In the wake of Boko Haram’s mass abduction of girls in mid-April, activists have responded with a social media campaign. With the hashtags #saveourgirls and #bringbackourgirls, photos and short videos are circulating across the Internet to…<\/p>\n
…Well, do what, exactly?<\/p>\n
Raise awareness of the issue? It’s already a crisis of international proportions. The world is outraged. Nigeria is\u00a0already locked in a bitter conflict with Boko Haram, and while this campaign might spur them on to redouble their efforts, they — being the primary victims — are painfully aware of what Boko Haram has done. The objective has long ago been achieved.<\/p>\n
Call to\u00a0action? I would almost believe that, but\u00a0what<\/em> action? The Nigerians are mobilising the military against the terrorists, but they’ve been at war with Boko Haram since 2009. The United States has pledged to assist Nigeria and has dispatched advisers — since 2011. #saveourgirls is not calling for greater international intervention, nor indeed is there any kind of call to action inherent in the campaign. What\u00a0else<\/em> is #bringbackourgirls doing?<\/p>\n Asking, nay\u00a0demanding<\/em>, Boko Haram to return the girls they have kidnapped?<\/p>\n Scientists would sooner find\u00a0proof of a Christian Hell.<\/p>\n The echo chamber of slacktivism<\/strong><\/p>\n Slacktivism is simple.\u00a0Identify an issue, do up a signboard with a marker and a convenient piece of cardboard, take a photo of yourself with your sign, post it on social media with a witty hashtag, and watch the likes come rolling in.<\/p>\n Slactivism is also rewarding. Do it right, get your friends to get their friends to jump in on the movement, and soon enough you’ll be rolling in likes, shares and retweets. Bloggers and fellow travelers will jump on the bandwagon and create more content\u00a0supporting you. With enough public attention, the\u00a0playbook of democracy virtually\u00a0ensures that\u00a0local political leaders, and later international media and politicians, will\u00a0give air time to your campaign. These are signifiers of social acceptance. Or societal\u00a0approval<\/em>. In people who desire such approval, this sort of attention would trigger cascades of hormones that stimulate the reward centre of the brain. It makes them feel good. And to keep on feeling good, all they have to do is propagate the campaign.<\/p>\n Feeling good is not the same as doing good. But man is not a rational animal; man is a\u00a0rationalising<\/em> one. If a set of activities makes an airhead feel good, she is more likely to believe she is actually doing good — regardless of the outcome of her actions. This creates a self-reinforcing loop of behaviour,\u00a0publicly meant to drum up attention for a cause, privately\u00a0— even subconsciously — designed for emotional self-gratification.<\/p>\n I wouldn’t necessarily have any objections if, in the process of this campaign, actual, tangible objectives are achieved. Or, at the very least, the aforementioned\u00a0campaign also works towards accomplishing objectives alongside the social marketing effort. Yet slacktivism makes social marketing, a means to an end, and turns it into\u00a0an end into itself.<\/p>\n Funny thing about marketing:\u00a0different audiences need different marketing techniques.<\/p>\n The real target audience<\/strong><\/p>\n Who is #bringbackourgirls aimed at? The primary demographic will be English-educated people fluent with social media, most likely Western liberals, largely because they tend to be the primary inhabitants of social media activism spaces and will jump on a bandwagon like this. The secondary demographic is the international media, which wishes to grab and propagate\u00a0the news of the day. #bringbackourgirls is crafted to appeal to these audiences, with emotive pictures, social media language, images portrayals of female disapproval and suffering, and a simple message.<\/p>\n But what will bring the girls back?<\/p>\n In military terms, Boko Haram has seized over 200 hostages, threatening to sell them into slavery. If the objective is\u00a0to bring the girls back home, then legitimate authorities would need to identify the location of the hostages, and rescue them. In the medium\u00a0term, to avenge previous atrocities and to neutralise a growing regional threat,\u00a0Boko Haram needs to be eliminated. This means infiltrating their networks and sanctuaries, isolating them from their bases of support, discrediting their ideology and capturing or killing key personnel to disrupt the organisation’s operational capabilities. In the long term, to prevent groups like Boko Haram from emerging, the local inhabitants\u00a0would have to identify the systemic causes that enable and empower the emergence of similar threats, and\u00a0address them through holistic means.<\/p>\n Nothing I have seen of #saveourgirls will achieve this.<\/p>\n There is the forlorn hope that maybe #bringbackourgirls pressure\u00a0Boko Haram into returning their hostages. But\u00a0see above, scientists proving existence of Christian Hell.<\/p>\n Modern Western civilisation relies heavily on what is essentially structured peer pressure. Democracy is an exercise in mass approval or disapproval. Social media functions the same way, and so does slacktivism. If you approve or disapprove of something, create content to generate mass approval. And your right and ability to do this without being killed\u00a0is guaranteed by the armed forces and the police.<\/p>\n But groups like Boko Haram come from a different perspective. Their name means ‘Western education is sinful’, and the cornerstone of their ideology is that interaction with the Western world is forbidden. Western cultural norms and expectations would not work on people who have closed their hearts and minds to them. This might yet have worked when Boko Haram was still\u00a0working through peaceful means in the early days of its existence (2001-2008), but since the uprising in 2009, Boko Haram has transitioned into an armed terrorist group. They want to establish a country ruled by Sharia law, and do this by attacking Christians, bombing schools and police stations, assassinating government and prominent\u00a0figures, and kidnapping Western tourists.<\/p>\n They have placed themselves outside the reach of Western cultural norms and memes.\u00a0Slacktivism won’t speak to them. Neither will social media marketing aimed at generating\u00a0Western<\/em> disapproval against them. Quite simply, they don’t care about #saveougirls, and are not affected by it — except maybe in the twisted minds of their recruiters and propagandists, who will do what they can to portray it as a moral victory for the cause. (“See, our operation has agitated the West! We can reach across the seas and touch the minds of our enemies! Join us and you, too, will be strong enough to strike at the government and the far enemy!”)<\/p>\n Hashtags won’t stop barbarians.\u00a0Analysis will. Planning will. Action will. If people are truly interested in stopping Boko Haram, then they have to step up and do actual work. It is hard, it will be difficult, and is nowhere near as immediately rewarding to the monkey brain as a constant stream of likes and retweets. Yet there is just one way to truly save the girls and bring them\u00a0home — and slacktivism like this is not it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" #Bringbackourgirls is not going to stop Boko Haram or bring back the kidnapped girls. 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