On the KONY 2012 movement....

Yesterday, I watched the short film KONY 2012 by invisible children on youtube. At the time I watched the video, it had over 55,000 views and right now it has over 9,000,000 views so I think it's safe to say that the video went viral! The video is aimed is at making Joseph Kony famous in order to hasten his arrest. If you haven't watched the video, take a moment to watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc&feature=youtube_gdata_player


A brief summary of the video is that "Joseph Kony has been abducting children from their homes and forcing them into his army, the Lord's Resistance Army. He has forced the girls to become sex slaves and the boys to kill many people, including their own parents, their siblings and their friends. He has done this to over 30,000 children.  The United States recently sent troops into Africa to find and arrest Kony, but have been unsuccessful so far. Unfortunately, the US may remove these troops out of Africa and leave Kony to continue terrorizing Ugandans."
I had heard about children being abducted to join armies before watching the video but I had never heard of the situation in Uganda or of Joseph Kony and I was unconscious to the severity of the issue and I am disappointed in myself for that.


Like most people, after watching this video, there was this fire of social activism that was ignited within and I kept thinking, Kony must be stopped so yes, I changed my facebook cover photo to KONY 2012 to help in raising awareness about this man, Joseph Kony.


However, this morning, my newsfeed was filled with a different side of the view about KONY 2012. Most people posted the blog "We got Trouble": http://visiblechildren.tumblr.com/ . The author Grant Oyston talks about how invisible children donates only 32% to direct services and how he believes that the group is in favor of direct military information. Now there were individuals that posted this because they were genuinely concerned that people might be donating money to a misleading cause and others that just posted it because they just intentionally always like to be on the other end (you know those people that are always determined to argue against conventional wisdom even in cases where conventional wisdom may be right.)


So having watched the video, I decided to also read the article and to ask a friend from Uganda what he thought about the video especially since I didn't know about the situation in Uganda before. It is always helpful to get different perspectives to ensure that one fully understands the situation before forming an opinion.


After reading the article, here are my thoughts,  I understand that the organization itself might be flawed. But I still think the awareness that the video created is valuable and that it is very important for people to know what is going on in the world before we can even start to talk about solutions. 


Also, I don't believe that arresting one man will lead to the end of the LRA. It is important to get the roots of the problem because if the situation (and conditions) that allowed a person like Joseph Konyi to exist for so long and commit those crimes and still thrive and get away with it are still the same, then I fear that 2 years from now, even if Konyi is killed, this evil will just continue on with a new leader. It is more important to kill the idea than kill the person. But still, arresting one person might not be the solution, but it's a step.  With the awareness this video created, more people are interested in doing research find out who this Joseph Kony man is and actually  understand the LRA and their actions and awareness and understanding of the problem and the entire situation are one of the first steps towards finding a solution


Also, a part of me is tempted to be uncomfomfortable with this because of the whole notion of the west coming to Africa's aid again. But like Okonjo Iweala said in her TED talk "let's have a depper discussion on aid," when it is you or your loved one involved, you don't care whether it is aid, you don't care what it is. So if you put yourself in the shoes of those young children in Northern Uganda who are living in constant fear of being abducted, it doesn't matter where assistance is coming from or what the philosophy of this assistance might mean. They just want to be safe. 


It is improtant to remember what Chimamanda Adichie calls "The Danger of the Single Story," I hope that the popularity of this video will not lead to the misconception that this is what Uganda is all about.


I  hope that this doesn't just end up as a fad. As the Facebook profile pictures and cover photos eventually change from the "KONY 2012." posters, I hope that the spirit of social activism that this video created, remains in our hearts 


~ghonsie