Here is a brief outline: Kony is the believed current head of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) who had sought to form a Ugandan theocracy before allegedly being forced out of the country. He is charged by the International Criminal Court with crimes against humanity, recruiting children as soldiers in his army as well as sex slaves. Many of the LRA’s most brutal crimes occurred over a decade ago, but the group’s campaigns displaced thousands if not millions of people and the body count is high.
I was first made aware of this charming psychopath in my International Human Rights course last semester, but Kony’s name did not stick in my mind. I was reminded after viewing the now infamous 30-minute Kony 2012 Youtube video made by Invisible Children co-founder James Russell. The video was amazing and struck a chord in my heart. Of course, now we know Russell is having an emotional and perhaps psychological breakdown, but I don’t think that necessarily discounts his work for this cause.
On April 20, 2012, I participated in “Cover the Night,” an event organized by Invisible Children’s off-shoot Kony 2012 where participants put up posters around their respective city in order to raise awareness on the Ugandan, and perhaps African, situation surrounding the crimes of Joseph Kony. After “covering” the night, I felt like I did something. And it was exactly what I intended to do: raise awareness. That’s all I need to do, right? Heck, I got off my butt and gave up valuable study time.
After the video was released and garnered over 100 million views in less than two weeks, there were many cries of “slacktivism.” The term is perfectly legitimate. I agree that in our quick access and instant gratification society, it’s nice to press a button and feel like you’re helping to make the world a better place. I also agree that sometimes, this is not enough to affect change. But what I found to be particularly insulting was the term’s application to this video. The purpose of the clip was to raise awareness, to raise concern. The very fact that so many people felt compelled to write about how uninspired the campaign was reiterates how effective the clip was.
And to add, I’m almost positive that a majority of the writers of these “slacktivist” articles bought any plane tickets to Africa to go save the nation, build schools, adopt underprivileged babies, end famine...Let’s be honest. The real slacktivists are opinion writers.
Besides the slacktivist argument, others argued that the situation pertaining to child abductions by the LRA has calmed down and now Uganda and the whole of Africa is an awesome place to be. Look, I understand that African countries are on the up. But let’s not be forget the past. If Kony is still alive and there are still accounts of him abducting children, then he needs to be brought to trial. I viewed a video clip of a teenage Ugandan-American girl who permanently resides in the United States speak about how dishonest the Kony 2012 video was. Essentially, she argues that Kony 2012 is just a front for the US military to swoop in and take African resources.
Sorry, kids, China is beating us to that.
While I understand her concern because you can never trust white Americans, I have to stop her right at the beginning of her video when she promotes her pedigree:
“I’m 100% Ugandan. Both of my parents were born and raised in Uganda. And...I tend to visit there from time to time. The last time I went was the summer of 2010[. . .].”
Stop right there! Do not tell me how Ugandan you are though you are clearly American-born and raised. If Uganda was so great, why aren’t you living there now? She goes on to say that Uganda had problems with the Al-Qaeda terrorist group, not the LRA, the last time she visited. So while the country is at peace, there are still problems with extreme fundamentalist religious groups.
Look, there were problems ten years ago that aren’t resolved today. Joseph Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity! These aren’t light charges. We are not talking about a slap on the wrist. Why are people so complacent? And for every child that was kidnapped and forced into slavery by the LRA, there should be an accounting. If Kony isn’t in Uganda, then perhaps the US military advisors won’t stay in Uganda. This is an international effort.
So, I praise Invisible Children and Kony 2012 for being able to mobilize people around the world about an otherwise forgotten tragedy. Let’s not forget that.
