So recently, we heard a lot about how social media helps empower protest, and that's true, but after more than a decade of studying and participating in multiple social movements, I've come to realize that the way technology empowers social movements can also paradoxically help weaken them. This is not inevitable, but overcoming it requires diving deep into what makes success possible over the long term. And the lessons apply in multiple domains.
Puno slušamo o tome kako društveni mediji osnažuju prosvjedovanje i to je istina, ali nakon više od desetljeća proučavanja i sudjelovanja u raznim društvenim pokretima shvatila sam da tehnologija koja osnažuje društvene pokrete također ih može, paradoksalno, oslabiti. To nije neizbježno, ali da bi se prevladalo, potrebno je uroniti u ono što dugoročno osigurava uspjeh. Lekcije se primjenjuju u mnogim domenama.
Now, take Turkey's Gezi Park protests, July 2013, which I went back to study in the field. Twitter was key to its organizing. It was everywhere in the park -- well, along with a lot of tear gas. It wasn't all high tech. But the people in Turkey had already gotten used to the power of Twitter because of an unfortunate incident about a year before when military jets had bombed and killed 34 Kurdish smugglers near the border region, and Turkish media completely censored this news. Editors sat in their newsrooms and waited for the government to tell them what to do. One frustrated journalist could not take this anymore. He purchased his own plane ticket, and went to the village where this had occurred. And he was confronted by this scene: a line of coffins coming down a hill, relatives wailing. He later he told me how overwhelmed he felt, and didn't know what to do, so he took out his phone, like any one of us might, and snapped that picture and tweeted it out. And voila, that picture went viral and broke the censorship and forced mass media to cover it.
Na primjer, prosvjed u turskom Gezi Parku u srpnju 2013. godine, koji sam proučavala na terenu. Twitter je bio ključan za njegovu organizaciju. Bio je posvuda u parku -- zajedno sa suzavcem. Nije bio potpuno visokotehnološki. Ali ljudi su se u Turskoj već naviknuli na moć Twittera zbog nesretnog incidenta od prije godinu dana kada su vojni zrakoplovi bombardirali i ubili 34 kurdska krijumčara u blizini granice, a turski su mediji potpuno cenzurirali ovu vijest. Urednici su sjedili u redakcijama i čekali da im vlada kaže što činiti. Jedan frustrirani novinar to više nije mogao podnijeti. Kupio si je avionsku kartu i otišao u selo gdje se to dogodilo. Bio je suočen sa sljedećim: red lijesova spuštao se s brda, rođaci žaluju. Kasnije mi je rekao da je bio preplavljen osjećajima i nije znao što učiniti pa je izvadio telefon, kao što je bilo tko mogao učiniti, uslikao ovo i stavio ju na Twitter. i voila, slika je obišla svijet, uništila cenzuru i prisilila masovne medije da izvijeste o tome.
So when, a year later, Turkey's Gezi protests happened, it started as a protest about a park being razed, but became an anti-authoritarian protest. It wasn't surprising that media also censored it, but it got a little ridiculous at times. When things were so intense, when CNN International was broadcasting live from Istanbul, CNN Turkey instead was broadcasting a documentary on penguins. Now, I love penguin documentaries, but that wasn't the news of the day. An angry viewer put his two screens together and snapped that picture, and that one too went viral, and since then, people call Turkish media the penguin media. (Laughter)
Kada su se, godinu kasnije, dogodili prosvjedi u Geziju počelo je kao prosvjed protiv uništavanja parka, ali postao je prosvjed protiv autoriteta. Nije iznenađujuće da su i njih mediji cenzurirali, ali nekad je bilo smiješno. Kada je sve postalo intenzivno, međunarodni je CNN izvještavao uživo iz Istanbula, a CNN Turske prikazivao dokumentarac o pingvinima. Volim dokumentarce o pingvinima, ali to nije bila vijest dana. Ljutit gledatelj spojio je ekrane i uslikao ovu fotografiju koja je također obišla svijet i od onda ljudi turske medije nazivaju pingvinskim medijima. (Smijeh)
But this time, people knew what to do. They just took out their phones and looked for actual news. Better, they knew to go to the park and take pictures and participate and share it more on social media. Digital connectivity was used for everything from food to donations. Everything was organized partially with the help of these new technologies.
