The Savior is Brown: KONY 2012 Part II & Half the Sky
Last
Tuesday, Jason Russell of Invisible Children released another video,
MOVE, as part of the KONY 2012 series. When I first came across the
video, I said exactly these words: Can't Stop, Won't Stop huh?! Not
to my surprise, no one I knew mentioned the video - no posts on Facebook
and no tweets - a huge contrast to the reception the organization's
March film received. And perhaps for good reason. Invisible Children
and any similarly modeled Africa-related campaign will probably never garner the magnitude or sudden jerk of attention the original KONY 2012 film did. Perhaps people are thinking more critically or are just more skeptical and/or cynical.
Back in March, I was deeply moved and compelled by the work that Russell and his friends at IC do. This is what I wrote about the IC KONY 2012 campaign for a paper on African sovereignty and the search for international validation five months ago:
"...the Kony 2012 campaign by the organization, Invisible Children, launched on March 5th, 2012 to essentially make Joseph Kony, the Ugandan guerrilla movement - Lord’s Resistance Army leader, famous, has captured the heart and psyche of the world. When Kony 2012 essentially achieved its objective of making Joseph Kony famous, I was stunned, compelled, and truly moved by the capacity of any movement on Africa, in my time, to garner the attention of the American people in particular. Neither South Sudan’s independence in 2011 nor any other Africa-related news had captured the American psyche, especially that of the youth, since I moved to the United States in 2000. When I expressed my support for the video, a friend cynical of the campaign asked me why I supported the campaign and I explained: 'I do not think that the video suggests that it is the response in of itself. Rather, I believe that the point is that the cause remains a part of the consciousness of the masses and through this, does not lose U.S. funding and support'.
My response, in essence, captures my quest for the validation of African history, people, and experiences, however obscured it is by propaganda (and thus admittedly, at times to the detriment of African peoples, culture and history, which I am trying to be cognizant of). French President Nicholas Sarkozy’s statement in Dakar in 2007 that “…the African man has never really entered history” and other such sentiments expressed primarily through the lens of Western bias on African history and people does not only have psychic costs and implications for the African people but it manifests itself in the ways in which Africa and Africans engage among themselves and with others on the world stage."
Today, my perception of the campaign remains much the same and maybe just a bit clearer after reading a lot of the criticisms which surfaced about the campaign. It was immediately clear to me that the video was a propaganda, ran essentially on emotional appeal, which simplified the complexities of the situation in Central Africa, and especially Uganda. I still supported it and still do. I am not inherently against propaganda or emotion-based appeals (as long as people are acting as critical consumers, having dialogue about the issues, and making informed decisions). I acknowledge that there are parts of the campaign which are/may have been condescending to Ugandans and African people and their efforts. The greater part of me, however, finds issue with the language and implications behind some of the attacks on Russel for KONY 2012 and Kristof for Half the Sky (and by extension to even Oprah for her school in S. Africa). Let me explain:
I have no issue with people questioning the motivations behind Russell's work, the way the video was made or his simplification of the issue. My deepest frustration is that most of the criticisms about the campaign, directly or indirectly, and perhaps unconsciously, has led people to question the legitimacy of the issue that the campaign sought to raise awareness about. A lot of people have since dismissed the issue completely. And others have since termed the fighting in the region as "illegitimate genocide". But the issue of child abduction, killings, rape, village burning, etc at the hands of KONY and other warlords in the region today is not an imaginary issue. Russell did not invent that. While capturing KONY will not end the problem, I do not believe that the nuances make the simplification false, at least not in the case. If nothing at all, the research I have done on the issue recently leads me to believe that the issue is still worthy of attention: Congo Villages Grapple with Trauma of Kidnap Attacks, Uganda: Resume Peace Talks to End LRA War - NGO, Enough project action needed now to apprehend Joseph Kony and end the LRA,
In other words, instead of the critiques making Jason Russell invisible, they have made the plight of these children invisible to what was an otherwise a highly receptive American youth and larger public. While the criticisms of the campaign aimed to scrutinize the campaigners, they did that and undermined the issue, the people suffering because of it, and have led people who were or would be compelled by such issues highly skeptical of their moral and emotional impetus and inclinations towards such humanitarian causes. For me, even if it is one child or community at the mercy of a warlord or rebel group somewhere on this planet, that child or community would be worth lending a hand to.
In the case of Nicholas Kristof, take the issue of female genital mutilation in Africa (specifically, Somaliland) which he discusses in his documentary, Half the Sky. I have read a lot of criticisms reading along the lines of "Nick Kristof has a sort of pacifying voyeurism masqueraded as consciousness raising”. While there is an element of Western paternalism in Kristof's work, the consciousness raising that Krisof does has done me a lot of good; a lot of what I learned about human rights abuses in college came by way of Kristof's columns in NYTimes. The issue of female genital mutilation is indefinitely complicated by culture, religion, economics, and race, and Kristoff tries to address this in the documentary, though not well and clearly. But this negligence does not mean that female genital mutilation is not a topic worthy of the concern or attention from anyone who has an ear to listen. If you think about it, the fact that colonialism and neocolonialism factor greatly into the societal and cultural conditions that exist in say Africa does not mean that the contribution of the European observer monitoring the elections in Sierra Leone is without significance. While people save do what they have to do to ensure their survival, they will never deny a caring hand.
