The Free

Activism 3.0

Protests are increasingly appearing on the internet in real time in a myriad of ways. Adam Waldron takes a look at the smartphone applications that every activist needs

Karl Marx famously said that capitalism would produce its own gravedigger – and of course he meant the working class would overthrow the world order. But the arch-capitalists at Apple are rapidly arming students and trade unionists with the technology to agitate online, secretly organise direct actions and then publicise them worldwide in seconds.

Apptivism has the potential to transform the spontaneous outburst of demonstrations and renewed interest in the radical left into a coherent, highly organised and efficient movement. When protesters go ‘tooled up’ to demonstrations these days, they are grasping iPhones and Blackberrys bristling with the latest applications.

Micah White argued in The Guardian that ‘digital activists’ promoting ‘clicktivism’ are endangering the very ‘possibility of an emancipatory revolution in our lifetimes’. But as Red Pepper launches its clicktastic new website, here is a practical guide to Apptivism – because iPhone apps will be used to equip the uprising out in the streets, in real time, and make sure it is televised.

via Activism 3.0 | Red Pepper.

Organising on the edge

Caroline Elliot reports on a wave of grass-roots organising in sub-Saharan Africa bringing together workers in the informal economy

Anyone who has travelled in the global South will have experienced streets alive with the hustle and bustle of vendors and market traders, trying to sell you anything from drinks to second-hand clothes, from apples to electronics. Whether in the marketplace or on the streets, these workers form the basis of large and growing informal economies.

In November 2010 a unique gathering of such workers took place in Kitwe, Zambia. This meeting, funded by the Commonwealth Foundation and supported by War on Want, was the world’s first international conference run by street vendors for street vendors, and brought together organisations from Kenya, Malawi and Zambia.

The rise of the informal economy

via Organising on the edge | Red Pepper.