Monday, April 29, 2013
I do not normally review courses at UBC, but I felt compelled to do so this time because of the different nature of the material, message and methodology that the instructors adopted.
When I registered in the course, I was a little cynical and I explained that on the first day of the course. I expected a group of students who think that they can save the poor Black man stuck in a conflict that does not seem to have an end. I expected rhetoric that subscribes to the saviour-victim paradigm where the "White man" feels that he as a burden of saving the world from the backwardness of the Black man. This not surprising given the fact that I took courses that do promote these messages. I found myself, on numerous occasions, defending the right of indigenous populations to select the way they want to resolve their conflict. I argued with many Professors, very aggressively sometimes, about issues of labelling others are terrorists, and reducing conflicts a mere struggle between "terrorists" and "states."
Instead, the course - titled "The Ethical Witness" - was more interested in a different perspective. A perspective that maintains that we, as witnesses to the conflicts of the world, must first investigate the intricacies of the conflict, understand its background, communicate effectively and humbly with the people directly involved, report and teach others with utmost accuracy while paying attention and offer our assistance ethically and responsibly without necessarily imposing our version of a "solution."
In Uganda, you have a situation whereby an aggressive LRA is actively recruiting child soldiers by forcibly removing them from their villages at a very early age, putting a weapon in their hands, raping their beloved ones in front of their eyes, and in many cases forcing them to murder their brothers or sisters or friends to prove their allegiance. The LRA's leader, Joseph Kony, is, under international law, a war criminal; and the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against him and other leaders of the LRA. From the perspective of those who support this type of action, Kony must be brought to justice not only because he violated the law and committed egregios violations of human rights, but to also demonstrate to other war criminals that their crimes will not pass unchecked and that there is an international body paying attention to him and his lookalikes.
Making things more complicated, this type of action does not take into consideration similar war crimes actively committed by the Ugandan government and army led by Yoweri Museveni. The primary problem with reporting on the Ugandan crisis is that, mainstream media and other "information" websites, depict Museveni as a partner in fighting the atrocities of the LRA. For example, according to Wikipedia, which is often the first to be checked when a person is interested in quickly finding information, Museveni "has brought relative stability and economic growth to a country that has endured decades of government mismanagement, rebel activity and civil war. His tenure has also witnessed one of the most effective national responses to HIV/AIDS in Africa."
I am not interested in analyzing the gross inaccuracy of this a statement here because it is beyond the scope of this review. However, it must be pointed out that such a statement ignores the complexities of the conflict and the fact that this contributes to perpetuating the false myth that he truly is a legitimate partner in the quest to attain peace and stability in Uganda. Furthermore, it sheds light on the more general topic of ethical witnessing.
Talking about ethical witnessing must take into consideration what is done to perpetuate myths and inaccuracies about the conflict in Uganda and other conflict-ridden areas. These myths assists groups like Kony2012 and its main backbone, the Fourth Estate, in promoting "lazy activism." Lazy activists, or slacktivists, are quick to see a very nicely done and funded video, and then share it on Facebook or Twitter, hit like, and move on without critically assessing the consequence of their actions. Generally speaking, lazy activists are not interested in learning more about the conflict; they are more interested in quick "information," getting a little enraged, and pretend that they somehow contributed towards a positive change in the region.
This is not exclusive to Uganda. Lazy activism is popular in Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Myanmar, and other areas in the world.
This course successfully addressed these concerns. It looked at efforts by indigenous communities in Uganda to achieve reconciliation using methods that, to us, might seem antithetical to the notions of justice that we are accustomed to - a type of justice that demands retribution and punishment instead of amnesty and forgiveness. It looked at how different forms of art can be a medium through which messages and modes of indigenous conflict resolution can be communicated. And last but not least, it investigated the issue of the "single story."
Towards the end of the course, I discovered that there are professors at UBC who are very interested in challenging norms, debunking myths and designing more creative and constructive ways of being involved in resolving conflict.
If you are a UBC student and you read my blog, then I highly encourage you to take this course.
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