Moreover, the criticism of a white savior complex is even a little shaky to me, especially given globalization and the growing naturalized immigrant families in other lands - giving birth to hybrid selfs and ideologies with each successive generation. It is quite apparent that many people, irrespective of color, have savior complexes. The savior complex seems to me to be more symptomatic of the way we talk about social justice and humanitarian issues and causes in certain Western institutions (especially of higher education), and ways of learning which are situated in a specific race, class, culture and religious context. Thus, while I know that some white people might have White Man's Burden inclinations, the fact that my savior complex run buckwild at Swarthmore makes me cynical of this classification when it is used too generally. Being African does not make me immune to this naiveté, wild imagination, or loss of perspective and context. Living on purpose does.
I truly believe that the important question is not who but how do we intervene in humanitarian crises of our time. Who should be doing the work is easy to answer: the people in the conflict or the ones most affected by the issue should be leading the cause and suggesting their own solutions, working on the ground and in higher level positions to address the issue. But in reality, those in crises often have little platform, resources, and "power" to make the international appeals to get the aid or assistance they need. Thus, I will not be naïve of these constraints or so far sighted as to discredit the work that non participants can do. The work surely needs to be done on both ends: trying to dismantle the structural and historical foundations which bare fruit to our current reality while working to address the pains, hurts, needs, and desires of those in dire circumstances now. I am more compelled by the former but I know a lot of people are motivated by the latter. The task is how to simultaneously do both without undermining the other and how to get all parties at the table to dialogue, learn from each other, and strategize.
The other important question, to me, is with what tools do we engage in humanitarian intervention anywhere in the world, from Chicago to Central Africa to Syria. To be clear, my issue is not Western intervention but rather the fact that the motivations behind these interventions seem to be predicated primarily on self-interest and prospects for economic benefits rather than an honest interest in human life. The same governments mobilizing troops to end a civilian crisis are often the ones who are complicit with the issue to begin with, during or after. But that aside, while I do not agree with militaristic responses to humanitarian crises, if and when diplomacy does not work, I want something to be done to stop the killing and abuse going on. There, I do not know what to do.
Criticize, criticize, criticize but we should not fight our sensibilities to be compelled by humanitarian efforts or disheartened by humanitarian crises. A lot of these issues are real and not imaginary. Racism, not race, complicates everything. Power is the culprit here. As Tuju Cole says,"White supremacy is not a minor or eccentric phenomenon. It is the nightmare from which [this] entire world is trying to awaken".
Back in March, I was deeply moved and compelled by the work that Russell and his friends at IC do. This is what I wrote about the IC KONY 2012 campaign for a paper on African sovereignty and the search for international validation five months ago:
"...the Kony 2012 campaign by the organization, Invisible Children, launched on March 5th, 2012 to essentially make Joseph Kony, the Ugandan guerrilla movement - Lord’s Resistance Army leader, famous, has captured the heart and psyche of the world. When Kony 2012 essentially achieved its objective of making Joseph Kony famous, I was stunned, compelled, and truly moved by the capacity of any movement on Africa, in my time, to garner the attention of the American people in particular. Neither South Sudan’s independence in 2011 nor any other Africa-related news had captured the American psyche, especially that of the youth, since I moved to the United States in 2000. When I expressed my support for the video, a friend cynical of the campaign asked me why I supported the campaign and I explained: 'I do not think that the video suggests that it is the response in of itself. Rather, I believe that the point is that the cause remains a part of the consciousness of the masses and through this, does not lose U.S. funding and support'.
My response, in essence, captures my quest for the validation of African history, people, and experiences, however obscured it is by propaganda (and thus admittedly, at times to the detriment of African peoples, culture and history, which I am trying to be cognizant of). French President Nicholas Sarkozy’s statement in Dakar in 2007 that “…the African man has never really entered history” and other such sentiments expressed primarily through the lens of Western bias on African history and people does not only have psychic costs and implications for the African people but it manifests itself in the ways in which Africa and Africans engage among themselves and with others on the world stage."
