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KONY 2012
DiscoVolante
Stockholm, Sweden
If you have 30 minutes to spare, watch this
If you don't have 30 minutes to spare, still watch it.
It is time.
<img src=http://927maxfm.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Kony.jpg/>;
If you don't have 30 minutes to spare, still watch it.
It is time.
<img src=http://927maxfm.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Kony.jpg/>;
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Comments
All this to say I guess word is really getting around considering I first heard of this less than a day ago.
"Little do people know that the founders of 'Kony 2012' have military links, and this subject, or movement to establish US forces in Uganda, an oil rich country, conveniently arises just as the US are finishing up their ‘war’ in Iraq, another oil rich country.
Oh, and how China, currently the US biggest worry in overtaking them as the superpower of the world has had forces there for years now, and have been providing resources in exchange for oil.
Funny how this ‘movement’ is based around US military interventionism. The people of the US/World would object the US moving into Uganda without a reasonable excuse, what better than a viral campaign to gather up support?
Why not go after General Butt Naked (Yes, that’s his name) of Liberia, who is known to sacrifice children daily? Oh. There’s nothing to benefit from by entering Liberia, of course.
Also, Kony hasn't actually been in Uganda since early 2006. And US military forces have been in Uganda for years now under AFRICON and have tried several times to kill Kony, only to fail and then suffer severe backlash for what as essentially the unprovoked slaughtering of innocent people in Uganda?
Why do we want to send MORE troops to a country where the man they are hunting doesn't even reside there?
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Keep buying your 30c bracelets and convince yourself you're part of the movement for 'change'. The Ugandan government is more corrupt than nearly any other African nation. I'm sure they would love some US forces to help them maintain power in exchange for a little oil. Everyone wins."
However what's mentioned in this film could lead to WW3!!!!!
If you are the second most evil person in the entire continent of Africa, behind someone who kidnaps children for use in a militia, you must be pretty evil. And the people running a charity trying to bring down Kony are posing with this guy's men? Something's not right.
http://wilwheaton.tumblr.com/post/18920717928/thedailywhat-on-kony-2012-i-honestly-wanted-to
Don't get me wrong, Kony is a despicable man. But what's happening in Uganda isn't isolated to Kony. This happens throughout other war-torn regions of Africa. The video might raise awareness about Kony, but the problem exists outside of him. End child slavery and child soldiers. But making facebook statuses and lining the pockets of a few 'charitable people' isn't the best way.
But if Kony is brought down there's a good chance the LRA will collapse. According to this article the LRA may be down to as few as 200 fighters. Also, the thing with Kony and the LRA is that it doesn't appear to have an underlying ideology - it seems to be mostly about allowing Kony and his cronies to maintain their warlord status and keep them out of jail. This lack of a rallying cause is why the LRA relies on kidnapped child soldiers and raiding villages. So, unlike Al Qaeda for example, there isn't going to be a long queue of people lining up behind Kony to martyr themselves for the cause.
The founders of Invisible Children have explained the story behind that photo here. They were at LRA - Ugandan peace talks being mediated by Sudan and the Sudanese army was guarding the camp. They posed for an ironic photo after they had interviewed some of the Sudanese soldiers for one of their films. I don't think that qualifies as supporting or being in cahoots with the Sudanese govt.
Wow. Great post, lots of facts that people should know before they hop right onboard with this.
Here's a piece by Ugandan blogger Musa Okwonga (see blogs.independent.co.uk/author/musaokwonga/ for more info) on the issue of Kony and Invisible children. Make of it what you will but one thing is for sure here, Okwonga is a lot closer to the action and the actual state of affairs than most of us here would seem to be.
Everyone agrees that this a hugely important issue, but Invisible Children’s methods have come in for searing criticism; most scathingly, they have been attacked as “neo-liberal, do-good Whiteness”. Elsewhere, Foreign Affairs has provided some important context on this matter, in relation to Uganda’s strategic importance to the USA. I would also recommend the Twitter feed of Laura Seay, who was moved to comment this morning that “[Solomme Lemma] is tweeting links to great community-based organizations working in Northern Uganda. Give there if you really want to help.
I understand the anger and resentment at Invisible Children’s approach, which with its paternalism has unpleasant echoes of colonialism. I will admit to being perturbed by its apparent top-down prescriptiveness, when so much diligent work is already being done at Northern Uganda’s grassroots. On the other hand, I am very happy – relieved, more than anything – that Invisible Children have raised worldwide awareness of this issue. Murderers and torturers tend to prefer anonymity, and if not that then respectability: that way, they can go about their work largely unhindered. For too many years, the subject of this trending topic on Twitter was only something that I heard about in my grandparents’ living room, as relatives and family friends gathered for fruitless and frustrated hours of discussion. Watching the video, though, I was concerned at the simplicity of the approach that Invisible Children seemed to have taken.
The thing is that Joseph Kony has been doing this for a very, very, very long time. He emerged about a quarter of a century [ago], which is about the same time that Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni came to power. As a result the fates of these two leaders must, I think, be viewed together. Yet, though President Museveni must be integral to any solution to this problem, I didn’t hear him mentioned once in the 30-minute video. I thought that this was a crucial omission. Invisible Children asked viewers to seek the engagement of American policymakers and celebrities, but – and this is a major red flag – it didn’t introduce them to the many Northern Ugandans already doing fantastic work both in their local communities and in the diaspora. It didn’t ask its viewers to seek diplomatic pressure on President Museveni’s administration.
About ten minutes into the video, the narrator asks his young son who “the bad guy” in Uganda is; when his young son hesitates, he informs him that Joseph Kony is the bad guy. In a sense, he let Kony off lightly: he is a monster. But what the narrator also failed to do was mention to his son that when a bad guy like Kony is running riot for years on end, raping and slashing and seizing and shooting, then there is most likely another host of bad guys out there letting him get on with it. He probably should have told him that, too.
I don’t think that Invisible Children are naïve. I don’t think that President Obama was ever blind to this matter either: his own father, a Kenyan, hails from the Luo, the same tribal group that has suffered so much at the hands of Kony. My hunch – and hope – is that they see this campaign as a way to encourage wider and deeper questions about wholly inadequate governance in this area of Africa.
Thanks for sharing this with us, it's a very interesting blog post indeed and a much closer look at all of this.
No, but considering they support other Ugandan military groups who are just as bad as Kony, just are supported by the government, I'd say they're a bit dodgy. Plus, there's the whole "only donate 31% of what they receive" bit that kind of turns me off their charity.
Still. It's a very good and informative movie that raises awareness of a terrible yet common truth.
A fair point. But co-operating with the Ugandan govt and military is pretty much the only option of stopping the LRA at the moment. The Sudanese govt support Kony, South Sudan only came into existence last year while the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic are far less stable and poorer than Uganda (admittedly because of civil wars not helped by Ugandan interference). Unfortunately its a case of choosing the lesser of two evils.
To be fair that 31% figure is a bit misleading. Apart from development work in North Uganda one of Invisible Children's main aims is to raise awareness of the issue of child soldiers. They spend a lot of their budget on speaking tours, publicity campaigns and film/media to do that. They've given a breakdown of their budget here and here (see their IRS charitable organisation 990 tax forms). Personally, I would give my money to other groups that focus and spend more on providing aid and assistance where its needed, but IC doesn't appear to be some massive rort or scam.