I’ve always been a big fan of dystopian fiction. A common trope of the genre is “what if all the tech failed tomorrow?” Sometimes this is an electromagnetic pulse attack that wipes out anything more sophisticated than a steam engine.
Generally, the depicted world falls swiftly into chaos, starting with everyone sadly tapping at their dead phones and culminating in shoot-outs and new world orders. Even to a fan, these plots can seem far-fetched; South Africans regularly live through blackouts for hours and even days, and can barely raise more than a despondent tweet in protest.
But if you swap the cause and effect in these speculative fictions — putting the shoot-out before the shutdown — you come much closer to a reality that is playing out in neighbouring eSwatini right now as pro-democracy protesters and government-backed enforcers face off in the streets.
New Frame reports that about 40 people have been killed, 100 injured and 500 arrested since violence erupted anew last week. The publication’s own journalists were swept up in the clashes; an editorial published on July 6 says two reporters “were regularly followed, stopped, threatened at gunpoint and forced to delete material from their digital device”. They were reportedly “interrogated, assaulted and tortured” in a police station, before a lawyer was able to secure their release and get them to medical treatment and safety.
Clearly this is a pushback not just against people, but also against information itself. You needn’t look any further than MTN eSwatini throwing the breaker switch on internet in the country. MTN Group has confirmed that it received a directive to stop access to social media and online platforms on June 29, and has complied with the order, leaving the citizenry out in the communications cold.
Don’t worry — it assured us in a statement — this was done “[a]fter carefully assessing the directive, and in line with its licence conditions and the group’s digital human rights due diligence framework”.
I went off to find this framework, because I’m ornery like that. According to MTN’s site, the framework is “drawn from the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights framework”. Funny, since the UN passed a resolution in 2016 condemning countries that “prevent or disrupt online access and information”, and a UN human rights office spokesperson told reporters in Geneva last week that the UN was calling on eSwatini authorities to ensure internet access was restored.
MTN’s framework lays out five steps when an “authority or non-governmental entity approaches MTN on a matter related to freedom of expression, data privacy and information security”. It says nothing of curtailing access so critics can’t organise or share information with the outside world. In fact, in the FAQs MTN specifically says it chooses to keep operating in conflict markets because of the “significant potential … to offer vital communication services despite some of the inherent risks”.
Part of the framework (step three of five) is to assess whether such actions are in compliance with laws and licence terms, and — to be fair to MTN — this was a confirmed order from official government sources, after all. But also in step three is the need to assess “implications on rights, human lives, and other factors”. It would be illuminating to see how MTN weighed up the conflict between these seemingly polarised aspects in this instance, but we don’t have that.
What we do know is that ownership of MTN eSwatini breaks down as follows: 41% Eswatini Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (which is state-owned), 30% MTN Group, 19% Eswatini Empowerment Ltd, and 10% “Esteemed Shareholder”, AKA King Mswati III. Collectively, that’s a lot of weight to throw around.
Mswati III ascended to the throne in 1986. If you, like me, still think of the 1990s as recent, let’s recap: since 1986 the Berlin Wall has fallen; the Cold War (ostensibly) ended; the EU was established; Amazon, Google and the iPhone in turn all upended the world; Dolly the sheep was cloned; 9/11 reconfigured the world’s view on terrorism; America’s first African American president was elected, followed sadly by America’s worst Tangerine Tyrant.
In 1986 The A-Team was still on TV, the Concorde was flying, Ronald Reagan was in the Oval Office, and Sean Penn and Madonna were married. And all the while since then one man has held absolute power in eSwatini.
It is not my job to agitate for political change, but to explore how technology and connectivity is changing the world. And it seems the biggest threat to any naked emperor’s rule is a connected public. Disconnecting said public should be met with universal condemnation.
• Thompson Davy, a freelance journalist, is an impactAFRICA fellow and WanaData member.
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