Today, my perception of the campaign remains much the same and maybe just a bit clearer after reading a lot of the criticisms which surfaced about the campaign. It was immediately clear to me that the video was a propaganda, ran essentially on emotional appeal, which simplified the complexities of the situation in Central Africa, and especially Uganda. I still supported it and still do. I am not inherently against propaganda or emotion-based appeals (as long as people are acting as critical consumers, having dialogue about the issues, and making informed decisions). I acknowledge that there are parts of the campaign which are/may have been condescending to Ugandans and African people and their efforts. The greater part of me, however, finds issue with the language and implications behind some of the attacks on Russel for KONY 2012 and Kristof for Half the Sky (and by extension to even Oprah for her school in S. Africa). Let me explain:
I have no issue with people questioning the motivations behind Russell's work, the way the video was made or his simplification of the issue. My deepest frustration is that most of the criticisms about the campaign, directly or indirectly, and perhaps unconsciously, has led people to question the legitimacy of the issue that the campaign sought to raise awareness about. A lot of people have since dismissed the issue completely. And others have since termed the fighting in the region as "illegitimate genocide". But the issue of child abduction, killings, rape, village burning, etc at the hands of KONY and other warlords in the region today is not an imaginary issue. Russell did not invent that. While capturing KONY will not end the problem, I do not believe that the nuances make the simplification false, at least not in the case. If nothing at all, the research I have done on the issue recently leads me to believe that the issue is still worthy of attention: Congo Villages Grapple with Trauma of Kidnap Attacks, Uganda: Resume Peace Talks to End LRA War - NGO, Enough project action needed now to apprehend Joseph Kony and end the LRA,
In other words, instead of the critiques making Jason Russell invisible, they have made the plight of these children invisible to what was an otherwise a highly receptive American youth and larger public. While the criticisms of the campaign aimed to scrutinize the campaigners, they did that and undermined the issue, the people suffering because of it, and have led people who were or would be compelled by such issues highly skeptical of their moral and emotional impetus and inclinations towards such humanitarian causes. For me, even if it is one child or community at the mercy of a warlord or rebel group somewhere on this planet, that child or community would be worth lending a hand to.
In the case of Nicholas Kristof, take the issue of female genital mutilation in Africa (specifically, Somaliland) which he discusses in his documentary, Half the Sky. I have read a lot of criticisms reading along the lines of "Nick Kristof has a sort of pacifying voyeurism masqueraded as consciousness raising”. While there is an element of Western paternalism in Kristof's work, the consciousness raising that Krisof does has done me a lot of good; a lot of what I learned about human rights abuses in college came by way of Kristof's columns in NYTimes. The issue of female genital mutilation is indefinitely complicated by culture, religion, economics, and race, and Kristoff tries to address this in the documentary, though not well and clearly. But this negligence does not mean that female genital mutilation is not a topic worthy of the concern or attention from anyone who has an ear to listen. If you think about it, the fact that colonialism and neocolonialism factor greatly into the societal and cultural conditions that exist in say Africa does not mean that the contribution of the European observer monitoring the elections in Sierra Leone is without significance. While people save do what they have to do to ensure their survival, they will never deny a caring hand.
Moreover, the criticism of a white savior complex is even a little shaky to me, especially given globalization and the growing naturalized immigrant families in other lands - giving birth to hybrid selfs and ideologies with each successive generation. It is quite apparent that many people, irrespective of color, have savior complexes. The savior complex seems to me to be more symptomatic of the way we talk about social justice and humanitarian issues and causes in certain Western institutions (especially of higher education), and ways of learning which are situated in a specific race, class, culture and religious context. Thus, while I know that some white people might have White Man's Burden inclinations, the fact that my savior complex run buckwild at Swarthmore makes me cynical of this classification when it is used too generally. Being African does not make me immune to this naiveté, wild imagination, or loss of perspective and context. Living on purpose does.
I truly believe that the important question is not who but how do we intervene in humanitarian crises of our time. Who should be doing the work is easy to answer: the people in the conflict or the ones most affected by the issue should be leading the cause and suggesting their own solutions, working on the ground and in higher level positions to address the issue. But in reality, those in crises often have little platform, resources, and "power" to make the international appeals to get the aid or assistance they need. Thus, I will not be naïve of these constraints or so far sighted as to discredit the work that non participants can do. The work surely needs to be done on both ends: trying to dismantle the structural and historical foundations which bare fruit to our current reality while working to address the pains, hurts, needs, and desires of those in dire circumstances now. I am more compelled by the former but I know a lot of people are motivated by the latter. The task is how to simultaneously do both without undermining the other and how to get all parties at the table to dialogue, learn from each other, and strategize.
The other important question, to me, is with what tools do we engage in humanitarian intervention anywhere in the world, from Chicago to Central Africa to Syria. To be clear, my issue is not Western intervention but rather the fact that the motivations behind these interventions seem to be predicated primarily on self-interest and prospects for economic benefits rather than an honest interest in human life. The same governments mobilizing troops to end a civilian crisis are often the ones who are complicit with the issue to begin with, during or after. But that aside, while I do not agree with militaristic responses to humanitarian crises, if and when diplomacy does not work, I want something to be done to stop the killing and abuse going on. There, I do not know what to do.
Criticize, criticize, criticize but we should not fight our sensibilities to be compelled by humanitarian efforts or disheartened by humanitarian crises. A lot of these issues are real and not imaginary. Racism, not race, complicates everything. Power is the culprit here. As Tuju Cole says,"White supremacy is not a minor or eccentric phenomenon. It is the nightmare from which [this] entire world is trying to awaken".
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