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Book: Advocacy in Conflict


Advocacy in Conflict: critical perspectives on transnational activism
Edited by Alex de Waal. Published by Zed books

This collection of essays point out the unintended consequences of well-intentioned campaigns to stop human rights abuses in Burma, Guatemala, Congo and South Sudan, among other places that have endured internal conflict. The central contention is that groups simplify complicated situations to interest the media, the public and in turn the decision-makers on whom the public apply pressure.

The essays deride NGOs and groups of citizens who have sacrificed complexity in order to mobilise opinion with the hope of stopping carnage. There is an other-worldliness about their purity: how do the authors imagine one convinces a news editor to run a story about powerless people who live thousands of miles away? Presenting several complicated reasons for a given conflict is appropriate for a college essay, but if it prevents public engagement, then to who's benefit is it?

The editor, de Waal, claims that although there are more NGOs than ever, there are fewer people participating in campaigns. He seems to have missed the global rise of online activism in the form of Avaaz, MoveOn, 38 Degrees, etc. He may consider internet campaigns too simplistic, but they repeatedly get better results than the sparsely-attended academic conferences that might be more to de Waal's fastidious liking.

One of the more illuminating essays is Mareike Schomerus's study of the notorious Kony2012 viral video about Joseph Kony, the messianic leader of the Lord's Resistance Army. The video makers achieved their aim to make Kony famous, with more than 100 million online views to date. However, the attention paid to Kony has perversely enhanced his reputation as a supernatural warrior. It makes it much less likely anyone in Uganda or the countries where he hides will kill him, thereby bringing bad luck on their families for generations.

Sadly the Kony2012 campaign was also based on the flawed assumption that if enough people know what is happening and care, something will be done to stop the suffering. The essay does not mention it, but the televised shelling of Sarajevo over several years disproves the Kony2012 theory: we watched every Serbian bullet and shell, and still we did nothing to help the Bosnians, even denying them to right to defend themselves properly.

Laura Seay's essay on the conflict minerals trade in the Congo reveals the unintended consequences of trying to regulate a supply chain in a lawless environment. The Enough group's campaign led to the Dodd-Frank Act, which presupposed murderous rebel groups would be starved of funds if exported minerals were sourced ethically. The Act ignored the fact that the Congolese army was also intimidating, looting, raping, killing and smuggling. It also assumed it was possible to do due diligence in a place where institutions and government structures do not exist. Congo's misery continues in a media vacuum.

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