Ali, ovaj su put ljudi znali što činiti. Izvadili su mobitele i tražili prave vijesti. Štoviše, znali su da moraju otići u park i fotografirati i sudjelovati i podijeliti to putem društvenih medija. Digitalna je povezanost korištena za sve, od hrane do donacija. Sve je, djelomično, bilo organizirano uz pomoć novih tehnologija.
And using Internet to mobilize and publicize protests actually goes back a long way. Remember the Zapatistas, the peasant uprising in the southern Chiapas region of Mexico led by the masked, pipe-smoking, charismatic Subcomandante Marcos? That was probably the first movement that got global attention thanks to the Internet. Or consider Seattle '99, when a multinational grassroots effort brought global attention to what was then an obscure organization, the World Trade Organization, by also utilizing these digital technologies to help them organize. And more recently, movement after movement has shaken country after country: the Arab uprisings from Bahrain to Tunisia to Egypt and more; indignados in Spain, Italy, Greece; the Gezi Park protests; Taiwan; Euromaidan in Ukraine; Hong Kong. And think of more recent initiatives, like the #BringBackOurGirls hashtags. Nowadays, a network of tweets can unleash a global awareness campaign. A Facebook page can become the hub of a massive mobilization. Amazing.
Korištenje interneta za mobiliziranje i objavljivanje prosvjeda poprilično je staro. Sjećate se Zapatista, ustanka seljaka u južnoj Chiapas regiji Meksika koji je vodio maskirani, karizmatični pušač Subcomandante Marcos? To je vjerojatno bio prvi pokret koji je dobio pažnju svijeta zahvaljujući Internetu. Ili, Seattle 1999. godine, kada su multinacionalna nastojanja usmjerila pažnju svijeta na ono što je tada bila nepoznata organizacija, Svjetsku trgovinsku organizaciju, također koristeći digitalnu tehnologiju kako bi im pomogli pri organizaciji. I u novije doba, pokreti koji su potresali razne zemlje: ustanak Arapa iz Bahreina, Tunisa, Egipta i dalje; "gnjevni" u Španjolskoj, Italiji, Grčkoj; prosvjedi u Gezi Parku; Tajvan, "EuroMaidan" u Ukrajini; Hong Kong. A tu su i nedavne inicijative, poput hashtagova #BringBackOurGirls. U današnje vrijeme mreža tweetova može pokrenuti globalnu kampanju. Facebook stranica može postati središte ogromne mobilizacije. Nevjerojatno.
But think of the moments I just mentioned. The achievements they were able to have, their outcomes, are not really proportional to the size and energy they inspired. The hopes they rightfully raised are not really matched by what they were able to have as a result in the end. And this raises a question: As digital technology makes things easier for movements, why haven't successful outcomes become more likely as well? In embracing digital platforms for activism and politics, are we overlooking some of the benefits of doing things the hard way? Now, I believe so. I believe that the rule of thumb is: Easier to mobilize does not always mean easier to achieve gains.
Ali razmislite o ovome što sam spomenula. Ono što se moglo postići, ono što je proizašlo nije proporcionalno veličini i energiji koju su pokrenuli. Nada koju su pobudili nije u skladu s onim što je bio krajnji rezultat. I tu se nameće pitanje: Ako digitalna tehnologija olakšava razne pokrete, zašto nisu vjerojatniji uspješni rezultati? Prihvaćajući digitalne platforme u aktivizmu i politici možda propuštamo dobrobiti koje pruža organizacija na teži način. Vjerujem da je tako. Vjerujem da je to otprilike ovako: lakša mobilizacija ne znači nužno lakše postizanje ciljeva.
