A Call To Arms: Rereading Conflict
by Allegra Panetto
As the prototypically altruistic college student, we’ve all been there. You go on the website of your favorite news source, and a shocking headline from Africa grabs your attention. Warlords wielding machetes, mass starvation, refugees in the hundreds of thousands, rampant and unfettered sexual violence, genocide or even a combination of these “unspeakable” acts dominate the headlines.
In this vein, senseless massacres, apprehended or elusive warlords and deadly epidemics are among the most recent headlines assigned to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and have been for decades. Judith Matloff, a professor at Columbia’s Journalism School, who was a reporter in the African Bureau of The Christian Science Monitor after the Rwandan genocide of 1994 says, “The brutality in DRC is a mere abstraction for most Americans. I feel it is incumbent on reporters to convey the horror. The public needs to comprehend the magnitude of these deeds.” In an age when such information is literally at our fingertips, it is the visceral that both disgusts and entices. But what, exactly, are we learning?
Indeed, the inherent complexities that have evolved after years of ongoing civil war and violence are not only hard to explain but are also difficult to comprehend. With the DRC, the rift discrepancies in awareness between experts and the average, caring citizen is chillingly apparent. Often, even those with a vested interest become frustrated, and subsequently misinformed. In other words, when most read about conflict in the DRC, the horse leads the cart.
Severine Autesserre, a Political Science professor at Barnard and expert on Congobelieves that most major news sources oversimplify the conflict. “They assume the public won’t understand,” she says. “The stories focus on sexual violence, like rape, or massacres with machetes to grab attention. There is a failure to reconceptualize Congo.” Professor Autesserre noted that many of the accounts of the violence even misreport the most fundamental aspects of the stories, such as the location.
This failure to reconceptualize conflict outside of the realm of the sensational, specifically in Africa, manifests itself in a variety of ways. Some are exceedingly ridiculous. Take, for instance, the new initiative by NBC News where they take the “To Catch a Predator” and apply it to possible Rwandan warlords who live in asylum in the United States. Even in the early stages of planning the show, which has yet to air, the producers ran into trouble with the FBI and various human rights groups for hindering prior investigations. Here, we see an instance of a major news network entering the extremely delicate arena of transitional justice. It is yet another classic example of a growing culture of media desperation: why leave it to the experts, such as non-governmental organizations that are dedicated solely to such initiatives, when you can boost ratings?
However, sometimes creating a public sensation with the help of the media can prove helpful. Josh Ruxin, the director of the Center for Global Health and Economic Development at Columbia, who is a guest blogger on New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof’s “On the Ground” blog observes, “When celebrities know the issues well — Clooney, Affleck, and others, I think they bring news to an audience that sorely needs to hear what’s happening. This reminds me of some work I did years ago with Danny Glover, a gentleman who understands how celebrity can be helpful. He called on Senator Kerry to discuss the Global Fund. Kerry opened the door for Glover…then handed the floor to me. That’s the right way for celebrities to be helpful.”
And now for the Kristof-ian plea: next time you read an article on Congo, or any conflict in the world, take the extra five or ten minutes to do some research. The onus is on media consumers to self-educate after reading conflict related stories, especially if the stories strike a chord. Resources such as the International Crisis Group are as readily available as CNN.com, and provide excellent summaries, that are both comprehensive and thorough. If knowledge is indeed power, it’s the least we can do.
Allegra Panetto is a Barnard senior and Bulletin Co-Editor-in-Chief.