"Shut down KZN", screamed a poster with an image of Jacob Zuma dancing under the hashtag #HandsOffMsholozi.
The poster was tweeted last week by Zuma’s daughter, Dudu Zuma-Sambudla, who wrote: "Until @PresJGZuma is FREE. SAFE. ALIVE! I agree with this Amandla! #FreeJacobZuma Azishe Cdes!"
It is one of her many incendiary tweets. Her Twitter feed is a lesson in using social media for inciting violence — while continuing to deny a Constitutional Court order was lawful.
"Roads Closed In Empangeni … Amandla Raised" she tweeted last Friday, including a video of trucks blocking a road.
The tweets go on, with videos or photos of roads being barred.
"Flames Of Freedom! Amandla," she captioned one image of burning fields, followed by her trademark three raised fist emojis and three exclamation marks. And always with the hashtag #FreeJacobZuma.
On Monday her account was reported to Twitter Support for inciting violence.
But it was still active that night when she retweeted — without any irony, given his central role in the current chaos — her father’s spokesperson, Mzwanele Manyi: "Soldiers with assault rifles have been deployed against unarmed poverty stricken civilians. Fact."
We can take little comfort that finally Manyi – whose most infamous utterance remains his 2010 comment as director-general of the department of labour that there was an "oversupply" of coloured people in the Western Cape — has finally discovered what a fact is, even if he hasn’t pieced together causality.
Watching the exchanges on Twitter is like seeing SA talking to itself
I watched as the retweets, likes and comments numbers rolled up and up.
In one comment, @mprintos wrote: "BREAKING NEWS! If you’re unemployed or lost your job due to #ZumaArrest stress no more, ‘We See You’. The WMC Economy HAS FALLEN (Shopping Centres, & Trucks etc). JZ Foundation is bringing REAL JOBS & ECONOMIC FREEDOM in our lifetime! For more info visit Nkandla & JZ Foundation!"
A more sombre @JFBaloyi aptly pointed out: "You mean the ‘poverty stricken’ criminals? So it’s about poverty now? What happened to ‘fighting for Zuma to be released’ none-sense? Eintlik you guys think this is some sort of a game. Playing on the emotions of the most vulnerable members of the society."
Watching this seemed like seeing SA talking to itself — the minute percentage of the population that have smartphones, can afford data and like an online argument.
There are about 10-million Twitter users in SA, according to World Wide Worx. That’s only about 16% of the country — but clearly enough to fuel a nationwide riot. Or keep adding fuel to it.
Please, Twitter, make it stop. Ban a clearly incendiary account that is inciting violence.
Shapshak is publisher of stuff.co.za and Scrolla.Africa, and hosts Stuff on eNCA
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