Now, to be clear, technology does empower in multiple ways. It's very powerful. In Turkey, I watched four young college students organize a countrywide citizen journalism network called 140Journos that became the central hub for uncensored news in the country. In Egypt, I saw another four young people use digital connectivity to organize the supplies and logistics for 10 field hospitals, very large operations, during massive clashes near Tahrir Square in 2011. And I asked the founder of this effort, called Tahrir Supplies, how long it took him to go from when he had the idea to when he got started. "Five minutes," he said. Five minutes. And he had no training or background in logistics. Or think of the Occupy movement which rocked the world in 2011. It started with a single email from a magazine, Adbusters, to 90,000 subscribers in its list. About two months after that first email, there were in the United States 600 ongoing occupations and protests. Less than one month after the first physical occupation in Zuccotti Park, a global protest was held in about 82 countries, 950 cities. It was one of the largest global protests ever organized.
Da budem jasna, tehnologija osnažuje u više načina. Vrlo je moćna. U Turskoj sam gledala kako četiri mlada studenta organiziraju mrežu gradskih novinara 140Journos koja je postala središte za necenzurirane vijesti u zemlji. U Egiptu sam vidjela kako četvero mladih ljudi koristi digitalnu povezanost za organiziranje zaliha i logistike za deset poljskih bolnica, što su jako velike operacije, tijekom velikih sukoba blizu Tahrir trga 2011. godine. Pitala sam pokretača te inicijative, koju su nazvali Tahrir Supplies, koliko mu je trebalo od ideje do trenutka kada je počeo s radom. "Pet minuta", odgovorio je. Pet minuta. Nije imao iskustva u logistici. Ili, sjetite se pokreta Occupy koji je potresao svijet 2011. godine. Počeo je jednim e-mailom iz časopisa Adbusters koji je poslan 90000 pretplatnika na njega. Otprilike dva mjeseca kasnije u SAD-u je bilo 600 okupacija i prosvjeda. Manje od mjesec dana nakon prve fizičke okupacije u Zuccotti parku održan je globalni prosvjed u 82 zemlje i 950 gradova. Bio je to jedan od najvećih globalnih prosvjeda ikad.
Now, compare that to what the Civil Rights Movement had to do in 1955 Alabama to protest the racially segregated bus system, which they wanted to boycott. They'd been preparing for many years and decided it was time to swing into action after Rosa Parks was arrested. But how do you get the word out -- tomorrow we're going to start the boycott -- when you don't have Facebook, texting, Twitter, none of that? So they had to mimeograph 52,000 leaflets by sneaking into a university duplicating room and working all night, secretly. They then used the 68 African-American organizations that criss-crossed the city to distribute those leaflets by hand. And the logistical tasks were daunting, because these were poor people. They had to get to work, boycott or no, so a massive carpool was organized, again by meeting. No texting, no Twitter, no Facebook. They had to meet almost all the time to keep this carpool going.
Usporedite to s Pokretom za građanska prava u Alabami 1955. godine koji se suprotstavio segregacijskom sustavu autobusa. Pripremali su se godinama i odlučili da je došlo vrijeme za akciju nakon uhićenja Rose Parks. Ali kako obznaniti da će sutra započeti bojkot ako nemate Facebooka, SMS-ova ni Twittera? Morali su ispisati 52000 letaka tako što su se ušuljali u sveučilište i potajno radili cijelu noć. Zatim su pomoću 68 Afroameričkih ogranizacija pročešljali grad kako bi ručno podijelili te letke. Logistički su zadaci bili obeshrabrujući jer se radilo o siromašnim ljudima. Morali su ići na posao neovisno o bojkotu tako da je organiziran prijevoz, opet tako što su se sastali. Bez SMS-ova, Twittera, Facebooka. Neprestano su se morali nalaziti kako bi održavali prijevoz.
