I remember when I first started hearing about this whole Kony 2012 "experience." I concentrated in African politics for my undergraduate degree and it never occurred to me as I started seeing the hoopla on Facebook that all of these posts from middle-aged white American teenagers could possibly be about the LRA. I would have never guessed that someone putting together one video made by a Western film crew could ever be seen as a legitimate representation of what is a very complicated situation. I don't want to mince words here, Joseph Kony is obviously a horrible human being, but since when does a half hour video that your friend "liked" count as a way to educate yourself regarding African conflicts surrounded in centuries of history and context that no foreigner could ever grasp.
I'm gonna confess to something: I have never watched Kony 2012. I thought about it this past week when I was tasked with discussing Invisible Children. But I couldn't do it. The celebrity frenzy of this film was truly disgusting to me. It was entertainment. People didn't care about this issue or have any ideas of how it could be addressed, they liked tweeting about it and feeling good about how cultured they were. It was gross - and I am now not just a little bit happy that Invisible Children is shutting its doors. These civil disputes within African states are incredibly complex and even the ICC is having a very hard time learning how to properly address them. But I can put much more faith in a respected international judicial organization that I can in a bunch of upper-middle class kids sleeping in a park (still unclear what that accomplished). I had the pleasure of meeting Paul Kagame and as a state leader and one who had experienced a long civil war first hand, he was humble enough to admit that he could not always provide a clear solution because of the muddled nature of these disputes. Yet we watched these filmmakers discuss their expertise and their success without one shred of self-awareness. So as much as I have seen the professional benefits of the celebrity and social buzz campaigns in their ability to raise awareness, the paparazzi-esque campaign of Kony 2012 was a disgrace. Hopefully other NGOs have learned a lesson from that.
Chelsey - I couldn't agree more. I think it is easy for Invisible Children and other self-aggrandizing foreigners to make the entire story of the last 30 years of Northern Uganda about Joseph Kony, but there is a history of the relationship between the Acholi people from whom the LRA emerged and the central government in Kampala that is a little more complicated than that. The problem with Invisible Children's whitewashing of the role of the government of Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni in the violence of Central Africa is that it gives Museveni and company a free pass, and added ammunition with which to bludgeon virtually any domestic opposition, such as Kizza Besigye and the Forum for Democratic Change. I have seen well-meaning foreigners do plenty of damage before, so that is why people understanding the context and the history of the region is important before they blunder blindly forward to "help" a people they don't understand. This is a perfect example of celebrity activism doing, quite possibly, more damage than good.
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