The Moral Logic of Kony 2012

Like many others, I joined the fray to discuss the viral phenomenon that is Kony 2012 when it was first released a month ago. The debate about the video/organization/movement had many centers of energy. One that I found especially interesting was the question about how much an organization can simplify a complex situation to raise awareness before that simplification becomes morally problematic. I, like many others, argued that when advocating for the use of international military force/police action it can quickly become immoral to simplify and/or to act in such a way as to promote such action without “doing one’s homework.”

Well, Invisible Children has now released a follow up video directed at answering their critics.

It seeks to address/correct head on several of the most persistent critiques of the first video. In the new video the voices of Ugandans and other affected Africans are given a prominent space. The history of the conflict is told in more detail. Viewers are informed about the current size of the LRA, around 250 soldiers, rather than told about the more than 30,000 children it has abducted over roughly the last three decades. The development work if IC is highlighted more prominently than it was in the first video (which mainly focused on awareness raising and advocacy). And a more nuanced defense of the use of international force is presented than the simplistic “get the bad guy” narrative told in the first video. Overall, I believe the video satisfactorily addresses many Kony 2012 critics and I applaud them for quickly and seriously taking the voices of critics into account (even if the video begins with a jab at ivory tower academics!).

More interesting than this, however, is the moral argument that the video makes. Basically, the argument is this:

1. We’re all connected. “An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” as Martin Luther King Jr. would say.

2. Modern technology, especially the internet, makes this metaphysical connection more easily experienced on a material level. Thus, one should use such technology to motivate people to recognize their interdependence and live into it.

3. Modern history condemns the over-determined desire to recognize political fictions like national boundaries and sovereignty. The rash of genocides in the twentieth century proves this moral-political stance empty and impotent to restrain evil. We live in a global world. We are global citizens. We must act as such.

4. The way this is expressed in law is in the quite new international law doctrine of “the responsibility to protect.” This moral and legal doctrine requires the international community to act, even with force, if a national government is unable/unwilling to intervene in situations of gross human rights violations.

5. However, modern politics still too often functions within the parameters of the old system and must be pressured to make such morally required international actions.

6. Therefore, awareness raising and advocacy are the necessary first steps in being a moral global citizen.

At least, this is how I read the moral logic of IC’s argument.

As a young scholar of the relation of religion and theology to international human rights law I find this fascinating. I have yet to make up my mind whether I accept the moral logic of the “responsibility to protect,” but I lift up here what I lifted up in my first post. This logic seems as ready as earlier logics of colonialism, imperialism, and militarism to accept and promote violence to end violence.

In many ways, the logic of global interdependence is one I readily accept. I have learned that lesson from MLK, Desmond Tutu, and many others. However, IC seems to have learned that lesson from MLK without learning the equally important lesson that violence begets violence; only nonviolence can break the cycle of violence. Our interconnectedness and interdependence doesn’t just imply that an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. It also implies that violence anywhere is violence everywhere.

This is my wariness with the doctrine of the responsibility to protect. I worry that rather than decreasing mass international violence, as it is intended to do, it will actually increase it as more and more state actors begin to invoke it to mask and justify the violence they commit in other nations.

Racism and the Myth of Redemptive Violence

While many of my friends have raised their voices to scream and protest in response to the killing of Trayvon Martin, I have thus far remained silent. I have remained silent because I have been mourning. I have remained silent because I am confused. And I have remained silent because I have not known exactly what to say. However, there’s a “fire burning in my bones” and I must say something.

Like many, I am saddened by the violent and unnecessary death of another American youth, and I am angered at the apparent negligence of the local police department. Again like many, I cannot help but think that race was a motivating factor, consciously or unconsciously, in George Zimmerman’s act of killing Trayvon and in the response of the police. His own rhetoric is, to anyone who has experienced racism and racial prejudice in the United States, clearly coded language for race inspired disgust. Every black male who has lived in the United States as long as Trayvon did knows what it means to be viewed as “suspicious” in a gated community. And the mounting evidence, including recordings of the 911 call and the call made to Trayvon’s friend while running from Zimmerman, call into question Zimmerman’s claims of self-defense. It seems clear to me that George Zimmerman should be arrested and tried. I reserve judgment of his guilt until he faces trial, but there seems to be enough evidence to consider him a suspect in a murder.

Clearly, I assume racism exists and that it negatively affects African-Americans in a way that it doesn’t affect anyone else. If this incident doesn’t make you see that then nothing I say will open your eyes either. And if you do see it, you now have no excuse to work tirelessly to end it.

Having said all of that, I will now focus on one overlooked aspect of the racism active in this story. And it is an aspect of racism that is too often overlooked by even the most ardent opponents of racism in America.

That story is the American myth that violence solves problems, especially in response to problems caused by someone else’s violence. Walter Wink called this “the myth of redemptive violence.” This myth is problematic for a multitude of reasons, but one important one is that it is a racist myth inasmuch as it disproportionately affects African-Americans, especially young black males. Now, this myth is not only an American myth. It finds expression in every culture that I know has ever existed. However, it has especial influence in America as evidenced by our extremely high rates of violent crime.

And, while this myth has power among nearly every social group in American life, it negatively affects young black males at a rate disproportionate to their presence in American society. For that reason, it is a racist myth. It is a myth believed by many young black males in America’s urban centers, and by many non-black males in American suburbs. Sadly, the power of the myth in both communities often leads, directly or indirectly, to the death of young black males wherever they live.

