Reflections on social media and struggle

Social media cannot replace the struggle on the street.

When Erdoğan said on Twitter: “if our people say so, I would leave” he received hundreds of thousands of answers, with users saying, “enough”.

Erdoğan then said, once again on social media, that the youth were “bored, I know”. Again the social media were shaken.

Of course we cannot underestimate what happened; society shows that it wants to get rid of the AKP-MHP fascist alliance and of the same Erdoğan. However, likewise, we cannot overestimate what happened. It would be wrong to praise this reaction in an exaggerated way.

Distinguished democratic intellectual Aydin Engin in his evaluation of the response to Erdoğan in the social media draw some important conclusions.

“The social media cannot replace the streets; - he said - we need to show our reaction on the streets. It would be meaningful to show our reaction on the street and this would get us some results”. We agree with this assessment and find it very important.

If Internet and social media are used correctly, they can have positive effects on social life and struggle; although if it is not used well, it can have serious negative effects.

Everything, every work, every task should aim to sociality. Individual freedom has meaning only within a strong sociality. Sociality is the way mankind exists. From this point of view, individuals do not have sense in a place where sociality is repressed. The most basic negative aspect of the social media is that they tend to separate humanity from sociality. It is creating broken individuals from society.

The activity in social media cannot replace sociality, organized work and organized struggle. The perception that individuals are engaged in social media, with a few tweets, is a negative situation in terms of social struggles.

Individuals stay away from organized struggle by assuming that they are carrying out their duties by sharing posts in social media. This should be seen as the biggest negative spot on social media.

For this reason, Aydın Engin rightly says “social media cannot replace the streets”.

The current understanding of social media and its consequences play a negative role in the organization of the society.

Social media is a technique implemented by the capitalist modernity to bring the desires of the individual into the consumerist society, the consumer society.

To fight the capitalist modernity and capitalism that want to create the "consumer society”, means necessarily to fight against individualism.

The greatest evil of capitalism is the dissolution of society through exploitation.

Society has been struggling against exploitation for as long as it exists, but when the society is dispersed, the struggle also ceases to exist.

How much does social media serve sociality, or how much of a role does it play in socialization? Particularly, socialists, opponents of exploitation and oppression must look at and evaluate the social media.

In this respect, it is a mistake to replace organized society and struggles carried out in the streets with social media or give them too much importance in social struggle.

It is a mistake to see them as a tool that weakens social struggle or as a tool improving social struggle.

In the past, young people were more inclined to become organized in the society and to take part in organizations. Because society was still strong, capitalism did not disperse society so much.

Capitalism in the 19th and 20th century had not divided society so much. The organized struggle was developing. However, in this period called the consumerist society stage, social media are an element of separation of the individual from society.

So much so that people would end up spending most of their time in front of the internet. In fact, this represents the departure from humanity.

It is misleading to consider many of the associations in social media as socialization, even to enter the internet, to tweet, to use this "account" as a form of socialization, to distort the social concept.

In this sense, the social media concept is a conceptualization that does not express the character of these media.

If people are not meeting face to face, and are not involved in the struggle as an organized society, it would be impossible to stop oppressive and exploitative forces by sharing activity in social media.

In this sense, if the individuals want to fight, they have to take to the streets and struggle as an organized society. If social media are used as a tool to make calls, to encourage people to participate and organise, then they will be used in a proper way.

Nobody will be satisfied to have fulfilled their responsibilities by sharing posts in the "social media" or by tweeting.

If fascism and repression are to be defeated and if struggle is to be done, it should be done on the street. For thisreason, it is necessary to take place in social and political organizations.

Source: Yeni Özgür Politika