Advocacy Tools: A Double-Edged Sword?
Teresa’s Making Do With What You’ve Got entry raised an interesting question, one that’s been nagging me for a long time: how do advocacy proponents and advocacy trainers approach the issue of who is benefitting from their work, and what those beneficiaries are advocating for?
I used to work at an umbrella organization that assisted NGOs interested in gaining access to events and committee meetings at the United Nations. My group was issue neutral — we supported the right of all NGOs, regardless of mission or orientation, to have access to the proceedings of the UN and have their say on issues before decision-making bodies. One of our member organizations happened to be the National Rifle Association, a group whose mission I happen to disagree with. But it was my job, as much as it was in my power to do so, to make sure that they had access to key delegations and committees at the United Nations — the better to persuade UN representatives that the right to own guns was important and should be safeguarded at the international level.
And that’s a relatively benign example of the ethical quandary advocacy advocates face — if the central tenet of our work is the right of everyone to have a voice in decisions affecting their lives, then that will necessarily include people whose voices we disagree with, perhaps even despise. And if our method includes the provision of tools that make advocacy easier and more effective, then those tools may well be used for purposes we would neither support nor condone.
Teresa’s Kenya example is a potent one — those fomenting ethnic violence during the recent crisis in Kenya used community radio broadcasts and SMS text messaging to inspire groups bent on violence, as well as identify targets for attack based on their politics or ethnicity.
This raises a number of questions. Will those who thrive on anger and fear gravitate most readily and successfully to the kinds of advocacy tools and techniques we employ? Is there a way to prevent this? Is it morally problematic to attempt to prevent it, if one’s goal is to champion and expand the right of everyone to advocate for their chosen causes, regardless of orientation? Or can we (must we?) ethically limit our efforts based on the tolerance of our beneficiaries — i.e., we will strive to strenghten the skills only of those whose dedication to the equality of all is identical to our own?
I believe these questions are central to our work as advocacy proponents. We confront them, to one degree or another, in every project that we do. As such, I’m interested to hear your opinions on the subject — let us know about what you think, what experiences you’ve had, and how you approach these questions in your own work.