ABSTRACT
President Rupiah Banda's warning came after southern Africa experienced the effects of protests following a text message that went viral in neighbouring Mozambique during mid-August 2010: Mozambican – prepare yourself for the great day of strike. Displaying the ubiquitous emoticon, this text message may seem innocent enough, and the Mozambican authorities seem to have regarded it as such. The lateral spread of text messages reflected the organisational dynamic of the popular uprisings: There was no apparent hierarchical structure in the form of a recognised leadership that endured, as would have been the case had this been a 'strike' in the conventional sense of being organised by a trade union. TEXT may be seen as an attempt to address these latter questions. However, the linearity of TEXT – any text – will necessarily eclipse the non-linearity of its making, the stochastics of its becoming and, its congealing into a stable form.
