Viral Humanitarianism?

The Yotube film Kony 2012 has erupted over the last few weeks in a highly viral campaign intended, ostensibly, at raising the profile of Lord's Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony. I noticed the film first as a trickle on my own Facebook minifeed- and then as a flood. I want to write about the film now not because it is so contemporary, but because it came out at a time when I was thinking about humanitarianism for a number of my courses. What I wanted to examine, specifically, was how Kony 2012 is the perfect instantiation of what Liisa Malkki drew attention to in her article Speechless Emissaries: Refugees, Humanitarianism and Dehistoricization back in 1996.

What is so striking to me about Kony 2012 is its immediate reliance upon pathos to make its claim. I use pathos here specifically to include emotional argumentation rather than affect, which is itself more complicated than emotional pure and simple. The film is unequivocally attempting to draw the viewers into an emotional response so that, by the end, they feel inclined to participate in the campaign to "make Kony infamous." This, however, is a highly dangerous tactic for two key reasons. Firstly, appeals to pathos precipitate the dehistoricization Liisa Malkki identified in 1996. In her article on Hutu refugees and the humanitarian interventions into the Rwandan genocide, Malkki notes that media representations of refugees is predicated not upon the speech of the victims, but on their image. Viewers and consumers of media are intended to relate to the refugees on the basis of their shared humanity, not to understand the historical or particular characteristics of what they had experienced. The dehistoricization of events disables our ability to think critically and accurately about the exact situations and circumstances involved. In Kony 2012, for example, the filmmakers only mention that Joseph Kony is no longer in Uganda in passing. They rely on a narrative now nearly six years old in order to highlight the worst of the LRA's atrocities. And this dehistoricization is not without even more immediate consequences. Showings of the film in Uganda have been met with outrage, demonstrating that those people whom the film claims to represent are, in fact, not at all happy with the ways in which they are represented.

This brings me to the first characteristic of what I think of as "viral humanitarianism." Viral videos have the unique ability of being truly global very rapidly, and as such the circulation of images and words can now transcend what was even available when Malkki first wrote her article in 1996. Uganda's shown as a suffering people is now no longer a representation falling only before Western eyes. The sufferers can now see how they look to the West; and they are not necessarily thankful. One can of course understand what is so offensive to a Ugandan audience about the film. The last 5 years do not factor into the film, and instead it is the suffering and barbarity that become the central characterization of Ugandan history. This moment of time is meant, now, to be the moment around which the filmmakers want the world to orient their interactions towards Uganda. What is more, the marketing of Kony 2012 merchandise, designed to make Joseph Kony "infamous," hardly seems like genuine humanitarianism in their eyes. Instead, it appears like a commercial answer to a human problem. What Kony 2012 does demonstrate, however, is the potential for the represented to enter into dialogue with humanitarian organizations and Western publics.

But as soon as these kinds of arguments are made we are immediately in a trap, of sorts. Arguments against humanitarianism as it exists today are classified as callous, intellectual exercises that contribute nothing to alleviate the suffering of people in the here and now. This is an argument Didier Fassin works to undo in his recent book Humanitarian Reason. Malkki also argues that we cannot be content with humanitarian models as they exist today because they are "not the best of all possible worlds."The common retort may simply be "at least they are doing something" and "if it were up to academics, nothing would get done." These claims, however, miss the point, I think. First, I truly believe that better understanding rather than more understanding is the key to effective humanitarian actions. And secondly, I think we may be firmly beyond the point at which something is better than nothing. There is no shortage of cases in which doing something has resulted in ill-advised humanitarian actions. This is, of course, not to mention the ways in which humanitarian governments, as Fassin defines them, have been able to mobilize our moral sentiments to engage in military interventions that often result in even more civilian casualties.

And here is a distinct danger I see in viral humanitarianism. Kony 2012 made the rounds quickly via social media networks before any kind of careful analysis could be done. This is, unfortunately, a reality with which we must face. The story always gets out ahead of the analysis. However, what is so troubling is the ways in which debate about the film are essentially silenced both by a strict adherence to the "something is better than nothing" argument as well as the sheer volume of internet traffic around the film.  The speed with which the film made its way around greatly enhanced its efficacy on audiences. It became a hot issue, and by virtue of being talked about more people went to see the film. This is of course not an entirely new phenomenon, but I would argue that it is greatly exaggerated in the age of social media and internet sharing. Viral campaigns have the unique character of escaping a central, localized stage. Instead, they fan out and become impossible to really get a complete handle on.

What would I like to see instead? As an academic-in-training I am not immune to the kinds of criticism mentioned above. After all, aren't I content thinking about problems rather than doing something to fix them? I take a direct issue with this, however. First of all, as I mentioned, better understanding is more important than more understanding. And as such, I believe that by rehistoricizing issues and balancing pathos with logos we may be able to form much more cohesive humanitarian responses. I personally believe that an argument based in logos is completely capable of invoking an emotional response. But when pathos is the only rhetorical strategy employed, rational discussions and accurate representations become harder to come by. I also believe that smarter campaigns done in partnership with people who lived in Uganda during the last 6 years may have been a better way to approach this particular issue. I understand the sense of urgency which may drive the kind of filmmaking that went behind Kony 2012, but I also believe it was unduly reckless. It continues to ensnare well-meaning individuals in the weaker aspects of our humanitarian model. I firmly believe in making better models, finding and forging partnerships, and in at least attempting to accurately represent the facts when it comes to humanitarian causes.


EDIT: I understand I didn't even try to deal with the question of "ethos" in this short blog- but that's totally a perspective I think merits discussion!