The active participation of millions of Afghanistan’s citizens in using the hashtag #StopHazaraGenocide in social media was a unique phenomenon in the arenas of political and social struggles in Afghanistan.
For the first time, the protests of Afghanistan’s diaspora community were moving in a virtual and real way at the same time to ask for a moral and human demand. The correlation of different spectrums beyond ethnicity, language, religion, class and other affiliations, on the axis of a common desire, showed that even in a collapsed, wounded and fragmented society like Afghanistan, it is possible to reach a kind of consensus. This good news can transform the spirit of despair about convergence, which has been spreading and causing frustration among many activists and movements, and replace it with hope and positivity.
There is no doubt that each time period has its own possibilities and bottlenecks, and each human generation is dealing with its own problems and concerns. During the Cold War period and the confrontation between the two powerful countries of that time, the discussion of class struggle on the one hand and respect for the fundamental freedoms of human beings on the other hand were the main constituents of the discourses of the last half of the 20th century. Other sub-discourses existed on the margins of these two main broad discourses. After the collapse of the socialist camp and the dominance of the neoliberalism discourse and the expansion of the free market even to the capitals of the rival camp, a new paradigm was formed, one of the main elements of which was the discussion of human rights and democracy. At the same time, information technology created a condition that is called the age of information explosion and was able to provide mass access to information data that was unprecedented in human history.
Regardless of how far human rights and democracy were institutionalized and what ups and downs this discourse was accompanied by, we are now in an era where citizens have found new possibilities for activism and despite the continuation of authoritarian and repressive governments, they can both inform and take a stand to find ways to put pressure on the power apparatus. What caused the failure in this field so far and did not allow it to be used in a beneficial way, was the dominance of discussions that add to the volume of problems by using the possibilities of the virtual field in the direction of division and multi-category.
The hashtag #StopHazaraGenocide showed that if there is a consensus-oriented demand and a formulation that makes it a universal federal basis, it is possible to start a new way of struggle that mobilizes broad forces and its impact up to Spread to the ends of the world. Now it is the turn of other political and social groups to review their campaign methods. Of course, this does not mean downplaying the classical methods of struggle, including armed struggle to defend the rights of people and citizens, but each one is important in its own place. Especially against devices based on militarism against citizens, but without combining them with new methods that fit the new paradigm and the possibilities of the digital world, the hope of their effectiveness will be minimized. The ways and means of fighting for people’s rights and restoring the lost freedoms should witness a quantitative and qualitative change in order to open a door to change.
