Panya hutegwa kwa gunzi.

 

Panya hutegwa kwa gunzi. 

Translation: A mouse is caught at an empty maize cob.

Gunzi - grainless maize cob.

An empty maize cob is one without any grain. Since a maize cob has a cylindrical shape, only a part of its surface is visible to the field of view. Due to the tendency of the brain to “fill-in” missing data of what the eyes perceive, the mouse might assume that maybe there could be some grain at the back side of the cob. This arousal of curiosity will make it go and scrutinize the cob’s backside for some imagined grain, only to be caught in the trap. This proverb is a warning that even the clever and witty should always be on guard since there are ways to exploit their weaknesses (especially curiosity) for entrapment.

Another proverb with similar meaning is,

Ndege mjanja hunaswa na tundu bovu.

Translation: A cunning bird is trapped by a rotten trap.

“Connective action” as cointelpro against “Collective action”.

Throughout history victories against injustice have been achieved through the collective action of organized movements. Consequently, hegemonic structures seeking to maintain status quo deploy counterintelligence programs (cointelpro) against domestic freedom fighting organizations as well as overseas rival state governments. The acronym COINTELPRO first appeared as a series of covert and illegal projects actively conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic American political organizations. FBI records show COINTELPRO resources targeted groups and individuals the FBI deemed subversive. Beginning in 1969, leaders of the Black Panther Party were targeted by the COINTELPRO and "neutralized" by being assassinated, imprisoned, publicly humiliated or falsely charged with crimes. Some of the Black Panthers targeted include Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, Zayd Shakur, Geronimo Pratt, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Marshall Conway. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover issued directives governing COINTELPRO, ordering FBI agents to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise “neutralize" the activities of these movements and especially their leaders. Under Hoover, the official in charge of COINTELPRO was assistant director William C. Sullivan. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy personally authorized some of the programs, giving written approval for limited wiretapping of Martin Luther King's phones "on a trial basis, for a month or so". Hoover extended the clearance so his men were "unshackled" to look for evidence in any areas of King's life they deemed worthy.

New technologies, especially social media networks have introduced a new dimension in the arena of counterintelligence programs. This new dimension can generally be referred to as “connective action”. Connective action networks can be used to act as decoys by digital imitation and/or act as agents of disruption and misdirection by digital infiltration of legitimate collective action organizations or governments.

The basis of mobilization of connective action networks is irrationality. They are meant to counter rationally-working organizations by mobilizing a motley of individuals who wouldn’t otherwise work together through appealing to their identity, culture, emotions, social networks, political processes’ hysteria, and opportunity desires. This is made possible through control by well-resourced digital technology firms which have the ability to monitor, administer and distribute measures of coercion and selective incentives such as censorships, shadow-banning, bot purchases, adverts, and so forth. The case for this mobilization of individuals by resource-rich firms was made by (Olson 1965). Though not expressed directly in the book, this enables organized resource-rich firms to control and promote a motley of individuals exhibiting irrational behaviour based on social dysfunction as long as they regurgitate slogans, punchlines and mantras based on topical trends assigned to them to create an impression of “social consensus” on social networks. This would be with the intention to harass organizations and dissuade their collective action especially in moments of opportunity.

The ideas of (Olson 1965) were picked up by other scholars under the banner of “resource mobilization theory” (RMT). The framing of this theory may be used to mobilize individuals at low-cost requirements by maintaining commitment to actions through emotions.

At the core of the logic of connective action networks is the basis of digital media as the chief organizational medium. In (Benkler 2006), he proposes that participation in online networks can, under the right conditions, arise from self-motivation rather than external incentives, since personally expressive content is shared with, and recognized by, others who in turn repeat these network-sharing activities. Digital media scholars call this form of economic production “peer production” because it is based on horizontal cooperation among participants who contribute to a mutually valued project in order to produce a public good. This peer production is the portal to digital imitation and infiltration for counterintelligence programs.

Connective action networks may vary in terms of stability, scale, and coherence, but they are brought together by different principles and usually have no clear objectives, neither can they implement anything substantial. Only the organized well-resourced tech firms controlling them can influence any substantial implementation using the rhetoric of their connective action networks for propaganda and justification. A good example is the “colour revolutions” of post-soviet states in the early 2000s. Some of these movements were successful in their goal of removing the government, such as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's Bulldozer Revolution (2000), Georgia's Rose Revolution (2003), Ukraine's Orange Revolution (2004) and Kyrgyzstan's Tulip Revolution (2005). They have been described by political scientists Valerie Jane Bunce and Seva Gunitsky as a "wave of democracy," between the Revolutions of 1989 and the 2010–2012 Arab Spring.

Connective action networks are typically far more individualized and technologically based sets of processes that result in action without the requirement of having defined collective identity nor the level of organizational resources needed to respond effectively to opportunities. Their only purpose is counterintelligence.

For the often oblivious recruited agents, it is important to note that their motivation for participation in these connective action networks is not altruism, but a different economic logic in which the production of things requires sharing (example: links for emails, chats, funny videos, blogging communities or even protest coordination platforms). All these examples require sharing, both as a means of production and as a division of labour. The two most important elements in the development of connective action formation are:

1.     Symbolic inclusiveness – connective action mobilizations often involve political content in the form of rudimentary personalized ideas such as “put people first” in the London 2009 protests, or “we are the 99%” in the latter occupy wall street protests. These frames require very little in the way of persuasion, reason, or reframing to bridge differences between different perspectives about a common problem. This is why for the oblivious recruits, the process usually ends in unsatisfactory and unprecedented results since there are no clearly defined grievances, objectives, nor even a real collective identity.

2.     Technological openness – most connective action networks are based on a variety of personal communication technologies that make it possible to share their rudimentary themes of inclusiveness through texts, tweets, social network sharing or posting youtube video mashups via phones, computers or other devices. Some of these networks may begin to somehow resemble organizations but they exist more online than offline.

 

References

Bennett, W. L., & Segerberg, A. (2012). The logic of connective action: Digital media and the personalization of contentious politics. Information, Communication & Society,

Benkler, Yochai. (2006). The wealth of networks: how social production transforms markets and freedom. New Haven [Conn.]: Yale University Press.

Hersh, Burton (2007). Bobby and J. Edgar: The Historic Face-Off Between the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hoover That Transformed America. Basic Books.

Olson, M. (1965). The logic of collective action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

TUKI (2001), Kamusi Ya Kiswahili-Kiingereza; Swahili-English Dictionary. Published by Taasisi ya Uchunguzi wa Kiswahili (TUKI), Chuo Kikuu cha Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.