BringBackOurGirls Is The Narcissism of Social Activism
DID you do your bit for the 276 schoolgirls in Nigeria kidnapped by the nutjobs of Boko Haram? They are not foreingers. No. They are ‘our girls’. It’s not about them. It’s about us.
Taki has words for you:
Just so long as you have in the palm of your hand a gadget that allows you to use your thumb—hard work, I know—to remind the world every couple of hours that you’re still upset by the absence of these girls.
The amateur does his Boko Haram bashing with a Tweet, always careful to include the BringBackOurGirls hashtag (while never making clear what political force he wants to do the bringing back, or how on earth these girls came to be “ours”)…
The aim of BringBackOurGirls is not to bring back those girls. It has very little to do with Nigeria, in fact. The point is not to achieve something measurably progressive in the real world, but rather to draw attention to our virtual personas, to our virtual selves, to our own capacity to hurt and show willingness to advertise that hurt. It is Oprah-ite emotional literacy dolled up as radical politics.
The BringBackOurGirls frenzy is entirely in keeping with the narcissism of most modern-day social activism…
Posted: 15th, May 2014 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
