Sex, whistles and shutdowns: Inside Africa’s non-protesters’ protesting toolbox
Posted on February 23, 2017 by James Wan
How to subvert the system from the safety of your home.
Marches and demonstrations are not the only way to protest.
What is a protest? The image that usually comes to mind is one of huge
crowds marching down a street, waving banners and chanting slogans.
“Make your voice heard” and “stand up and be counted” are typically
the leading calls to action.
Often however, exclamations of dissent soon turn to whimpers and those
who stand up can expect to be swiftly knocked down. Marches and
demonstrations in countries led by insecure, repressive governments
come with huge risks. Moreover, a noisy march may not always be the
best way to shine a light on an issue in a sustained and effective
way.
But rallies and explicit criticism are not the only ways to show
dissent and solidarity. And particularly in the last few years,
citizens in Africa fed up with the status quo have found creative ways
to protest without “protesting”. They have developed strategies for
expressing opposition through means that may be less visible and
direct than traditional methods, but are still powerful, subversive
and effective in their own way.
Below is a partial list of just a few of these methods. It is far from
exhaustive, and we invite readers to help us fill in the gaps by
commenting below.
Blowing the whistle
Ahead of Chad’s 2016 elections, civil society groups demanded a fair
election and wanted to speak out against injustice, impunity and
nepotism. But with the government ramping up its restrictions on
rallies and free speech, protesting on the streets was a dangerous
option.
As an alternative therefore, protesters came up with the “citizen
whistle”. From the safety and anonymity of their own homes, people
were encouraged to all whistle as loudly as they could for 15 minutes
at 4:30am and then again in the evening. In previous years, Chadian
activists had done a similar thing but by banging pots and pans.
“Express your anger from your home, without the risk of violence,”
read a statement from the Enough is Enough coalition. “With your
‘citizen whistle’ you become the referee of change.”
Seeing red
Through much of the second term of Benin’s President Yayi Boni, there
were suggestions he wanted to amend the constitution to allow him to
extend his rule. Many were not best pleased by this prospect and so
decided to show their discontent in a way that was peaceful and
non-confrontational yet still crystal clear and sustained.
The Mercredi Rouge (or Red Wednesday) movement was born. From July
2013, residents of the capital Cotonou donned bright red clothes every
Wednesday. Many engaged in marches on these occasions too, lighting up
the streets with a flash of their vibrant reds, but others simply wore
the now politically-charged colour on the day – sometimes
surreptitiously – to express support for the movement.
Boni’s derivative counter-campaign – White Friday – failed to capture
nearly the same level of support. And in September 2013, the proposed
amendments were rejected by the National Assembly’s law commission,
with a number of the president’s former allies joining those opposing
his plans.
In many other instances, activists have adopted potent symbols (e.g.
flags) or gestures (e.g. crossed arms) as expressions of dissent.
Governments have often responded to these emblems by banning their
usage, but it’s much harder to outlaw a colour.
LT #Benin Live Mercredi rouge ÉDITION 4 #Mercredirouge #team229
pic.twitter.com/upWbFR3S6w
— Mercredi Rouge (@MercredisRouges) August 7, 2013
Coming like a ghost town
Strikes and blockades are well-known forms of protest, aimed at
deliberately crippling one sector or section of a country. But across
Africa, demonstrators have recently been taking it a step further by
urging people from all walks of life – from officer workers to street
vendors to the unemployed – to simply stay at home for the day.
Known as the Ville Morte or Stay Away or Ghost Town or Shutdown, these
protests can create the eeriest of effects as usually bustling streets
lie abandoned and the town comes to a silent halt. The economic effect
of paralysing a town can be grave, while the symbolic power of large
sections of a city’s population boycotting the status quo and staying
at home – even if just for a day – can be devastating.
Recently, these protests have been held to varying degrees of success
in Congo-Kinshasa, Congo-Brazzaville, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Ethiopia,
Chad and elsewhere.
“This is what we all needed, something that we can all do together,”
said Pastor Evan Mawarire, after a largely effective stay away in
Zimbabwe in July 2016.
