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About the editor Alex de Waal is executive director of the World Peace Foundation and a Research Professor at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. He is considered one of the foremost experts on Sudan and the Horn of Africa, and his scholar- ship and practice have also probed humanitarian crisis and response, human rights, HIV/AIDS and governance in Africa, and conflict and peace-building. He was a member of the African Union mediation team for Darfur (2005–06) and senior adviser to the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel for Sudan (2009–11). He was on the list of Foreign Policy’s 100 most influ- ential public intellectuals in 2008 and Atlantic Monthly’s 27 ‘brave thinkers’ in 2009. ADVOCACY IN CONFLICT CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON TRANSNATIONAL ACTIVISM edited by Alex de Waal Zed Books London CONTENTS Figures and table | vii Preface | viii 1 introdUction: transnationaL advocacy in contention . .1 Jennifer Ambrose, Casey Hogle, Trisha Taneja and Keren Yohanne 2 GeneaLoGies oF transnationaL activism . 18 Alex de Waal 3 bUrma’s struggle For democracy: a criticaL appraisaL . 45 Maung Zarni with Trisha Taneja 4 the JanUs Face oF internationaL activism and GUatemaLa’s indiGenoUs peopLes . 68 Advocacy in Conflict: Critical perspectives on transnational activism was first Roddy Brett published in 2015 by Zed Books Ltd, 7 Cynthia Street, London n1 9JF, UK 5 Advocacy deLeGitimized: the sad case oF Gaza . 95 www.zedbooks.co.uk Anat Biletzki Editorial opyright © Alex de Waal 2015 6 conFLict mineraLs in conGo: the conseqUences oF Copyright in this collection © Zed Books 2015 oversimpLiFication . 115 The right of Alex de Waal to be identified as the editor of this work has been Laura Seay asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 7 ‘maKe him FamoUs’: the sinGLe conFLict narrative oF Kony and Kony2012 . .142 Set in Monotype Plantin and FFKievit by Ewan Smith, London Mareike Schomerus Index: [email protected] Cover designed by 8 GettinG away with mass Murder: the spLa and its All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored american Lobbies . .164 in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, Alex de Waal mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of Zed 8 From whose perspective anyway? the Quest For Books Ltd. aFrican disabiLity riGhts activism. 187 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Tsitsi Chataika, Maria Berghs, Abraham Mateta and isbn 978-1-78360-273-5 hb Kudzai Shava isbn 978-1-78360-272-8 pb 10 Activism and the arms trade: exposinG the shadow isbn 978-1-78360-274-2 eb worLd. 212 isbn 978-1-78360-275-9 epub isbn 978-1-78360-276-6 mobi Andrew Feinstein and Alex de Waal 11 A riGht to Land? activism aGainst Land GrabbinG in aFrica . 240 FIGURES AND TABLE Rachel Ibreck 12 Conclusion: recLaiminG activism . 271 Casey Hogle, Trisha Taneja, Keren Yohannes and Jennifer Ambrose Figures Bibliography | 283 2.1 Anti-colonial solidarity model . 0 Index | 288 2.2 Anti-neocolonial solidarity model. 0 2.3 Boomerang model. 0 2.4 Insider policy lobby model . 0 Table 6.1 Minerals found in selected products. 0 PREFACE The start of this book was, unexpectedly, a quiet discussion between four students, over coffee and in between classes, at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. A discussion about various work experiences in the development and humanitarian aid sector quickly turned into a dialogue about the misrepresentations and inadequacies of advocacy campaigns seen in our work, centring on the last and most visible of them all – Kony2012. Eventually, this discussion was turned into a proposal for the World Peace Foundation Student Seminar Competition, which is an annual competition that gives students the opportunity to host a research seminar with renowned academics and practitioners on a topic of their choice. Our proposal was chosen, and over the next few months we worked with the wonderful staff of the World Peace Foundation to refine the topic, choose cases similar to Uganda and Kony2012 from around the world, and invite academics and practitioners to contribute their own research and opinions. The research seminar was held at the Fletcher School on 28 February and 1 March 2013. At the end of the seminar, we realized that our conversations – though fruitful – were still incomplete, and moreover that these debates could benefit from a wider audience and added perspectives. And so, the idea of a book developed, one that could encompass not only the discussions from the seminar and its participants, but also views from others working to promote a similar understanding of ‘reclaimed activism’. We would like to thank Lisa Avery and Bridget Conley-Zilkic at the World Peace Foundation, and all the seminar participants, including Rony Brauman, Holly Fisher, Kate Cronin-Furman, Mvemba Dizolele, Elliot Prasse-Freeman, Sara Roy, Amanda Taub and Kennedy Tumutegyereize, in addition to those who contributed to this volume. 