Almost a year-and-a-half ago 18-year old Bobby Tillman was killed at a party. He was literally stomped to death by some other teenagers. His offense? Being the first person to walk by these males offended by being slapped by a girl. In one of the most stupid reasons for someone’s death in the history of the world, these “chivalrous” males refused to strike back at a female and so killed the closest male they could find. They felt they had to somehow redeem their honor by proving they “wasn’t no punks.”

This story has haunted me since I first heard about it. Why? Because I knew Bobby. He used to serve me and my wife Communion when he attended the church I was once a minister at. He spent his time before that fateful party at a church event. He wasn’t killed for anything other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. What defined the “wrongness” of that place and time? The mentality and action of some teenagers who had been taught that “real men” practice redemptive violence. Even if it killed someone else.

Trayvon’s case is not dissimilar. Apparently, the neighborhood George Zimmerman lives in had been the recent victim of several property crimes. People were scared and angry about the violation of their personal lives. So, what did Zimmerman think was the appropriate response to these violations? Redemptive violence. He grabbed a gun, got in his car, and patrolled the neighborhood for “suspicious” persons. Unfortunately, and as is too often the case, the person who seemed suspicious enough to warrant the use of a deadly weapon was an innocent, young black male. Again, living out the myth of redemptive violence led to the death of an innocent black male.

Stories such as these could be retold a thousand times over. It doesn’t matter if the violence is perpetrated by black men, white men, or men of any other race. It doesn’t matter if the violence occurs in “the ghetto” or “the ‘burbs.” It doesn’t matter if the violence is perpetrated by overzealous cops or wanna-be cops. Too often it is young black men, often innocent, who are the victims of the practice of this myth in America. Therefore, it is a racist myth.

This myth must be debunked because as long as it continues to have power in our society young black men will be its primary victims. I pray there will never be another Bobby Tillman or Trayvon Martin. Unfortunately, if history is any indication, my prayers will not be answered. There are many reasons for this, but one reason that is too often overlooked is because we have all bought into this deadly, racist myth.

I believe the Christian story and the example of Jesus point to a way beyond this myth. I believe the examples of Martin Luther King, Jr., Mohandas Gandhi, Oscar Romero, and Desmond Tutu point to a way beyond this myth. I believe that American men need to start looking to these men as examples of the “manly” way to resolve conflict rather than to the characters played by Denzel Washington or John Wayne, the lyrics of studio rappers, or the obsession with military force by our government.

I beg each and every one of us – please abandon your faith in the myth of redemptive violence. Otherwise, there is nothing we can do to prevent the next Trayvon Martin story from hitting the news in a few months.

When the State is Evil: Biblical Civil (Dis)Obedience in South Africa

My article “When the State is Evil: Biblical Civil (Dis)Obedience in South Africa”, co-written with Joel A. Nichols, has been published in St. John’s Law Review, issue 85, number 2. This article is a piece of historical theology of sorts that traces the use of the Bible in arguments about the (in)justice of civil disobedience to the apartheid government in South Africa. We focus on the arguments made by the Kairos theologians, Beyers Naude, and Desmond Tutu. Drawing on this historical sketch, as well as a brief biblical analysis, we make an argument that Christian scripture does not make one unified statement on the proper relation of Christians/the Church to oppressive and dictatorial governments. Rather, we argue that such a decision requires communal discernment and reflection, and that scripture provides much warrant for civil disobedience as a faithful act of obedience to God and as an appropriate Christian tool of social change.

You can find a .pdf version of the article, as well as the rest of the issue, here. I’d love to hear your feedback if you get a chance to read it.

Happy Retirement Archbishop Desmond Tutu!

Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu has announced that he will be retiring from public life as he celebrates his 79th birthday. I greet this news with joy, because he gets to spend a well-earned retirement with his family, and with a tinge of sadness, as he has always been a prophetic and hopeful voice in a world of violence, lies and despair. Archbishop Tutu has always believed in humanity’s goodness and the immense power of God’s love and redemptive work. Where others have seen nothing but evil and death he has seen the possibility of resurrection and transfiguration – and he’s usually been the one that is right.

He has consistently reminded us that God is good and just and requires goodness and justice from us. He has been a witness to the power of forgiveness and the potential of reconciliation even after humanity’s greatest sins. His witness to the way of peace and nonviolent social change has inspired millions. Archbishop Tutu has reminded us, with his eloquent exposition of Ubuntu and Christian theology, that we are a community and cannot exist alone – just like the Trinitarian God whose image we are created in.

Throughout his life Archbishop Tutu has combined the most important insights of orthodox Christianity, the Anglican tradition, liberation theology, monastic spirituality and African traditional wisdom to create a potently powerful articulation of the shape and mission of God’s Kingdom. Since his pivotal role in the disestablishment of apartheid and the creation of South Africa’s democratic government, Archbishop Tutu has worked tirelessly at ending racial injustice, fighting the HIV/AIDS epidemic, slowing climate change and advocating for the power of forgiveness in public life. The world would be a worse place if it were not for his life.

For all of this, I say thank you Desmond. I am a better Christian because of your witness. This world is a better place for the next generation of children because of your work. I have devoted a significant portion of my academic career to learning from and continuing your legacy. Yours is a story that is worth being told. I pray God’s blessings on this next stage in your life, and I hope that it is filled with laughing children and loving family. As you rest from your labors we will try our best to pick up where you have left off and partner with God in all that he is doing in the world today. Grace and peace to you my elder brother in Christ.