I'd say Harare CBD is 70-80% shutdown. Most of the small shops,
boutiques and such are closed. #ZimShutDown pic.twitter.com/EHBTUJ7b2P
— Christopher Farai (@ChrisCharamba) July 6, 2016
Sex bomb
Those calling for change are usually quite far from the levers of
power. But, sometimes, they happen to be close associates of the men –
and it is almost always still men – whose actions they are trying to
influence. Occasionally, they are so close they share a bed.
On numerous occasions in the past few years, the wives and girlfriends
of African leaders have tried to make their men see sense. And if the
way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, they have mobilised
according to the working hypothesis that the way to his brain may be a
little further south.
Perhaps most famously in Liberia in 2003, Women of Liberia Mass Action
for Peace conducted a sex strike as part of their attempts to pressure
the warring factions to engage in peace talks.
In Kenya in 2009, thousands of women withheld intercourse from their
partners – and said they’d compensate prostitutes who joined them – in
a bid to force President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga
to end their feud.
And in Togo in 2012, women belonging to a coalition of civil society
and opposition groups called for a sex boycott against the rule of
President Faure Gnassingbé. “To go on a ‘sex strike’ is…a way to
freely vote against dictatorship, in the secrecy of one’s bedroom”,
said the collective.
The extent to which these actions were successful can be debated. In
Togo, the effects were not immediately clear. In Kenya, the two
quarrelling leaders were holding talks by the end of the week. And in
Liberia, a peace deal was eventually signed under pressure from
activists. But Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee has always been clear
in her judgment, insisting that the 2003 sex strike “had little or no
practical effect, but it was extremely valuable in getting us media
attention”.
Change, and not of the small kind
Over the past few years, relations between the Ethiopian government
and the country’s Muslim population have been tense. Muslim groups
have accused the government of interfering in their affairs to impose
the al-Ahbash Islamic sect on them against their will and have engaged
in large protests in retaliation. Some of these demonstrations have
been violently suppressed, while several Muslim figures have been
arrested and imprisoned.
In 2015, however, campaigners decided to try a different tack. Instead
of making noise on the streets, they started quietly hoarding coins.
People angry with the government were encouraged to simply stop
spending this particular currency in an attempt to effectively take
large amounts of cash out of circulation.
Activists and economists seemed to disagree on the possible monetary
effects of this withdrawal. But the idea that large numbers of people
taking the same small sustained action would eventually culminate into
some macro-economic impact – or at least some medium-sized headaches
for the government – caught many people’s imaginations.
Call me maybe
Protesting in a country ranked amongst the worst in the world for
freedom of expression is no easy feat. That’s why Eritrean activists
need to be amongst the most creative in the world, and inside the
country, protesters have employed a range of tactics to show dissent,
including sticking up posters in the dead of night calling for change.
Another strategy though, employed by the movement known as Freedom
Friday (Arbi Harnet), has been to mobilise allies in the diaspora to
simply pick up the phone, dial an Eritrean number, and start talking.
“We have a phone catalogue and called random numbers [in Eritrea]
every Friday, telling them to stay at home and think about problems in
our country,” explained one activist to IBTimes.
As the plan developed, protesters even turned to automatic-dialling
technology to spread the same taped recording to thousands of phones
in a short space of time. In the absence of other avenues, this modest
act – repeated thousands of times each week – allowed activists to
spread both information and solidarity in a safe but sustained way.
#Eritrea: 10,000 Telephone calls with Messages of Hope and
Solidarity from Freedom Friday: https://t.co/AszgcEcrFu #FreedomFriday
— Meron Estefanos (@meronina) November 21, 2016
—
It is hard to say what direct effect any of these actions has had. The
same can be said of most marches and demonstrations. But one impact of
protests is that they engender a sense of solidarity and agency
amongst participants and can be part of a potentially powerful
transformative process, even if the effects of individual actions are
not immediately apparent.
What have we missed? Help us add more creative non-protesting protest
strategies by commenting below.
James Wan is editor of African Arguments. Follow him on twitter at @jamesjwan.
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