Base noise protests are driven by what the noise symbolizes

Evidence

Social networks play an important role in the anti-CFA franc mobilisations: they allow for information and opinions to spread rapidly. In May 2018, for example, an image depicting ‘the first ten richest countries in Africa in 2018’ according to the AfDB enjoyed a wide circulation. The text read: ‘No country on this list uses the CFA franc, every country on this list has its own currency.’ Social networks also gave ample visibility to the unusual protest gesture of the Franco-Beninese activist Kemi Seba, the founder of the NGO Urgences Panafricanistes, who, in August 2017, burned a 5,000 CFA franc banknote during a demonstration ‘against the Françafrique’ organised in Dakar. This spectacular stunt, aimed at denouncing a ‘political-economic scandal of the colonial order’, had a strong echo among part of the African youth. The consequences weren’t long in coming: a few days later, Kemi Seba was arrested, based on a complaint filed by the BCEAO for the ‘deliberate destruction of legal tender notes’. He was released after the trial on 29 August, but was expelled shortly thereafter to France, as the Senegalese authorities believed his presence on the Senegalese territory was ‘a serious threat to public order’. — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 325 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

I remember making a lot of noise then—kicking at rocks, singing and talking to myself, as I turned back toward Tamanrasset—aware, at a gut level, that every crunch of boot, every trash top-forties song I warbled, was an act of defiance, a proof that amid all this emptiness I continued to exist. — George Michelsen Foy, Zero Decibels, 224 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: People instinctively generate noise to assert existence against overwhelming emptiness — George Michelsen Foy, Zero Decibels: The Quest for Absolute…, 224; Invoking individual creative freedom obscures the social hierarchies behind minority protest; Social networks and protest stunts drove the anti-CFA movement’s visibility — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 325 (+4 more)

Related

• Social networks and protest stunts drove the anti-CFA movement’s visibility (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• The same expressive act carries different weight depending on setting noise and activity #expands (0.82)
• Social networks and protest stunts drove the anti-CFA movement’s visibility #exemplifies (0.70) — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 325
• People instinctively generate noise to assert existence against overwhelming emptiness #corroborates (0.60) — George Michelsen Foy, Zero Decibels, 224
• Invoking individual creative freedom obscures the social hierarchies behind minority protest #expands (0.55)