This week, Erich, a communication expert with an international development organisation asked me a fascinating question; "it is easier to design a communication strategy for tangible products such as a vehicle loan, but how can you effectively do the same for justice which is abstract?
Kenneth Agutamba
It was a skype call so I couldn’t take long thinking about the question. But in a few seconds of reflection before answering, my mind raced across the globe and landed on the 2,340 kids that have reportedly been separated from their parents since May, in their attempt to migrate to USA.
That story has dominated international headlines for a couple of weeks now. Many Americans claim that their country is worse off because of their current nature of leadership.
But, I think Americans should feel consoled when they see thousands of migrants seeking entry into their borders, because, it means, to many, outside the USA, that country is still the dream they would do anything to become part of, regardless of the politics of the day.
However, that also calls for condemnation of the leadership where these migrants are coming from; a result of failure by leaders in those countries to build economies where citizens feel they can work hard and fairly, to realise their dreams without having to take dangerous trips abroad, to begin afresh.
Every country’s leadership, with enough patriotic will, has the capacity to make their country a first choice for its own citizenry and if you want an example, I won’t look beyond Rwanda. Two decades ago, everyone was fleeing; fleeing from poverty, war, disease and everything bad.
Yet in the last decade alone, millions have returned home courtesy of the new hope for a better life that the current leadership in Kigali has inspired and every Rwandan genuinely believes is possible for them to attain.
So, while the world media addresses its parcels of blame to President Donald Trump’s government, lampooning his policy of child-separation, they should spare the bigger portion of the responsibility to the leadership of the countries where all these people are coming from, for driving their people to such pity.
If I was a leader of a country and I saw on TV, hundreds of my citizens risking their lives and dignity, scrambling over barbed wires to break into another country, I would immediately send a chartered plane to return them home, before embarking on finding a meaningful solution.
At the center of this saga is the question of abstract justice for these people seeking a fresh dream abroad. Who is responsible for their plight? Who will concretize their story to derive the right response from those responsible?
"I agree with you, justice is abstract. But I strongly believe that its outcomes can be tangible,” I finally answered Erich, who had patiently been waiting on the other side of the line.
As experts in the communication profession, our work is to strive to concretize abstract situations of injustice to obtain tangible outputs from those in positions of responsibility.
The New York Times cover this week, of a photo-shopped image of the little two-year old girl, seemingly separated from her parents, standing there, terrified, with a towering President Trump looming over her, with the caption: Welcome To America. That was a great piece of work!
The cover was calculated to annoy and ridicule Trump’s administration and coax a tangible outcome to an otherwise abstract situation of the injustice at play; indeed, the President has since signed an Executive Order, withdrawing his previous policy of child separation.
Pictures, human interest stories, numbers and infographics are some of the excellent tools that communication specialists can use to concretize abstract situations or subjects such as injustice.
A situation is less abstract when you put face to it; humanizing the abstract. Justice is meant for all humans and injustice affects real people.
Therefore, an image of a widow, with four kids huddled around her, seated on the veranda of a closed grocery store with the caption: "Single mother of four loses family house to wealthy tycoon” would certainly attract public attention.
When justice is served, it generates positive images of a tangible outcome. A smiling widow with her happy kids playing in the courtyard after the local authorities restored her ownership to the property she had lost to the tycoon.
The tangible outcomes of injustice are ugly to look at as they represent images of misery, bloodshed, poverty, sadness, hatred and anger; no one wants to associate themselves with such.
It is the tangible outcomes of justice, which are pleasing to look at, that we should all seek to pursue for all humanity. Indeed, Erich’s question to me was in the context of a new national USAID Project, ‘Duteze Imbere Ubutabera’ which seeks to promote justice for all, in conjunction with the government of Rwanda.
The project holds that, if people are aware of their legal rights and the processes of their country’s legal system, then they’re in an empowered position to seek the tangible outcomes of justice.
Hence the project’s two objectives of improving judicial effectiveness in Rwanda’s formal court mechanisms and community service justice; and public understanding of the country’s judicial system processes and legal rights, especially among rural communities.
Email: Kenagutamba@gmail.com
The views expressed in this article are of the author.