Joe Turner tipped me off to a video put together by Save the Congo called
Unwatchable. The video tries to tie the brutality of the DRC with England. The basic premise is that if we would not stand for it to happen in our own community than we should not be OK with it happening in another country. In short, the video shows a raid by military men on a white British family all with their blonde hair and idyllic flower garden. The men break into the home rape the eldest daughter and murder the parents. Fortunately it comes with a warning for all audience members and mobile phone manufacturers.
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| The mother is grabbed by a soldier. |
If you want to 'make it stop' you can click a button that will take you to the organization's petition calling on the EU to act on conflict minerals. The campaign seemingly says that the cause of rape in the DRC is conflict minerals and it can be stopped with the petition. The connection between violence and conflict minerals is not accepted to be true by all (see
this post and many others from Laura Seay on the issue), but the issue here is how Save The Congo is choosing to advocate for this action.
Has it really come to the point where a video of a young girl being violated by a gun is necessary to get people to act? The intent is to be offensive and startling. I get it. This simply takes it too far.
If you feel inclined to do so, you can watch the video here. I felt the need to at least see a good portion in order to write this post, but I would suggest against watching it. Also, you can read about it in this article by Jane Martinson in the Guardian Development which is frankly too kind.
8 comments:
I'm not sure I have my thoughts totally in order, but it seems to me that there might be an argument to use extreme tactics in an extreme situation - but the key is the word extreme. And the problem is that the extreme tactics seem to have moved from something to hold in the arsenal for a rare, extreme situation to being normal. I'm not sure if that is a reaction to a general desensitising (leading to the need to be more extreme to be noticed) or other factors. Either way, I can't see this as being a good sign for the future of fundraising (or awareness raising).
... This is one of the worst applications I can recall of the awareness
raising technique: "attempt to induce a false sense of identification
between potential donor/supporter and person in need." Extremely poor taste, IMHO.
I'd see the logic of Save the Congo, in this case, as more or less the same logic used by Sam Childers (The Machine Gun Preacher) to justify the outreach methods of his organization, Angels of East Africa. That logic being, basically, the "what if it was YOUR child?" argument, as a justification for.... whatever. For my money, it's a bankrupt argument, but obviously many others think differently.
As you know, I've repeatedly ranted about how the general public has a rose-colored view of issues outside of their little suburban comfort zones. I wholeheartedly believe that we should all do more than we currently do to present the realities of humanitarian work and of the issues that humanitarian work tries to tackle (whether directly or indirectly) in a more realistic, maybe gritty, and definitely less happy-ending-all-the-time fashion. But this is not realism. On multiple levels it is not realism.
Ugh. I watched it twice, and showed it to one of my colleagues with who I just worked on this recent campaign: http://youtu.be/DevrTotTEtI
The first huge issue with this video is how it says that buying minerals "fuels the rape of men, women and children". That's really quite a stretch, and as you said, many disagree that there is a direct link between mineral trade and rape. The inaccuracies at that level make it all the more unbearable to watch this video. I think Joe is right - it's about making the viewer/donor identify with the victims. In many ways, it's true that when you're trying to sensitize Joe Public at home, it can be very hard for them to relate to the victims, or care about making a difference. But these victims are not particularly relatable either.
I'm sure we'll see more and more of these types of videos and advocacy campaigns, using extreme shock tactics. I think that comes from the fact that people think that viewers/donors need to be "jolted" out of their apathy. I don't know if it does the trick, but it'll get talked about.......
So I just watched this. Twice. Holy s$#%. I don't know how I feel about it, to be honest. On the one hand, it certainly invokes a deeply visceral reaction, but I don't think it has anything to do with the fact that they are white. I am pretty sure if it was depicted in that way with black people in a small village, we would feel a similar reaction - it's just that with things like that, we never SEE it, we just hear about it and think about it in extremely abstract terms. On a related note, while I get the intention behind doing it with white people, I actually think that it might make people care or think even less about how that happens all the time to people in the Congo... in order to relate to someone's plight, we need to know who's plight it is. By depicting it as rich white people in the UK, I think we lose grasp of who the real victims are, and therefore kind of miss on creating the necessary empathy. I still don't really know if I have a problem with the style or content of the video as an extremely aggressive attempt at getting a point across, but I actually think it would have been more significant and productive had it been done with black actors in an African village setting. We need to build empathy with actual victims, not just recoil in horror at the sight of it happening to white people.
africaforlife, I really, really appreciated your message that "in order to relate to someone's plight, we need to know who's plight it is." I think your observation is spot on, and I think that if advocacy organizations did a better job of helping the general public understand the people who aid organization are trying to help, then there would be a lot more good solutions, a lot less ignorance, more empathy, and more aid money flowing into worthy projects. The sad fact, however, is that not everyone is empathetic for people who do not look like them, and even empathetic people are racist. I think that it is possible that some people might see a video "done with black actors in an African village setting" as just another video about suffering Africans. Perhaps, however, the solution is not to have white actors set in urban, middle-class UK. Perhaps the solution is for advocacy groups to recognize and point out racism and also to be the microphones by which people can speak up for themselves about their own problems.
Megan, I am sure you are right to some extent but I would disagree with your suggestion that the commentators who have spoken against it may be uncomfortable due to racism. Not that it is a free pass, but people who have been speaking out are aid workers that work with people in countries such as the DRC. They are already well aware of the problems and have committed to working to find solutions in order to address the poverty that plays a role in this kind of violence.
The question is not about if it is good to connect people with what is happening in the DRC, rather it is what is the most effective way to do that which will cause people to not only act but begin to better understand what is happening. Personally, I think the video takes it too far by showing the rather vivid rape and murder of a family.That is grounded in the belief that people can be reached through means that are not sensational and the use of videos, like this one, can further entrench people's warped understanding of Africa as a continent of savages.
It seems like we are on the same page. I could not agree with you more when you say: "I think it's important for all white people, even those who think they are not racist, to examine their own privileges and assumptions."
Spot on.
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