As I'm sure everyone knows, last week the Invisible Children Project put out a video then went viral within a matter of hours. Millions of individuls watched the half-hour documentary to "raise awareness" about Joseph Kony and children soldiers in Uganda. Many were moved enough to donate to the cause and were very vocal in their support. Unfortunately, it can be easy to be swept up in media frenzies: how much of this actually benefits the so-called cause?
I want to focus on the Kony 2012 campaign as well as Invisible Children as a whole, but from a more critical perspective. To be sure, social justice is a worthy cause and I am glad that more people are beginning to look into what life is like in other parts of the world. However, I am frankly disgusted by IC's portrayal of Africans as essentially helpless children in desperate need of a more civilized white Western culture to save them from themselves.
Think of this: is Kony 2012 really impacting Uganda...or is it really just impacting America? Specifically, wealthy white youth looking to feel good about themselves? The media frenzy, and its response, has been completely Westernized. Where are the African voices who are actually there? Kony 2012 is nothing more than a tactic for America to increase their military presence and control over Africa: the video makes it clear that military action is the clear way to solve the Kony conflict. What I (after a lot of research on my own, and many share my opinion) think is that the conflicts in places like Uganda are so incredibly complex, that Kony 2012 and its ramifications are dangerous oversimplifications. That is what I want to focus on for our project for the next half of the semester.
If you are interested in researching this issues further - which I highly suggest you do before supporting any cause - there is so much information out there from perspectives besides that of Invisible Children's. Many of these sources are from people who either live or have worked extensively in Uganda and have experienced daily life there. I highly suggest the following:
Dangerous Ignorance: The Hysteria of Kony 2012Kony 2012: My response to the Invisible Children CampaignKony 2012 and Invisible Children are Funded by Antigay Creationist GroupsThe Daily What: More on Kony 2012We Are Not Invisible: 5 African Women Respond to the Kony 2012 CampaignFinally, I think this quote (taken from the video in my second link) puts a lot of things about this situation in perspective that we as Westerners need to keep in mind when choosing to support a cause:
“How you tell the stories of Africans is much more important that what the story is; because if you are showing me as voiceless, as hopeless [then] you have no space telling my story. You shouldn’t be telling my story if you don’t believe that I also have the power to change what is going on.” -Rosebell Kagumire
