African Bloggers Developing Social Activism Sharing Your Voice on Digital Media William Jackson, Zakaria laajily, Yousra Mounib
Twitter: @myquesttoteach, @Zakaria_lj, @yousramounib3
“Writers are being recognized by their works as artist and those of the activist. Creating content is more than just throwing words, videos, pictures on a digital parchment. There is intellectual thought in the writing process. Sometimes writers will be in a zone of creativity and innovation to create content that has an intended outcome,
sometimes the outcomes are unknown.”
William Jackson, M.E.d.
Professor Wole Soyinka stated, “Just sit down and write….” The responsibility of a blogger / writer, to write means that they have a responsibility to tell a story of those that cannot write. Those that do not have a voice and whose voices are being silenced by tyranny, terrorism, trials of neglect. Those that do not have access to resources
because of the lack of access to education or hope in their lives.
Digital content is powerful and magnifies the writers’ voice, enabling to bring recognition, attention and urgency to social issues that need to be addressed. From the political unrest in Nigeria, to the successes experienced in Morocco, to the growing social activism of One Africa Forum providing conferences for African youth, teens and young adults. Technology and social media are opening doors for collaboration and unity across the African continent. The growth of African digital social groups represents the urgency to issues that Africans are passionate about; Clubhouse is a growing digital audio landscape that is rapidly growing into the millions across Africa. “Rooms” cover Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Morocco, and continue to grow. The threat to governments is that people are able to voice their concerns, fears, solutions, observations and are
able to collaborate with like-minded people across the African continent.
Twitter at one time was banned across Nigeria because those in political control are fearful of the accusations of corruption, being held to standards of accountability, lack of social services to those in need, low educational resources and how the pandemic
is being addressed with medical attention and lack of vaccinations for the people.
The advancement of the African blogger / writer is derived from the civic responsibility to write / blog not just for oneself, for those that do not have a voice. Bloggers are the voice for the voiceless, there are growing numbers of blogs that address social issues that at one time were only whispers, people that were marginalized and discounted because they did not have a voice nor platform. Smartphones are providing a tool to access platforms for their voices. Colonization, slavery and wars aided in destroying voices that carry wisdom, history and legacies. There are powerful stories about the journey to freedom, overcoming obstacles, defeating racism, and war. To get a better understanding of Africa you must listen to Africans telling the African Story:
Komla Dumor at TEDxEuston
The ability to share a story comes from the ability to listen and apply knowledge from a person’s experiences and the ability to shift our thinking of mistakes as roadblocks to seeing them as opportunities to learn from.
The diversity of culture influences a writer’s ability to “touch” the people they are
writing to or writing about. The relevance of applying information and resources is to create a mindset of change and psychological empowerment to move the mind beyond the
current place of settlement to see the potential to change the current situation of the people.
Great writers of the past and pre-bloggers Soyinka and Achebe can be seen globally through their writings. This represents that power of content that is used to educate people into action. Education must come first then unity, then collaboration and activism.
An educated society is an empowered and growing society, we see this on platforms like
Clubhouse, the audio app that has grown to several millions in just two years. Africa bloggers are an example of content creators that address the educational needs of the people, using technology and their talents in writing to bring learning to those that cannot
travel and voice to the voiceless.
Chinua Achebe (Grandfather of African writing) stated that the writer has a different agenda then the emperor. This is relevant even today. Building an infrastructure for learning and building Social Media connections is vital to allow people to share and collaborate across cultural, religious and gender lines that travel across the borders of Africa. Recent Social Media conferences, meetups and summits provide African knowledge to allow African people to tell their stories and make important connections that build business and commerce
opportunities.
Writers like Soyinka encourage writers to empower people and voice their support and their concerns for the direction of issues that are important to the broader African community. The ability of writers / bloggers to develop trust in the people can be applied to Achebe’s statement that the writer has a different agenda than the emperor; the writer has the hearts and minds of the people, while the emperor tries to have the purses and wallets of the people to fill their coffers to live a lifestyle of opulence and wealth at the
expense of its citizens.
History has shown that, “if we are not speaking for ourselves or writing for ourselves, someone else is going to describe who we are, where we came from and where we are
goin
g.” Chinua Achebe
The travesty of colonialism is the mentality and ideology that was taught and enforced on Africans that their history is not and was not important nor significant to world history. That is so much garbage taught by non-Africans still in the 21st century, technology allows for there to be a change, allowing for the transformative messages with Blogging, Vblogging, Microblogging and Podcasting to share stories.
The storyteller has never been so empowered with potentiality with millions of viewers.
The legacy of African people is in their storytelling, the storytelling of history. Language was developed from stories, shared through spoken stories, and family history was shared through stories, all were language based. Ghana was the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to launch a cellular mobile network in 1992. It was also one of the first countries in Africa to be connected to the internet and to introduce ADSL broadband services.
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/technology/
“There is a Story Inside to Tell” Achebe states that every African has an important story that needs to be told, every African life from the city to the village is important. Technology allows for powerful engagement and opportunities for transformative
exchanges that can create paradigms of change and growth across the African continent.
Achebe, Soyinka and other African writers were pre-bloggers, they have created the path the writer and now bloggers have a responsibility to continue. Do not allow the emperor to make false promises with illusionary speeches of prosperity when children, women and poor are suffering. African brothers and sisters, tell your stories and share with the world. Use technology to help create the change you want to see in your communities, cities, nation and on the African continent. Writing, Podding (Podcasting), Microblogging, Video Blogging, Audio Blogging
empower Africans even with Smartphone technologies to share their transformative voices.
William Jackson, Zakaria laajily and Yousra Mounib are content creators focusing on Africa and the 54 nations of the continent. They are digital innovators for their respective brands. My Quest To Teach – William, Zakaria and Yousra are developing their brands that will be announced soon. William, Zakaria and Yousra are contributors to One Africa Forum, Education Conference rooms on Clubhouse, and developing platforms providing conferences, workshops and trainings. They will be providing a Podcast supporting Morocco youth, teens and young adults soon as they develop their content, objectives and strategies for implementation.
Zakaria and Yousra are univeristy students.