Casuistry Challenge IX

This is partly a riff from my previous post about Pamela Bone’s absurd attack on “Western feminists” for alleged blindness to the concerns and rights of women in the developing world (well, actually, she only mentioned women in Islamic countries, but hey…). I don’t want to re-open that debate here, and I’m not going to debate it again myself, but I did want to note an excellent post from Helen at Cast Iron Balcony (cross-posted at Surfdom), who shared my reticence to even bother with Bone, but when she did, made some very powerful points. And also her link to another excellent post from hilzoy at Obsidian Wings wherein she asks why war is seen as the most appropriate solution to a range of problems. She’s constructed a really powerful argument that war is not the answer to tyranny or a deficit of democracy. Why war indeed? It would be interesting to analyse the bellicosity of the chicken hawks in terms of gender relations, but that’s another post, I guess.

What I did want to share was a deep ambivalence I have about one particular campaign to draw attention to the plight of women in Angola who’ve lost limbs through landmines. In some instances, they ran across a mine because they were escaping violence – either domestic or military. In others, they were tending fields because male relatives had been killed, imprisoned or abducted.

What’s ethically ambiguous about this project? The way in which it’s framed as a Miss Landmine Contest. The site says:

Conceived and directed by Norwegian artist Morten Traavik, the MISS LANDMINE project puts the global landmine problem and its survivors in the spotlight in a new, celebratory and life-affirming way.

The site notes that beauty pageants are a popular celebration in Angola, and tries to distinguish them from those in the West:

Angola was chosen as the pilot country for the Miss Landmine project for several reasons. Compared to Afghanistan and Cambodia, the two other countries on the â??world Top 3 listâ?? of landmine-affected countries, Angolan culture has a relaxed and open attitude to physicality and sensuality. Furthermore, beauty pageants are a huge cultural phenomenon and a firm tradition in large parts of sub-Saharan Africa, not least in Angola.

A startling contrast to the politicized, often highly controversial atmosphere that surrounds such events in Europe and USA, African beauty contests are most often an uncomplicated celebration of cultural identity, not unlike Brazilâ??s carnival tradition (which is also celebrated in Angola).

Why am I troubled by it? In part, because I feel very ambivalent about the notion of celebrating the loss of a limb – certainly, celebrating beauty and courage, but… I’m sure it’s not just the phraseology, because what’s missing from the project’s presentation is any real sense of the voices of the women themselves. I’d love to hear about their stories, their hopes, what they think about the project. I’d love it to empower them and for it to be reflexive. But it seems to me that without any intentionality, a lot of stereotypes about sensuality and women which are peculiar to the Western anthropological gaze rather than the lived experience of Angolan (or Brazilian) women form the core of the representations depicted. They’re powerful, and challenging, and I’d love to applaud. But I’m troubled that we learn little about the causes of these conflicts, and what lies behind the militarisation of civil conflict and the gender relations of war and violence in Angola. And I’m very troubled we don’t hear these women speak to their own experience. Nor are any solutions to landmines offered, except for the production of a glam fashion magazine.

Partly my point is the complexity of the motivations and situations involved in “Western feminists” (or anyone else) trying to (selectively) highlight and perhaps “save” or “solve”. The tragedies, and the lives, depicted in the project are hidden from our gaze. Certainly they’re not the subjects of crusading News Limited op/eds in Australia. What I think troubles me most is that rather than being the subjects of their own stories, these women face being reduced to objects of pity or emotion. That’s mostly because they are shown, but not heard.

But I still have very mixed feelings. On balance, I think the fact that I’m deeply troubled suggests that the project is deeply troubling. So I’m wondering what others’ take is.

Elsewhere: There are some reactions at Black Looks, Women of Color Blog, the Nigerian blog Grandiose Parlor, The Guardian news blog, Jay Sennett, and The Zimbabwean Pundit, who writes:

There is absolutely nothing fashionable, celebratory or life-affirming in the aftermath of landmines (or the holocaust). To try to infuse or deduce some kind of positivity out of the predicament of survivors such human rights abuses is nothing but a not so subtle affirmation of the destruction wrought by landmines. There are many other things people can do to stop the horror of landmines; see this and this for ideas.

Imnakoya writes at Grandiose Parlor:

Hat-tip to Sokari (Black Looks) for posting on this Norwegian freakshow: A beauty contest for landmine survivors in Angola, where the contestants are then propped up on display in a fashion magazine showcasing specially designed clothes for amputees!

To say this project is despicable is an understatement, itâ??s an appalling means of social advocacy, and a reckless display of human and cultural insensitivity. I share the anguish and disgust of the writer (and those have commented to the post).

However, what we need to understand is that this â??beauty showâ?? was not designed to mock or be-little the circumstances of the victims, and if the victims were Norwegians it would have been appropriate for their society. The project back-fired because Morten Traavik, a Norwegian artist (no wonder!), and the the originator of the idea, failed to consider the implications of his project.