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Got back from Australia yesterday and found myself bombarded by people sharing and encouraging my involvement in the ‘Stop Kony’ campaign. The rise of the free online moviei think is completely unprecedented in the activism world. And I’ve been barraged on twitter and facebook to share the kony video and ‘join the movement’ by literally thousands.
So, introducing Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army, ahhh the shocking realisation that there are people who commit disgraceful terrorism in the name of Christianity too! I can see all the right-wing Americans now, ‘where’s this dudes turban?!’ I’m sure Fox news will turn to photoshop soon enough.
Atheistic jokes aside, I want to briefly take a few steps back from the hype and analyse a few things. Now the video is undoubtedly brilliantly made; It’s a bite size, emotional roller-coaster, igniting the flames of discontent in every ordinarily happily ignorant, middle-class western kid.
Psychologically attractive and easy to take in films like these need to be done again and again. Anything that spurs the normally blinkered self interested human being into a compassionate, human-rights conscious one is a winner in my book.
But I’d like to seriously address the issue of him being the ‘bad guy’. Of course he’s a bad guy, but once again we’ve fallen into the ‘bad apple’ trap; Take out the bad guy and all will be fine, he’s just the one bad apple out of the harvest. This is obviously rather silly, but it’s something that we always seem to jump into.
We have to target and eliminate the cause of how people like Kony came to materialise rather than the individuals themselves. It is only then that the atrocities will actually stop. Behind Kony are people supplying him with weaponry and funding and also a system that allows such perversion of humanity and human welfare.
We must ask why and how Kony became able to commit his obscenities and keep committing them for such a bloody long time?
And what’s to stop someone taking his place if he is ‘removed’?
And that means killed, Just like Osama, as if he’s going to ‘give himself up’, troops will have to fight to get to him, and fight who…? The very children that make up Kony’s army; the very children that ‘Invisible Children’ want to save. ‘Invisible Children’ have run into trouble labelling Kony’s army as “perpetrators”, as they are often “victims” too.
Africom (the United states military division for securing US foreign policy and interest in Africa) has attempted to ‘stop’ Kony many times and each time it has resulted in a backlash of increased death and disgraceful behaviour.
The environment that made Kony who he is, would still be in place to create successors if Kony himself is stopped. Even The Ugandan Army, The UPDF have been accused of rape, looting and land grabbing… (the very army that ‘Invisible Children’ support.)
People are a product of their environment, and the environment in Uganda can be horrendous. Just like much Africa, Uganda is in the struggling corrupt state it is in because of it’s resource ‘curse’ (it’s rich resources being controlled and exploited by colonial western powers) and all the other telling side affects of capitalism.
Many respected scholars of northern Uganda have recently stated “Until the underlying problem — the region’s poor governance — is adequately dealt with, there will be no sustainable peace.”
There is an overly simple subtext for the whole ‘Kony 2012’ film which seems to be nothing more than; get troops in, take out the bad boy, punish him and high five each other. Ultimately, the Kony 2012 campaign is based on a false premise: that increased American involvement in this issue will solve it. This might sound completely reasonable to young apolitical, shocked facebookers, but we know that increased American involvement very, very rarely leads to increased peace and stability.
In fact with recent Oil deals being made i could see this escalating into something we’d all be campaigning against in a few years time, after we send in our troops and end up take over more of their resources.
I cannot corroborate ‘Invisible Children’ as supportable cause at this stage with only 37% of their expenses going to it’s programs in Central Africa and would suggest supporting some of these hard working charities:
warchild.org.uk
doctorswithoutborders.org
Uganda Red Cross - redcrossug.org
I would also recommend you alternatively support the following community-based organizations in Northern Uganda:
Concerned Children & Youth Association (CCYA)
Art for Children Uganda
Children Chance International
Friends of Orphans
IT’S NOT ABOUT DONATIONS AND MONEY, IT’S ABOUT AWARENESS!
a video went viral a couple of days ago about an organisation called ‘Invisible Children’. IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED IT ALREADY, DO.
Basically, it’s about this guy called Joseph Kony. (and if you haven’t heard this name before, you really need to get involved with what is happening ALL OVER SOCIAL NETWORK SITES) He is a mass murder and leader of the group LRA (Lord’s Resistance Amry) who are a large group that operate in Uganda known for the extreme atrocities they commit against civilians, including killings, mutilations, rape, and even cannibalism. oh yeah, did I mention that most of this is towards children. They take children from small villages and with the girls/woman, they rape and beat them, and with the boys/men they either kill them, or worse, control and confuse them into becoming ‘Children Soldiers’ which then by doing this, continues the same process that has been going on for 29 YEARS.
Now, as most people have said I and other people are doing - JUMPING ON THE BAND WAGON - just because a viral video has come out, it’s not the case in my life. I have reasons, LIKE EVERYONE ELSE JOINING THIS PLEDGE to sign it and take part in taking this lowlife down. Other than the fact that he has killed 1000’s of innocent people, there are two other strong reasons why I have decided to become apart of this, and hopefully by reading this it will give you a better understanding.
one: The idea of this pledge to make people AWARE of Kony, in order to pursue him for all his crimes that he has caused. and therefore, that is all people need to do. And that is all i’m doing, because - if everyone has this one idea of just going ‘what’s the point in doing this, it won’t help’ then that’s one less person that can help in aid of making MORE AND MORE people aware of his existence. I feel that there should only be positive ways in making people aware of this, and therefore I am a bit skeptical about having this event ‘PLASTER YOUR CITY’ as it is classed as vandalism, and therefore we are techniqually doing wrong, to make something right. I feel instead of wasting money on making posters and *buying posters on the site*(Note below) we should use it to orgasnise events in our local areas, and put up legal notices around our towns, just making people aware, instead of running around our cities at night vandalising it.
two: This point has always been in my life as I HATE this about society everywhere. The triangle theory of society. That we all live in hierarchies, which is seen as a normal triangle, where all the ‘power’ like governments and leaders are at the top, who make all the decision, and ‘us’ the people are at the bottom. All these crisis’s that are going on in the world are controlled by our leaders and governments, are this just shows that they are the ones fucking this up. Even with all the improvements we are people have made in order to fix this problem, they still stand tall and have the power to do whatever they want. I feel that we need to turn this triangle upside down, where, we have our say, and they listen. Without our voice, we have nothing, and therefore by making people aware of, not only Kony, but all things happening in the world, more and more people can be apart of it and therefore help the cause, instead of just sitting back and thinking that it’ll never change.
Just leave it at that. I have had my say, it is my opinion. I feel this is the right way in my head, and I am not going to change it just because people tell me differently.
STOP AT NOTHING.
*NOTE*
Making people aware is the thing that you need to do. Don’t buy this. Make them. Facts have shown that this company don’t give 100% of the money towards the cause, slightly pissed off about that, but don’t use this excuse to say that you shouldn’t still help the cause by not making people aware of this guy. That is the main point I am trying to put across.
(Source: raisabakit)
