"Hashtag Activism"

People describe "hashtag activism" as cheap.  And, yes, when there is the ability to do more, and all you do is express your sentiments on Twitter, that can be construed as cheap.  But this last week that "hashtag activism" has brought the attention of the world to the 200+ girls from Chibok Government Secondary School who were kidnapped en masse by Boko Haram.  The Federal Government of Nigeria was choosing to ignore this, or to pretend that it had never happened, or to claim that they had already freed the girls.  The world's media outlets were interested in Ukraine and the LA Clippers and a deadbeat rancher in Nevada.

The #BringBackOurGirls campaign was successful first in bringing the kidnapping to the attention of all Nigeria and then to the rest of the world.  Goodluck Jonathan stopped "investigating" after three weeks.  Patience Jonathan stopped arresting the girls' advocates in the capital.  Who knows?  Perhaps the news media might pool their resources and send an actual reporter to Maiduguri in Borno State, or even to Chibok itself, where the kidnapping took place.

There are several ways to view all this, but I want to address two.  In one view, the FGN and Boko Haram are adversaries.  They exist at opposite ends of an axis on which the Federal Government of Nigeria sees itself as the defender of order and sees Boko Haram as a force for chaos and lawlessness.  Boko Haram apparently see themselves as defenders of northern culture and the FGN as a vicious occupier.  In this view, everybody who gets in between the two deserves to be chewed up and destroyed, because they should have chosen the "right" side... "right" being defined by Boko Haram and the FGN.

There is another view.  In this second view, both Boko Haram and President Goodluck Jonathan are forces of callousness and inhumanity.  They regard the lives of individual humans and their families as a matter of less import than some "big" question, like "who gets to rule?"  There are people supporting #BringBackOurGirls who are in this camp as well.  They view the protests as an opportunity to attack the Jonathans and advance their own political careers.  When Patience and Goodluck accuse the movement of this, they are seeing their own self interest, but they are also accurately seeing some of their opponents.  The problem is, they are so lost in this way of seeing the world that they will not (and maybe can not) see the majority of the Nigerian protesters.

Because the other end of this second axis is people.  First, the girls who have been enduring the unimaginable for over three weeks for the crime of wanting to take their exams and go on to university and -- honestly -- for the crime of being female.  Then, the families and friends of these girls.  Again, I retreat from trying to imagine what they must be going through.  And finally, the people of Nigeria and the world who are outraged by both the kidnapping and the delays by the military in going to bring back the girls.

Today I found another group who have chosen to join the BK/Jonathan camp.  They are chatterers on the cable news channels who want to make political hay, not out of the crisis, but out of the response, out of so-called "hashtag activism."  Instead of trying to get actual news out of Nigeria, they want to sit in their studios and denounce people sitting at home and publicizing the kidnapping.

It is now three years since my last Global Enterprise freshmen graduated.  I told them at their commencement to beware any "big ideas" that ignore their impact on actual individual people.  I was speaking then about the Bloomberg "reforms" that had doctored data to make GEA look like a mediocre school, then declare it a failing school and move to close it.  I told them that there is a wolf right outside that feeds on doubt and hatred and greed, and that the wolf is always hungry.  But I told them the wolf is not the only one there, that there is also our love and our care and our support for each other.  In our moments of doubt, we have to reach out for the one and not for the other.

#BringBackOurGirls