By Dr Tafataona Mahoso

THE last instalment (July 24 2015) referred to the vision of digitalisation as advocated by former US Vice-President Al Gore in 1994, which vision was meant to assure the world that the US now had “at hand the technological breakthroughs and economic means (via digitalisation) to bring all the communities of the world together,”; to “hamstring the tyrants of the world”; and to bathe “us all, willy nilly in the warm milk of human kindness.”
To demonstrate similarities between ISL terrorism and the state terrorism of those claiming to be waging a global war on terror, one can use the ancient struggle between the children of Israel under Moses and the state of Egypt under Pharaoh. The spectacles called plagues or scourges are typical of necropolitics and excellent for the digital screen:
In the first scene Moses is armed with the support and morality of his God and his people.
He tells his brother Aaron to challenge Pharaoh by throwing his shepherd’s staff in front of the king so that it turns into a snake.
In turn, Pharaoh is also armed with the support of his own god and the defence of his magicians.
They respond by also throwing their sceptres on the ground which also turn into snakes. And the spectacle is closed by having Aaron’s sceptre (now a snake) swallowing up all the Egyptian snakes (sceptres).
The purpose of the confrontation is to force the Egyptian government to free the children of Israel.
But Pharaoh refuses to relent.
In the second confrontation, Moses hits the water with his sceptre, causing all the rivers, seas, lakes and reservoirs of Egypt to turn into blood.
The terror is dramatised by the stench from the rotting blood and rotting fish throughout the land of Egypt.
But Pharaoh refuses to relent.
In the third spectacle, Moses asks his God to cause the entire land of Egypt to be overrun by frogs.
Again the whole country is made to smell horribly from the heaps and heaps of frogs which the Egyptians try to exterminate without success.
In the fourth spectacle, the land of Egypt is overrun by fleas, fleas everywhere.
But Pharaoh still refuses to relent.
In the fifth spectacle, the land is overrun by flies.
In the sixth spectacle, Moses’ God hits the entire land of Egypt with a plague that destroys all livestock, including chickens and birds.
But Pharaoh does not relent, even though the whole countryside smells of animal carcases and the people have no meat and no milk.
The seventh spectacle is one of climate and weather change.
Huge hailstorms hit the entire country, kill all the crops and force surviving animals to hide indoors.
In the eighth spectacle, whatever crops and animals survived the hailstones are finished off by a massive invasion of locusts which consume every green leaf and branch.
The ninth spectacle is the death of all first born children, men and women throughout Egypt, which some versions say is effectively threatened and not carried out.
Relevance of the so-called Egyptian plagues to the current global Armageddon for screen impact
The first striking feature of the war for the digital screen is the insistence of both the state side and the terrorist side to make visual their actions defining who is enemy and who is friend; who should die and who should live.
George W Bush said, “You are either with us (the US) or you are with the terrorists.”
Both sides believe for their cause to be known and accepted by by-slanders, it has to be graphic, visual and spread to the furthest corners of the world.
Digital technology is the means.
The second striking feature is the binary narrative and morality based on exceptionalism.
Both the US and ISL insist on their right to be unlike everyone else and to be entitled to use exceptional means to achieve their objectives.
Both defy UN rules.
In the same way, Moses approached Pharaoh’s government from the point of view of exceptionalism.
The third feature is the exclusive anti-democratic nature of the necropolitics involved in demonstrating the superiority of the services each side can marshal against the enemy. Moses employs God the way Barack Obama employs drones and the nuclear bomb.
No one else should have access to the same instrument or power and no one else should be allowed to do what Obama or Moses can do.
The visual act, whether it is kidnapping and assassinating Osama Bin Laden or bombing New York on September 11 2001, or the bombing shock-and-awe against Iraq in 2003, or the beheading of Christian infidels on a beach by ISL — is meant to be absolute, unquestionable, self-evident and self-justifying.
In the same way, the graphic ‘plagues’ waged by Moses’ God against the Egyptians do not allow a third view.
There are only the evil Egyptians and the chosen children of Israel under Jehovah and Moses.
The fourth striking feature is escalation and brinkmanship in most of the communication.
“Mangwanani ndinozounza ndongwe munyika yako.
“Dzinozofukidza mavhu kwokuti munhu asazokwanisa kuona mavhu.
“Nadzo dzinozodya izvo zvese zvakapokonyoka kubva pakanaya mvuramahwe.”
“Asi moyo wa Pharaoh wakatonyanya kutindivara. Haazi kutendera vana veIsraeri kuti vaende kudai ngezvakaereketa Jehova kubudikidza ndi Mozi.”
If we examine the Western declarations of unilateral sanctions against Cuba, Iran, Russia, Venezuela and Zimbabwe — they bear similar characteristics.
They are publicised and pronounced in the open field (on screen).
They do not invite a reply.
They are final.
And they produce polarisation and escalation for the most part.
Russians, Iranians, Venezuelans and Zimbabweans are most hardened against the US stance, contrary to Al Gore’s vision of using digital technology to bring the world’s communities together.
The domination of the digital screen by these kinds of spectacles raises questions about the future of public education, public affairs, diplomacy, current affairs and journalism in relation to digital communication.
The major forces whose content converges on the screen are mostly anti-life, anti-people, intolerant and brutal.