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HAVE YOUR SAY: How would you turn the spotlight on forgotten wars?
Written by: AlertNet
A seven-year-old boy from Democratic Republic of Congo holds a toy as he seeks shelter at a makeshift camp outside the Jeppe police station in Johannesburg, May 2008. At least 56 people were killed when rioting mobs attacked immigrants with knives and stones, raping women and burning shops and homes to the ground in shanty towns around the country.
REUTERS/Mike Hutchings
REUTERS/Mike Hutchings
No matter how hard aid agencies and even the occasional journalist try, some conflicts - like the ones in Democratic Republic of Congo, Sri Lanka and Somalia - just never seem to get the attention they deserve. A survey commissioned by the British Red Cross finds most Britons are unaware of major conflicts besides Iraq and Afghanistan. Asked to name countries with ongoing conflicts, 69 percent of respondents identified Iraq and 65 percent Afghanistan - both war zones where the British military is engaged. But less than 1 percent identified major African conflict spots, including Sudan and Somalia. Almost one in five people could not name five countries in conflict. Not all AlertNet users will be surprised by these findings. But what's most frustrating is that despite years of effort by the aid community to shine the spotlight on forgotten crises - with lists of top 10s, celebrity visits and the like - they still rumble on pretty much in the darkness. Bearing in mind the global credit crunch is hogging all the headlines, how would you force the world to start taking more notice of places like eastern Congo? Is the level of awareness in your country as low as in Britain? If so, why?
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7 responses to “HAVE YOUR SAY: How would you turn the spotlight on forgotten wars?”
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01 Oct 2008 14:58:13 GMT
At Neo Dimension (a think tank I personally founded years ago together with fellow students) we do our best to shed light on forgotten and hidden conflicts. The conflict in Somalia is featured especially often due to my personal interest and expertise on the subject. But Neo Dimension has also featured the conflicts of Chad, Niger and even the South Ossetian and Abkhazian conflicts before their escalation months ago.
Of course one of our main frustrations is the lack of knowledge and interest in these conflicts. Partly because we believe information is brought to people in the wrong way through biased or faulty analysis. Objective analysis explaining how these issues matter to every single one of us is a necessity in this field. From our point of view the way to bring these conflicts to the attention of the people would not require big money. All it would take is for an established media company to back a project along the lines of Neo Dimension to provide information, and actively spread it around by organizing lectures, publish mini informative documentaries online... etcetera. Many things can be improved easily, all it requires is the backing of established media to bring it to the people, for the current ignorance on the subject prevents people from digging up the info themselves. By initially bringing the info to the people interest would grow along with the knowledge on the subject.02 Oct 2008 13:34:22 GMT
people are more frustrated than ever from the media and news channels, even the news papers..attention has been shifted more to the brighter side of the tv or the entertainment sections..now adays no one knows which channel or party to trust more..and the news of the more on going conflicts and the sad stories of torn lives has become more depressing than before.. More transparency i the media should take place, freedom of the media and of speech should be allowed in order to reach the millions of the public and the viewers so as more light and truth be shed on what is really going on in the world and the conflicts in some forgotten countries..more awareness should take place because this way more help can be reached and sent to the needed and the victims of these countries.
03 Oct 2008 02:23:13 GMT
Stunning findings... The more if you consider massive campaigning about Darfur.
So how to put it into the spotlight? 1. don't give up 2. go viral on the web with widgets, videos, badge campaigns... 3. short spots on TV and radio 4. advertising in major newspapers and magazines.06 Oct 2008 19:37:52 GMT
Unfortunately, as today's news shows, conflicts like the one in Sri Lanka or Somalia only get a mention when something big happens...such as when there's a suicide bombing or a foreign ship is hijacked. People die day to day, and it's not considered newsworthy.
It would probably take campaigning by big names, whether donors or international figures, to get these conflicts noticed. Only then might CNN or other networks with global clout send a correspondent to report on the situation (as was the case in Somalia in 1992). Other strategies could include advertisements, documentaries, videos on YouTube...use the same methods that bands or movies to get your message noticed.07 Oct 2008 11:14:11 GMT
But why strategize about pushing against a locked door?
There are millions of people who *are* potentially interested and can make a difference directly or indirectly. Thanks to the Internet they are reachable cheaply. But we haven't even begun to reach all of them. First we should satisfy that audience with regular, useful and compelling content in all the right languages and formats. We should produce material that inspires, outrages and informs all those who are at least ready to know more. Later, we'll get around to the couch potatoes with a humanitarian "Get Me Out of Here: Baidoa" reality TV concept. Ben Parker Editor-in-Chief IRIN - humanitarian news and analysis http://www.irinnews.org10 Oct 2008 07:33:12 GMT
But why do we need to spotlight wars and emergencies? As humanitarians we want the right people to be aware of wars, to take action, and to prevent or end them. Public awareness or pressure rarely helps; it has too often led to political manipulation without humanitarian benefits.
The media can carry on, as Ben says, doing its job as well as possible. That probably requires humanising conflicts, not awfulizing them. It probably involves more horizontal reporting online or by cell phone from people in the conflict. It must not be prurient, defeatist, or one-sided. It must be tied to wider global trends. As far as influencing the general public in developed nations, there is an opportunity in people's often demonstrated compassion. But interest in overseas wars is very relative, and it is easily compartmentalised. Perhaps our task starts with young people, and teaching them the value of peace in schools, restablishing a taboo on war, and even tackling the widespread glorificaiton of violence, as entertainment, in our mass culture. Young people are the future, if they are peace-loving the world will be secured; if they violence-loving, the world is in trouble. There is also space for pushing peacemaking and conflict reduction back up the world agenda to compete with climate change, poverty reducution, the war in terror, and financial crisis. We in this sector have failed to this -- partly by technicalising the humanitarian movement, but mostly by failing to present a compelling global narrative to engage humanitarians universally, other than the hackneyed 'forgotten crises' story, or the equally tired 'agencies need more money' one. A more principled approach might work. It would take the life-saving, suffering prevention, and dignity upholding ethic into the developed world. It could be connected to many aspects of life there from gang culture, to the arms trade, to the demonization of nations. It risks getting rather political, but it would be engaging. I sometimes imagine a more sophisticated media and communications approach to preventing wars, where diplomats are not left to 'influence' abusers and warmongers -- but global public opinion, with all its might, deploys itself. We are not there yet, and I'm not sure if the Darfur Genocide campaigning is doing any good. But I forsee a day when warmongers will be identified, and have to contend with a tide of engaged global citizens armed with enough knowledge to face them down. The tools those citizens use will not necessarily be military, they might just as easily be financial, moral or linguistic. But I find too few people who share this vision.13 Oct 2008 02:36:48 GMT
The West is mostly interested in conflicts only where they can do a lot of destruction, for example, the West helped destroy South Africa, oen of the most productive countries on earth, and helped turn it into just another black-ruled nothing state, one of scores in Africa. Now the West is always pushing on Israel to self-destruct. Other than that, the West is completely uninterested.