I'm aware that the situation concerning solely the organization Invisible Children is extremely complicated. This is just my view on one aspect. If you’re interested, here’s more reading on the topic:
Kony 2012
I would like to start with a quotation from one of the articles I read:"While rioters took to the underground paths of BlackBerry Messenger to organize, the highly spreadable mediums of Twitter and Facebook have shown to be the perfect platforms for mobilizing cleanup organizers and followers in the early aftermath of the rioting." Erica Swallow, writing for MashableI think this is a huge problem with with the way we think of both real and technological revolutions. From the beginning of her article, Swallow differentiates between the evils of BlackBerry Messenger which organized the riots and the goodness of Twitter and Facebook which are helping to rebuild London. Yay! Now, I’m on #teamiPhone, but was once the proud owner of a BlackBerry phone that I had to constantly defend to outsiders. This paragraph just reinforces how writers want to antiquate certain platforms while championing others, a confusion of the tool and the results of using the tool. BBM is old and led to an unsuccessful riot. Twitter is new(er) and is making the world a better place. Stale idea, Swallow. Stale.The arguments made recently have had to do with Twitter’s involvement in many recent “revolutions” and uprisings, especially in the Middle Eastern and Arabic countries. At the start of these revolutions, many wanted to attribute them to social media, namely Twitter and Facebook. Quickly, many realize this argument was weak sauce. In his essay “Iran: Downside to the ‘Twitter Revolution’”, Evgeny Morozov argues that the celebration of Twitter revolutions is misplaced. Using an argument that has stayed with me for quite some time he notes that many “in-touch” bloggers and tweeters were bilingual (Farsi and English), but often existing in the Iranian diaspora, not in Iran. If you are trying to succeed in revolution, why write in a language foreign to many in your country? In this case, it seems that many of these bloggers were citizen journalists, not organizing revolutionaries, but shedding light on them to the Western world.“Thus, to blame Andrew Sullivan for first dreaming up the “Twitter Revolution,” we have to blame a bevy of English-speaking Iranian bloggers who had shaped his opinion (many of them from the Iranian diaspora, with strong pro-Western feelings—why else blog in English?), as well as Farsi-speaking bloggers in Tehran who had shaped the opinion of the English-speaking Iranians, and so forth. Factor in various political biases, and it becomes clear that what Andrew Sullivan is “seeing” might be radically different from what is actually happening.” MorozovLike many others, I agree that Twitter was a tool, an important one, but still just one of the tools used by revolutionaries to organize. Twitter did not cause the revolution: Just as we have seen revolutions in the past without Twitter, without the telephone, without the printing press... technologies are used by revolutionaries, but revolution occurs because of social factors. Undoubtedly, Twitter played an useful role and was used by the actors in the shaping of these revolutions.When you look at a country like Syria, which is experiencing the aftermath of revolution, with many still trying to resist state force, you can see the extent to which social media can affect change. In recent months, opposition groups and Syrian individuals have been posting online videos to the internet, blogging, tweeting, and otherwise trying to raise attention about issues, but ultimately, what has it done? Several UN meetings have been held leading to little action. Bashar Al-Assad has continued his assault on Syrian citizens, his own people. They are still dying. Even with cease-fire resolutions from the UN and Arab League alike, the violence has continued. Social media has not been the great crusader now. No one is parading the phrase “Twitter Revolution” when speaking of Syria. It takes more than a platform. It takes people.
By the way, perused over some articles to find an interesting link if anyone is interested: Wikistrat. I’m in love with their tagline “Massively Multiplayer Online Consultancy.” Who is the nerd who created this! We need to exchange numbers and photos. I found the link in this article discussing Kony 2012. I think the same concepts above apply here. People’s actions make for a revolution, for great change. Social media platforms are just another tool to make it happen.Also want to point out that these social media platforms have quickly changed their tune in regards to allowing all-out protest and commentary. Twitter recently enacted a policy to censor certain tweets that may not be in line with a country's laws. Meaning that if someone insults a Head of State and that act is against the law, their tweet is liable to be censored. If someone calls for a meeting and assembly is illegal, NO TWEET. Just a censored out space informing viewers of the removed tweet.That's just another topic to think about when deciding whether social media is the end all be all of revolutions. Clearly, they want to make money. It's not about overthrowing governments for the likes of Twitter, Google, and Facebook. In the end, it's about compliance. The antithesis to revolution.
