The power of words, the power of communication: yesterday morning, no one I know had ever heard about Joseph Kony. Today, he is World's Public Enemy number 1! Regardless of how little we know about him or his army, his current whereabouts or the situation in Uganda! for all we care, he is the next target to be brought down, because a video on facebook told us so!
ALL HAIL THE BIG BROTHER! HE IS LEADING THE WAY! LET US BLINDLY AND TRUSTFULY FOLLOW HIM, FOR HE KNOWS THINGS WE DO NOT, AND IS MORE LIKELY TO TAKE US TO THE PROMISSED LAND OF BLISS!
Guess there is no questionning why Zuckerberg has been elected Man of the Year in 2010 by TIME Magazine. He created a tool that made possible the kind of sheep-like behaviour we are now experiencing every other month ON A GLOBAL SCALE like never before, with some tragic news or reality brought to us via facebook (many of which are often proven hoaxes, false or inaccurate).
One thing I am sure, and I can bet right here, right now: with this title, given the HYPE surrounding the subject, this might become the most read post on my otherwise discreet blog!
I am in no position to criticize the actions of Invisible Children Inc., the organisation raising awareness about war criminal Joseph Kony. A little research on the net allowed me to aknowledge his existence - Yes, I checked; I had never heard of him, and I do not take for a sure fact whatever I see or hear on the internet, and you shouldn't either!
So, in the 30 min. film that's shocking the internet, Kony is depicted a war lord, the evil type you only see in movies, and you sometimes wish you could kill with your own hands. He has a history of violence, terror and barbarism in a country (Uganda) no stranger to that matter in the course of the 20th century (Idi Amin Dada is the worst possible exemple). He enslaves, enrolls children in his army. He rapes, terrorizes, burns down villages, leaving a thread of blood and desolation upon his path. But what does his army fight for (do they even fight, still)? What is the reason of the conflict going on there? Who are the parts involved? What has the international community done about it? All of these questions have little or no answer in the film. They focus primarily on the character of Kony ("a lame name for a war lord if you ask me!" a friend of mine wrote on facebook!!!) and his mischevious behaviour. Nothing justifies his and his army's conduct, that is a sure fact. No arguing about it, once again. But we need to have a broader perspective in order to avoid acting without thinking, yielding to immediate emotions who are very normally triggered by the exposure of such tragic facts.
The movie focus on getting YOU involved. It tells how little the US government is willing to do about the situation, and how YOU can be one more voice to make this matter heard. It has gotten celebrities involved. It has gotten politicians involved. Let's make Kony famous, so he cannot escape, anywhere on this planet. The deadline is december 31st 2012. If WE don't catch Kony by then, WE will have failed miserably, thus proving we are not worthy human beings, and there is no hope for the future.
So marketing for the greater good has been deployed. The image of Kony, Bin Laden and Hitler, in a Shepard Fairey-like stylisation, is likely to become the front logo of this fight, like the Mask of Anonymous has become the symbol of internet "justice". Bracelets are being sold, funds are being raised, protests are being held, the world has REACTED, has awakened from its dorment state to fight a just war. The communication is aggressive, and it ought to be. The only way to deal with this type of problem is being relentless about it.
Awareness is raised. The planet is mobilised. WHAT NOW? Shall we go massively to Uganda with a gun and a photo of Kony, and flood him out the jungle? OOH! Wait, he is not in Uganda no more, he is in Congo! How about military intervention? how easy is it for a country to send troops to another to catch a militia? not that hard, right? I mean, they are hiding in the forest, and there's only so many trees... (but why, then, the FARC has lasted so damn long in Colombia?????)
Let's say it's remotely simple to send armed troops to wherever he is hiding and get Kony. if he has such fearful army, he will not go down without a fight. And his soldiers, according to the documentary, are... CHILDREN! Are we going to send an army kill children to save children? Hell of a metaphysical question I would not like to answer...
In my humble opinion, there are some things wrong with this approach:
-This very romanesque-like action, made legitimate by envolving the Humanity in its whole (meaning: those with facebook. Who today are more than the world population 200 years ago, as stated in the video. Yet to check those numbers) is based on a very long struggle from the IC organisation. They started this fight a while ago, as far back as 2003, and it's all very honorable of them to have taken real interest, persevered with the will of bringing this subject to light. But situation in Uganda evolved. The facts remain the facts, but today, Kony does not represent the same level of threat he did in the early and mid 2000s. He is still accountable for his crimes, and there is no doubt he should pay for them. But there are other priorities, such as dealing with the traumatized survivors of all these tragedies, or dealing with much more active warlords around the globe;
-Other thing is, they invested a huge amount of energy and funds in this cause, and it has now become not quite irrelevant, but more symbolic than effective. The LRA, Kony's army of fanatics, is surviving in exile outside the Ugandan borders. The Ugandan army itself could be held accountable for crimes of war, yet Invisible Children Inc. has them as their allies in this war on war. Disturbing, to say the least;
-Finally, the goal of Invisible Children is CLEARLY to force US to take action into their own hands and "help"(?) the Ugandan finish once and for all with Kony's actions. Though, I maintain, it is a noble purpose, it is also a way of interfering with a country's internal affairs in a way that bothers me. They have done it all through the 20th century, and the begining of the 21st, Lybia being the most recent example of it. Khadafi was a criminal too, but by taking action in a total extrapolation of UN's resolution that aimed to protect civilians EXCLUSIVELY, the Allied Forces who took the man down have acted in their own particular interest, regardless of what the African Union, for instance, had to say. There are not such interests in Uganda, and that dictates a much bigger restraint on this matter. Which is good in a way, because africans are entitled to fight their own fights, and deal with their own internal plagues. Westerners have no right to "play God", saying "we will stop Joseph Kony, and I will tell you how we will do it!" That is a dangerous simplification of a complex situation. And relying on war criminals to catch war criminals is the type of situation that allowed the talibans to rise and shine at the dawn of the century. With the impact we have all come to know and regret...
My point, and it's a little cloudy here, is that most of the time, it's not just a matter of will that'll change a given situation, however bad it may be. There's a lot in stakes here, a lot to think about, one of the points being, once the awareness is raised, finding an accurate realistic way of ACTING for those children in danger, for the terror to end, for the scars to heal.
Another issue this whole Kony Campaign raises is the eternal paternalism of western countries towards Africa, and developing countries altogether. Is it up to american students, activists and organisations to do a Government's job? For how long will Africa be under intravenous infusion, depending on the western world for aid, for conflict resolution, for HUMANITY????
Is Africa going to be THAT ILL FOREVER, that it cannot find within its sons and daughters the cure for its own condition? Will the world Peace rely more easily on american filmmakers than on National and International organs of Sovereignty?
"If you want to help a man, don't give him the fish, teach him how to go fishing."
Proverb
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Related links:
International Criminal Court Investigation opening on Kony:
Kony aknowledged as a global terrorist:
Invisible Children Inc website:
