Dogmatic Sloganism

The beliefs held by the freedom fighters in Africa and I guess in the rest of the world are often mostly informed by slogans. For example, what are the belief systems that benefit from a leader in South Africa singing a “struggle song” like Umshini Wami (Bring me my machine gun)?

South Africa is a country with a broad spectrum of cultures and backgrounds. People from the Zulu culture might feel positively encouraged to support what a leader stands for when he chants this song, based on the fact that it brings back the memories of a successful struggle against Apartheid. However, given that this regime had been ousted almost 20 years ago, might negatively influence minorities and their mental models, creating fear of another campaign against certain groups. One would guess that simple logic would dictate that such action would not necessarily be possible. I mean, would Jacob Zuma really take up a machine gun (if he had one) and go off to some sort of campaign? I think not. However, why does it seem to work for his followers?

I think it comes back to humans being so massively open to the power of suggestion. We tend to take a single piece of information and then elaborate on it mentally to try and understand where this might lead. This extrapolation and interpolation will be driven by biases and not by facts. If you had recently been held at gun point during a car theft, you might immediately see a link between Jacob chanting away and the guy pointing a gun at you. The effect of fear will then be used by the brain to develop a rather dark picture. Similarly those that are desperate for change and action might not ask the key questions to test the possibility of this actually reverting to a new struggle of sorts.

Successful slogans are linked to emotions; they consist of simple words, linked to vivid images and symbols with accepted universal meaning. It is interesting that the universal symbols of revolution are so well known. These revolve around flags, songs, fists/hands/weapons, and simple tools. Flags have a long history and reflect coherence, hands and tools show where the power lies (with the individual people and not with the corporates) and weapons, the means to the end. Each of these elements may be crafted to become a coherent whole to et a simple doctrine across. This is the essence of dogmatic sloganism.

Why would it be used so extensively by revolutionaries? Simplicity, I guess. Getting a message across without the need for long debate; hungry and angry mobs do not do well during long debates. So back to Zuma and the ANC: is the use of slogans now a sign of an organization that has not grown at all or is it just that their support base are not capable of debate, or is that they are too hungry to be bothered by logic? My feeling is that it is more sinister: sometimes we can be swayed by slogans even when we know that the logic dictates something else, for all the reasons above. Is the ANC using slogans now, because it wants to defy common sense? This is something Robert Mugabe did for a long time and very successfully. Even when his country was falling apart rapidly, slogans kept the crowds aligned. Are you able to break out of the grip of dogmatic sloganism?

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