Life is a mystery, everyone must stand alone,
I hear you call my name
And it feels like home ..
My newsfeed on facebook is clogged with reposts of the "Kony 2012" campaign, which aims to make an anti-celebrity out of Joseph Kony, head of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, which is known among other things for the kidnapping of children to turn them into soldiers and sex slaves. The campaign's run by a group called Invisible Children Inc, which is really what jogged my memory: they made a film called Invisible Children which I remember someone talked to us about when I was in 6th form, watching excerpts from the film. It's undeniable that the man is a complete fuckhead who is in dire need of killing, but my problems lie with the legitimacy of the campaign group themselves, and the way it makes people act.
The simple fact is, Invisible Children Inc does not spearhead their child protection campiagns with negotiation; rather, they endorse the use of swift, decisive military intervention to end the activities of Kony and the LRA. While this seems a logical option against a guerrilla-terrorist faction, the fact remains that Kony's forces are themselves children; traditional attempts to kill or capture him will result in the deaths of a great deal of children, which somewhat contradicts the group's aim in the first place.
When you combine this with the military force who would conduct such an operation against Kony, the Ugandan Army, the situation is even more bleak. Having raped, looted and pillaged their way through wars of their own, it seems highly doubtful that the Ugandan military will grow a conscience when faced with a mob of armed children. The Ugandan army and their disrespect for human rights is what is being supported when the Kony campaign is promoted.
It looks good on the surface but why should this change anything? The US military continues to assist and advise the Ugandan army forces in their search for Kony and have even tried directly themselves on some occasions. This proves either that he's as elusive a character as, say, Bin Laden, or that the Ugandan army has its own agenda/sympathies with Kony's reign of terror.
Apart from which, how many people who actually reposted it on facebook actually considered it before doing it? You watched the video; it's pretty heavy stuff. You heard about the campaign and reposted the vi- ooh, new notification! House party on wednesday? Sweet.
As if anyone cares. It's about the cause, people, not the flawed, half-arsed campaign.
Awareness has become as easy as remembrance, apparently. I vote we all change our profile pictures to a central African child soldier we found on google images and pretend we're making a difference, just like we did with poppies and "God bless Japan". People get so caught up in raising awareness they forget the situation is far from one dimensional. Awareness is no bad thing, but when it's for a cause which I don't believe is fully understood, it'll do more harm than good.
