement.

For similar reasons, I think comparing it to the Arab Spring is a bit too much. The Arab Spring did not succeed in revolutionizing every political system – look at Egypt right now, with the military still in charge – but it tried. It was not about replacing one person or improving the political machinery, but about tearing something down and building something else in its place.

The goals stated by the activists in charge of organizing the February 4th event are much more simple: annulling the parliamentary elections and preventing Putin from winning again.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies assesses that “those who expect Russia to follow the path of Arab revolutions are likely to be disappointed”.
“The protests may herald a period of greater instability, but they are unlikely to prevent Putin’s return to the presidency in March 2012 or to substantially transform Russia’s political regime, which is democratic in form but authoritarian in essence. The most that the protesters could realistically achieve is to impose greater accountability on Russia’s political elite.”

The institute argues that while protesters want the end of the “Putin regime” and demand new laws and new elections, they do not have a “common vision of what should replace it”.

In any event, this weekend’s march will be a test to see how much the Russian society still is mobilized. If the opposition continues to bring dozens of thousands of people to the streets in temperatures of about 20 F, then I guess Putin should trust they can do almost anything.

More on the decline of the middle class

Political scientist Francis Fukuyama argued in 2012′s first edition of “Foreign Affairs” that the absence of ideological competition in modern times has resulted in ultra-liberal policies that contribute to the decline of the middle class in developed countries and puts the future of democracy at risk. We have blogged about this.

Fukuyama explored the idea further in an interview with columnist Claudia Antunes, of the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, with whom he talked openly about his fear of the “Latin-Americanization” of the US. “Im shocked at how much the US is starting to look like old Latin America”, he says. “If you ask the rich to pay more taxes, they will say no, arguing that the government will waste the money with corruption and bad services. The government’s performance cannot get better, since it does not have enough money, but no one wants to pay more exactly because the performance is bad. The US got out of this trap in the 30′s and now we are falling back into it.”

Fukuyama sees a “democratic deficit” in the US and affirms that it is related to the power of money and interest groups, which have a disproportional weight in the political system when compared to the social groups they represent. He insists that liberal democracy is still the best system available, but that it is dying and must be revived somehow.

The middle class dilemma, of course, is not exclusive of the US. And not all middle classes are for democracy. “Strengthening democracy is tied to the amount of people in a society who reach the middle class. When the middle class is small and part of traditional elites, it sees government as a protector of its interests and fears total democracy, which could threaten their gains. That is what is happening in China right now”, he declared.

Here are a few other interesting excerpts of the interview:

“I am not saying we should abandon liberalism; it is a matter of degree. The revolution led by [Ronald] Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in the 80′s (…) was necessary, but went too far and imprisoned the US in an ideology that is too rigid. A liberal society will always be necessary, but we need to go back to state regulation and social policies that preserve middle class gains and encourage the rise of the poor to the middle class.”

“Old recipes of social democracy will not work, since in many cases the state is problematic and is not able to implement policies. That explains to a great extent the weakness of the left in the US and in Europe. (…) A simple return to old formats of social democracy is no longer fiscally sustainable, nor could it improve public services.”

“I do not see in the US forces capable of building an alternative ideology. That is why I wrote the article.”

“There is a great controversy around the “Occupy Wall Street” movement because it is populated mainly by young people with a leftish ideology, who do not represent syndicates or the working middle class in a larger sense. I do not believe in the prospects of the movement in the long run. Its social base is too narrow. [But] if the working middle class mobilizes for more progressive policies, then we will have a powerful populist movement.”

“In the US, it is the right that has been populist. We see that in the way they attack cultural elites and powerful players. At the same time, the right is against economic regulation and tax increases. Now, why is the left resisting a more populist rhetoric? It is another idiosyncrasy of American politics.”

It will be interesting to see how this rhetoric will play out in this year’s election.

Censorship, Technology & Free Speech

Over the past year I’ve written pretty regularly on the value I see in technology as a tool to promote free speech.  Anyone who’s read my thoughts on the subject recognizes that I am clearly not without my biases or presumptive beliefs on the issue.  My beliefs aside, the past year’s ongoing saga of public unrest, contrasted by technological repression is obviously deserving of attention.  New technologies that allow individuals to communicate, motivate and organize with others have become a clear target of repression in the past year and the trend suggests this form of repression isn’t due to vanish any time soon.
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