Today, it would be so much easier. We could create a database, available rides and what rides you need, have the database coordinate, and use texting. We wouldn't have to meet all that much. But again, consider this: the Civil Rights Movement in the United States navigated a minefield of political dangers, faced repression and overcame, won major policy concessions, navigated and innovated through risks. In contrast, three years after Occupy sparked that global conversation about inequality, the policies that fueled it are still in place. Europe was also rocked by anti-austerity protests, but the continent didn't shift its direction. In embracing these technologies, are we overlooking some of the benefits of slow and sustained? To understand this, I went back to Turkey about a year after the Gezi protests and I interviewed a range of people, from activists to politicians, from both the ruling party and the opposition party and movements. I found that the Gezi protesters were despairing. They were frustrated, and they had achieved much less than what they had hoped for. This echoed what I'd been hearing around the world from many other protesters that I'm in touch with. And I've come to realize that part of the problem is that today's protests have become a bit like climbing Mt. Everest with the help of 60 Sherpas, and the Internet is our Sherpa. What we're doing is taking the fast routes and not replacing the benefits of the slower work. Because, you see, the kind of work that went into organizing all those daunting, tedious logistical tasks did not just take care of those tasks, they also created the kind of organization that could think together collectively and make hard decisions together, create consensus and innovate, and maybe even more crucially, keep going together through differences. So when you see this March on Washington in 1963, when you look at that picture, where this is the march where Martin Luther King gave his famous "I have a dream" speech, 1963, you don't just see a march and you don't just hear a powerful speech, you also see the painstaking, long-term work that can put on that march. And if you're in power, you realize you have to take the capacity signaled by that march, not just the march, but the capacity signaled by that march, seriously. In contrast, when you look at Occupy's global marches that were organized in two weeks, you see a lot of discontent, but you don't necessarily see teeth that can bite over the long term. And crucially, the Civil Rights Movement innovated tactically from boycotts to lunch counter sit-ins to pickets to marches to freedom rides. Today's movements scale up very quickly without the organizational base that can see them through the challenges. They feel a little like startups that got very big without knowing what to do next, and they rarely manage to shift tactically because they don't have the depth of capacity to weather such transitions.
Danas bi to bilo puno lakše. Stvorili bismo bazu podataka, dostupne i potrebne vožnje, bazu bismo koordinirali i koristili SMS-ove. Gotovo se uopće ne bismo morali nalaziti. Ali opet, razmislite o ovome: Pokret za građanska prava u Sjedinjenim Državama prolazio je mnoge političke prijetnje, suočio se s gušenjem i prevladao ga, izborio se za razne političke ustupke, prošao i uveo inovacije kroz rizike. Usporedimo to s Occupy pokretom. Tri godine nakon početka globalnog razgovora o nejednakosti politike koje su ga pokrenule još su uvijek na snazi. Europu su potresli prosvjedi protiv mjera štednje, ali ništa se nije promijenilo. Prihvaćajući te tehnologije, je li moguće da previdimo neke dobrobiti sporoga i održivoga? Kako bih to razumjela, vratila sam se u Tursku godinu dana nakon prosvjeda u Geziju i intervjuirala razne ljude, od aktivista do političara, iz vladajuće i opozicijske stranke i pokreta. Prosvjednici su očajavali. Bili su frustrirani jer su postigli puno manje od očekivanog. To je potvrdilo ono što sam čula od mnogih prosvjednika diljem svijeta. Shvatila sam da je dio problema to što su današnji prosvjedi postali kao osvajanje Mt. Everesta uz pomoć 60 sherpa, a internet je naš sherpa. Biramo kraći put, a ne nalazimo zamjenu za dobrobiti sporijeg načina. Zato što, znate, posao potreban za organizaciju svih tih zastrašujućih, mučnih logističkih zadataka nije samo pokrio te zadatke već je stvorio tip organizacije koja je mogla kolektivno razmišljati i zajedno donositi teške odluke, stvarati konsenzuse i inovacije, a možda i ono važnije, zajedno prolaziti različitosti. Kada pogledate Marš na Washington 1963. godine, kada pogledate tu sliku marša na kojem je Martin Luther King održao svoj slavni "Imam san" govor, 1963., ne vidite samo marš i ne čujete samo moćan govor već vidite i mukotrpan, dugotrajan trud koji je uložen u taj marš. I ako ste osoba na položaju, shvaćate da morate uzeti u obzir sposobnost koju marš predstavlja, ne samo taj marš, nego i kapacitete koje on predstavlja. Usporedimo to s globalnim marševima Occupy pokreta koji su organizirani u 2 tjedna i ispoljavaju nezadovoljstvo, ali ne vidi se dugoročnost. Pokret za građanska prava taktično je krenuo od bojkota do formiranja ljudskih ograda, marševa do putnika slobode. Današnji se pokreti brzo pojavljuju bez organizacijske baze koja im može omogućiti opstanak. Izgledaju kao početnici koji su postali poznati, a ne znaju što dalje učiniti, i rijetko se mogu taktički prilagoditi jer nemaju dubinu kapaciteta da se nose s takvim prijelazom.