1 | INTRODUCTION: TRANSNATIONAL ACTIVISM IN CONTENTION Jennifer Ambrose, Casey Hogle, Trisha Taneja and Keren Yohannes ‘Nothing for us without us’ Activists across time zones, decades and topics have used vari- ations of the slogan ‘nothing for us without us’ to express a key tenet of responsible advocacy: people affected by conflict, rights abuses and other injustices should play the leading role in move- ments that advocate on their behalf. When repression, silencing or dispersal leaves those people disadvantaged, it places particular responsibilities on Western advocates to act in a way that allows the substantive agenda, targets and goals, media portrayal, and methods to be set in accordance with the articulated priorities of the affected population. Most recently associated with the international disability rights movement of the 1990s, ‘Nothing for us without us’ demands that audiences listen to the self-expressed interests and goals of op- pressed people. In the wake of recent advocacy campaigns, such as Invisible Children’s Kony2012 film and the US Campaign for Burma’s ‘It Can’t Wait’ videos – both of which became international sensa- tions more for their tactics and messaging than for the issues they promote – the slogan encourages reflection on the extent to which recent trends in transnational advocacy have deviated from core principles of responsible activism. Hence, the impetus for this book is our recognition of the need to reclaim international advocacy movements to make them more self-reflective and accountable to the people and the evolving situations they represent. Our focus is on a particular subset of transnational activism, itself a subset of activism more generally, namely professionalized Western advocacy concerned with particular conflicts in other parts of the world. While there is a rich literature on global society and activism (Kaldor 2003; Feher 2007; Reydams 2011), Western-led campaigns that focus on particular conflict-affected countries are dealt with only 2 | one ambrose et aL. | 3 in passing. While individual campaigns such as Save Darfur have Kony2012 debate that immediately followed the video’s release pro- generated both controversy and research (Mamdani 2009; Hamilton vided a platform for everyone opposed to the campaign to name a 2011), there is little comparative analysis on how these movements fit plethora of reasons why it was bad. Few critics, however, could fully with broader issues of global civil society. This book targets that gap, articulate how an international advocacy campaign in the twenty-first and our central argument is that the development of these specific century should be conducted in an ethical, responsible and effective forms of activism, in which advocates have shaped strategies to fit way. While Kony2012 made it clear that, with skilful use of media, the requirements of marketing their cause to Western publics, and a mass public campaign on an international issue can make a big adapted them to score tactical successes with Western governments splash, it reinforced the need for local leadership and for being con- (especially that of the USA), has led to the weakening or even aban- scientious regarding the intricacies of a situation. As Kony2012 began donment of key principles. This is akin to what Mary Kaldor (2003) to outshine home-grown advocacy movements and their objectives for calls the ‘taming’ of civil society, as social movements transform into Uganda, it also brought up the necessity of ensuring enough space professionalized NGOs. The key principles we identify as needing to for indigenous and international movements to work together, with be asserted or reclaimed include receptivity to the perspectives of local movements setting the agenda and Western groups offering affected people and their diverse narratives and attention to deeper, resources, scale and solidarity. underlying causes, and therefore a focus on strategic change rather Two years later, in April 2014, a leading instance of ‘hashtag activ- than superficial victories. ism’ – the #BringBackOurGirls campaign – demanded the return of In March 2012, Invisible Children unveiled its Kony2012 campaign, the over two hundred Nigerian girls kidnapped from the Chibok based on sparse and ill-constructed logic, designed to ‘make Kony girls’ school by the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram. This has famous’. What soon became one of the most viral YouTube videos interesting echoes of the activism against the LRA, beginning with in history sparked a mad dash by the organization’s target audience the way the LRA’s mass abduction of pupils from the Aboke girls’ of American high school and college students to purchase advocacy school in 1996 suddenly provided a focal point for wider awareness kits. With these kits, student activists purportedly possessed the tools and campaigning across Uganda. Similarly, Boko Haram had been needed to pressure the US Congress to take on the responsibility of killing, abducting and terrorizing for more than two years before stopping Joseph Kony (or, to be precise, not ending its support for Nigeria’s elite or Western actors began to take notice: it took the efforts to stop him).

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