Kony 2012

Acholi Boys - image found at http://www.uni-muenster.de/Ethnologie/ProjForsch/RelPol/project2.html

Ok, I've jumped on the bandwagon. But just because I think this is an important issue to address. For those of you who don't recognize what I'm talking about, Kony 2012 is a 30 minute documentary about Joseph Kony, the erstwhile leader of the really horrible Lords' Resistance Army, formerly of northern Uganda. This documentary was made and is distributed by Invisible Children, an organization that's been around for a few years.

I'll start by saying what's good about this documentary. It brings to light a very significant problem that has been affecting communities in central Africa for decades, a problem that Joseph Kony has been largely (although not entirely) responsible for. Kony has been heading up the Lords' Resistance Army (LRA) since the late 80s, and in that time has managed to abduct tens of thousands of children and completely destabilize communities (mostly the Acholi people) in northern Uganda. He abducts children for a couple reasons - one, to provide fighters and sex slaves for his army, and two, to indoctrinate and establish a society based (very loosely) on the Ten Commandments. Children are initiated often by being ordered to return to their communities and kill their families, or risk being killed themselves. They are also made to mutilate or kill other children who don't follow orders. This serves both to instill fear in the kids so they follow without question, as well as to potentially turn communities against these kids. Thus, if and when children are freed, they often don't have a home to go back to, either because their families are dead or because the children themselves are alienated for effectively being the enemy. Some of these kids, for lack of a better option, then are made to fight for the Ugandan military, which to some extent makes the military hardly better than the LRA itself.

Another essential issue in northern Uganda has been the destablization of civil society. Whole communities have been torn apart, and those that have survived and remained outside of the grips of the LRA have found themselves in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps, that lack security, services, and food. Women have been routinely raped and brutalized when they leave the camps to search for food and water. People have been unable to sustain themselves with whatever livelihoods they had before, and social order has broken down. I suppose this is what happens when the youth (albeit severely coerced) rise up and battle their elders.

Here's what's happened lately: over the last few years Kony has fled northern Uganda, and the LRA has been dispersed across the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic. Kony himself has been elusive as of late, and his army has been severely diminished in size, with the top leaders either dead or imprisoned. That's not to say that they are not still terrorizing local communities, as reports suggest they are doing. However, they are not the force they were a few years ago, and they are not in Uganda anymore.

Kony 2012's aim is to make Joseph Kony famous, so individuals can pressure the United States to keep its troops in the region in order to find him and bring him to justice (Kony has been indicted by the International Criminal Court on 12 counts of crimes against humanity and 21 counts of war crimes). The funds Invisible Children is raising through this documentary go toward raising more awareness, assisting the Ugandan military, and providing a bit of assistance to the communities of northern Uganda.

Here are the issues I have with the documentary. First, Invisible Children is providing assistance (both in funds and training) to the Ugandan military, which is itself a corrupt organization that has also used child soldiers (much like the LRA). Invisible Children also advocates for American military intervention in Uganda. How this all will help to catch Kony I don't know, since a) there have been countless unsuccessful military campaigns against him since he started out, and b) he's not even in Uganda. The documentary briefly mentions this fact. Does Invisible Children really want to advocate a cross-border military action by a corrupt army just to take down a single man who is elusive enough as it is? Invisible Children needs to decide if it wants to help Uganda (through grassroots security and rebuilding initiatives) or if it wants to hunt down Kony and how it will do so. These are two separate issues.

The second issue that I have is that Invisible Children misrepresents the issue in so many ways. In their representation the problem is that an evil warlord is abducting children in Africa, and no one is doing anything about it! But we, as powerful Americans, can mobilize and unite and influence our government (which seems to be so deaf as to need tens of thousands of people screaming at it before it realizes it's supposed to do something) to send soldiers over to go get that bad guy! And if we remain silent, then the government does nothing, our soldiers get recalled, and Kony continues unabated. How could we remain silent? When there are children (children just like our own!) dying?

This is at best a gross over-simplification of an incredibly complex situation. Say we send our troops, and they liaise with the Ugandan military, and they somehow manage to find Kony without disrupting the sovereignty and security of neighboring countries, what then? Do they gun down all the kids that Kony will inevitably throw up as a human shield? Are they expected to talk their way into Kony's circle? There's a reason Kony has not been caught yet, and it's not because of lack of effort. There have been (as previously mentioned) numerous military campaigns, as well as peace talks moderated by external parties. This is a conflict that has continued for decades, and people have been trying to find a solution for decades. Do we really believe that a bunch of American college kids marching around their city streets and putting up posters and tweeting politicians have the power to take down one of the most elusive criminals alive today? To assume so belittles every other effort that has been made thus far. Apathy and ignorance plague American society, and I'm glad there's been such a strong reaction to Kony 2012, because we need to be aware of what's going on in the outside world. But just as we have a problem with apathy and ignorance, we also have an over-inflated sense of self-importance. This is all the more clear in how much face time the filmmakers give themselves in the movie. They position themselves as the savior-leaders, the chosen ones to battle this horrible atrocity. I think it's telling that a greater amount of time is spent in the movie showing the filmmaker, his son, the American public, and the government, than anything that is going on in Uganda. It becomes apparent that Uganda is really not the issue here, it's our own belief that we are Helping.

I agree that Kony is a bad man that needs to be brought to justice. And I believe that we on the other side of the world should be aware of these problems and should do what we can to contribute to groups that are working to alleviate these problems. But in this case, a military solution is not a solution at all. Invisible Children owes it to the public (of the United States as well as Uganda) to represent the issue fairly and to not manipulate emotions to produce a one-dimensional outcome that will fail. In addition, Invisible Children's financial practices have been woefully criticized, both for not being transparent as well as for contributing only a small portion to actual on-the-ground work.

If you want to support an organization that is helping Kony's victims, consider supporting World Vision's Gulu project or Oxfam Uganda. Or go search things out for yourself, and find other organizations that are working in northern Uganda. If you want to check up on an organization's transparency and handling of finances, look it up at Charity Navigator.

Here are some more good articles if you want to read further:

http://visiblechildren.tumblr.com/

Foreign Policy - Joseph Kony is Not in Uganda (and other complicated things)

thatneedstogo.tumbler.com - Kony 2012: Causing More Harm Than Good

Jezebel - Kony 2012 Group Responds to Increasing Criticism

Telegraph - Growing Outrage in Uganda Over Film

Blogpost - Invisible Children founders pose with guns: an interview with the photographer

Does anyone have any thoughts on this issue? I don't mean to come down on everyone who is forwarding the documentary. Like I said, I think it's wonderful that people are paying attention, and I believe that this attention comes from a really good place in our hearts. But it's important to look closely at things like this that ask to give over our emotions for a cause. Pay attention in a constructive way. What do you all think?