Now, I want to be clear: The magic is not in the mimeograph. It's in that capacity to work together, think together collectively, which can only be built over time with a lot of work. To understand all this, I interviewed a top official from the ruling party in Turkey, and I ask him, "How do you do it?" They too use digital technology extensively, so that's not it. So what's the secret? Well, he told me. He said the key is he never took sugar with his tea. I said, what has that got to do with anything? Well, he said, his party starts getting ready for the next election the day after the last one, and he spends all day every day meeting with voters in their homes, in their wedding parties, circumcision ceremonies, and then he meets with his colleagues to compare notes. With that many meetings every day, with tea offered at every one of them, which he could not refuse, because that would be rude, he could not take even one cube of sugar per cup of tea, because that would be many kilos of sugar, he can't even calculate how many kilos, and at that point I realized why he was speaking so fast. We had met in the afternoon, and he was already way over-caffeinated. But his party won two major elections within a year of the Gezi protests with comfortable margins. To be sure, governments have different resources to bring to the table. It's not the same game, but the differences are instructive. And like all such stories, this is not a story just of technology. It's what technology allows us to do converging with what we want to do. Today's social movements want to operate informally. They do not want institutional leadership. They want to stay out of politics because they fear corruption and cooptation. They have a point. Modern representative democracies are being strangled in many countries by powerful interests. But operating this way makes it hard for them to sustain over the long term and exert leverage over the system, which leads to frustrated protesters dropping out, and even more corrupt politics. And politics and democracy without an effective challenge hobbles, because the causes that have inspired the modern recent movements are crucial. Climate change is barreling towards us. Inequality is stifling human growth and potential and economies. Authoritarianism is choking many countries. We need movements to be more effective.
Da nešto razjasnim: ne radi se o umnožavanju. Radi se o sposobnosti zajedničkog rada, kolektivnog razmišljanja, a to se može izgraditi s vremenom uz puno truda. Da to sve shvatim, intervjuirala sam vođu iz vladajuće stranke u Turskoj i pitala ga kako on to radi. I oni puno koriste digitalnu tehnologiju, tako da očito nije stvar u tome. U čemu je onda tajna? Otkrio mi je. Rekao je da ključ uspjeha leži u tome da nikada ne pije čaj sa šećerom. Pitala sam ga kakve to ima veze s bilo čime. Odgovorio mi je da se njegova stranka priprema za iduće izbore dan nakon posljednjeg i da provodi dane sastajući se s glasačima u njihovim domovima, na vjenčanjima, obredima obrezivanja i onda se nađe s kolegama i uspoređuju iskustva. Svi ti sastanci svakog dana, a čaj mu ponude na svakom i ne smije ga odbiti jer bi to bilo nepristojno, ne može staviti kocku šećera u svaku šalicu čaja jer bi to bilo mnogo kilograma šećera, toliko da im ne zna ni broja, i tada sam shvatila zašto tako brzo govori. Sastali smo se popodne kada je već popio puno kofeina. Ali njegova je stranka dobila dva izbora u godini Gezi prosvjeda i to s uvjerljivom prednošću. Vlade imaju razne resurse kojima raspolažu. Ne radi se o istoj igri, ali različitosti su poučne. I kao sve ovakve priče, ne radi se samo o tehnologiji. Radi se o tome što nam ona dopušta, a što odgovara onome što želimo učiniti. Današnji društveni pokreti žele djelovati neformalno. Ne žele institucionalno vodstvo. Ne žele se miješati u politiku jer se boje korupcije i suradnje. I u pravu su. U mnogim se zemljama guše moderni predstavnici demokracije zbog moćnih interesa. Ali takvo djelovanje otežava dugoročnu održivost i smanjuje nadmoć nad sustavom, što vodi do odustanka frustriranih prosvjednika i još veće korumpiranosti politike. Politika i demokracija su sputane bez djelotvornih izazova jer su uzroci modernih pokreta ključni. Klimatske nam promjene dolaze. Nejednakost guši ljudski napredak, potencijal i ekonomiju. Mnoge zemlje guši diktatorstvo. Pokreti moraju biti djelotvorniji.
