This year marks 30 years since the Rwandan genocide in 1994, when a Hutu-majority government and a privately owned radio station with close ties to the government colluded to murder 800,000 people.
The year 1994 may seem recent, but for a continent as young as Africa (where the median age is 19), it’s more like a distant past.
Suppose this had happened today, in the age of the algorithm. How much more chaos and murder would ensue if doctored images and deepfakes were proliferating on social media rather than radio, and radicalizing even more of the public? None of this is beyond reach, and countries including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, and Niger are at risk—owing to their confluence of ethno-religious tensions, political instability, and the presence of foreign adversaries.
I hadn’t been aware of the collaboration with the radio station until I watched the show Evil (episode 12).
It’s just a fun show, not political, but I’d recommend watching that episode. Not that it goes into great detail, but the acting and writing make it feel so much more understandable, how a radio host calling minorities cockroaches can really matter. Stochastic terrorism and all that.
I’m just getting into that show. I’d say it’s a lot more political (in a good way) than you give it credit for. And doesn’t shy away from its criticisms of Catholicism.
Thinking more on it, I suppose you’re right. A lot of the “politics” are specifically Church politics, but not all of them.