Zapatistas, the Orange Revolution, and the Internet

The reading by Manuel Castells on the plight of the Mexican Zapatistas fascinated me. He described them as being the first revolutionary group to effectively use the media, including the internet, in order to successfully construct a revolution. I'd like to continue the list by discussing the way Victor Yushchenko used the internet to form a revolution in the form of the 'Orange Revolution' during the Ukrainian elections of 2004.

These elections saw widespread, entrenched corruption manifest in blatant election fraud. The 'bad' candidate, Victor Yanukovich, and his cronies lead the corrupt way using things like invisible ink, hit men and poison (!!) to try to derail Yushchenko. The way that Yushchenko fought back was to man a campaign of grass roots activism. At that time in Ukraine, very few people had the internet (only 3% of a population of 48 million), yet Yushenko managed to utilise this small audience in order to stage one of the most important revolutions that Europe has seen since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Two categories of people emerged as being integral to manning the revolution. A previously insignificant but now ever-growing middle class emerged in Ukraine society, a middle-point in the great divide between the poverty-stricken and the oligarchs. This group arose due, in part, to the ongoing effects of Yushchenko’s work as prime minister, including clearing substantial national debts, re-buying previously privatized companies and enormous growth in GDP. The new class resented the criminally corrupt framework within which they were forced to function and sought a better, freer future.

The Ukrainian youth were also very important to the revolution. This generation did not fear authority as their parents did, not having lived through the hardships and persecution of early Soviet rule, and thanks in part to the proliferation of new media technologies, were far more enabled than their predecessors to organize large-scale, grass-roots demonstrations, and as suggested by Creed (2003), shape a social movement from the bottom upwards. Both emergent groups aimed to communicate their message, and to respond to the traditional media’s conflict narrative portrayal of protesters, as discussed by Meikle (2002), in a constructive way by staging non-violent demonstrations.

The complete media blank-out that engulfed Yushchenko during the campaign meant that he too had to look for alternative ways to generate support and interest. Unsupported by the traditional machines of political discourse, he and his advisers had to pursue other modes of communication and unification. He began by rapidly making his way across the country, speaking at up to six organized gatherings a day. This had a beneficial side-effect, as the crowds who gathered to hear him speak in turn served to create and develop networks of activists. Like his young supporters, he also utilized new media technologies to bolster his campaign, especially mobile phones and the internet. One Yushchenko supporter famously recorded on his mobile a university professor illegally directing his pupils to vote for Yanukovich, and the clip was subsequently distributed to thousands of Ukrainians.

After the corruption of the election was revealed, Victor Orange made a risky call-to-arms. On the first day of nation-wide protests, he declared himself president and symbolically swore himself in to office. He then called for a nationwide general strike, and urged the militia and the military to stand with the people. These tactics had the potential to create utter chaos (and at the time, there were actually three people declaring themselves president, the outgoing president Kuchma, the election ‘winner’ Yanukovich and the exit-poll winning Yushchenko), however, as well as these revolutionary approaches, Yushchenko also attempted to effect change through constitutional and institutional means, in other words, he tried to effect change from the bottom up and the top down (Creed, 2003). He recognized the great potential value of mass demonstrations as an activist tool, yet realized that such raw, undisciplined power needed to be harnessed, reinforced and channelled through established bodies and practices.

Ultimately, the Orange Revolution was successful and Yushchenko and his supporters peacefully protested their way into the presidency. The hallmarks of this revolution (grass-roots support, new media technologies, peaceful demonstrations, mobilization of the people) have become benchmarks for other revolutions, and the orange symbolic of the revolution has been used to represent other similiar protests throughout Europe.