Now, some people have argued that the problem is today's movements are not formed of people who take as many risks as before, and that is not true. From Gezi to Tahrir to elsewhere, I've seen people put their lives and livelihoods on the line. It's also not true, as Malcolm Gladwell claimed, that today's protesters form weaker virtual ties. No, they come to these protests, just like before, with their friends, existing networks, and sometimes they do make new friends for life. I still see the friends that I made in those Zapatista-convened global protests more than a decade ago, and the bonds between strangers are not worthless. When I got tear-gassed in Gezi, people I didn't know helped me and one another instead of running away. In Tahrir, I saw people, protesters, working really hard to keep each other safe and protected. And digital awareness-raising is great, because changing minds is the bedrock of changing politics. But movements today have to move beyond participation at great scale very fast and figure out how to think together collectively, develop strong policy proposals, create consensus, figure out the political steps and relate them to leverage, because all these good intentions and bravery and sacrifice by itself are not going to be enough.
Neki ljudi smatraju da je problem današnjih pokreta taj što pokretači ne riskiraju kao prije, a to nije istina. Gezi, Tahrir i posvuda vidjela sam da ljudi riskiraju živote i sve što imaju. Također nije istina što tvrdi Malcolm Gladwell, a to je da su virtualne veze današnjih prosvjednika slabe. Nije, zato što oni dolaze na prosvjede, baš kao i prije, s prijateljima, i nekada se povezuju s drugima i to potraje cijeli život. Još viđam prijatelje koje sam upoznala u onim Zaptista-sazvanim globalnim prosvjedima prije više od 10 godina, a veze između stranaca nisu beskorisne. Kada su bacali suzavac na mene u Geziju, pomogli su mi ljudi koji me ne znaju, pomagali su jedni drugima, a ne bježali. U Tahriru sam vidjela prosvjednike koji su davali sve od sebe da zaštite druge prosvjednike. Buđenje pomoću digitalizacije je super jer je promjena načina razmišljanja temelj za promjenu politike. Današnji se pokreti moraju brzo razvijati i naučiti kako kolektivno razmišljati, razviti jake prijedloge za politiku, stvarati konsenzuse, shvatiti političke korake i kako njima ostvariti nadmoć jer sama dobra namjera, hrabrost i žrtva neće biti dovoljne.
And there are many efforts. In New Zealand, a group of young people are developing a platform called Loomio for participatory decision making at scale. In Turkey, 140Journos are holding hack-a-thons so that they support communities as well as citizen journalism. In Argentina, an open-source platform called DemocracyOS is bringing participation to parliaments and political parties. These are all great, and we need more, but the answer won't just be better online decision-making, because to update democracy, we are going to need to innovate at every level, from the organizational to the political to the social. Because to succeed over the long term, sometimes you do need tea without sugar along with your Twitter. Thank you. (Applause)
A mnogo se pokušava. U Novom Zelandu skupina mladih razvija platformu Loomio za sudjelovanje u donošenju odluka. U Turskoj 140Journos održavaju programerski maraton i time podržavaju zajednice i gradske novinare. U Argentini besplatna platforma DemocracyOS omogućuje sudjelovanje u parlamentu i političkim strankama. Sve je to sjajno, ali treba nam više jer odgovor neće biti samo bolje online donošenje odluka jer, da bismo unaprijedili demokraciju, moramo napredovati na svim razinama, od ogranizacijske, političke do društvene. Jer, za dugoročan uspjeh nekad moramo piti čaj bez šećera dok smo na Twitteru. Hvala. (Pljesak)