Guest post: Joseph Kony is not in Uganda (and other complicated things) Click here to see photos of the evolution of the LRA. Thanks to an incredibly effective social media effort, #StopKony is trending on Twitter today. The campaign coincides with a new awareness-raising documentary by the group Invisible Children. Former FP intern Michael Wilkerson, now a freelance journalist and grad student at Oxford -- who has lived and reported from Uganda -- contributed this guest post on the campaign. -JK By Michael Wilkerson: "Joseph Kony is basically Adolf Hitler. Have you seen something like that fly across your Twitter or Facebook feed today? "#TweetToSave the Invisible Children of Uganda!
"Kony 2012," a video posted by advocacy group Invisible Children to raise awareness about the pernicious evil of Lord's Risistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony, has already been viewed over 8 million times on Vimeo and more than 9 million times on YouTube (and surely more by the time you read this) since its release this week. It would be great to get rid of Kony. The Trouble with #StopKony. If your Twitter and Facebook streams look anything like mine, you have probably become acquainted with the hashtag #stopkony over the last 48 hours. That’s Joseph Kony—rebel leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) from Northern Uganda and center of a campaign by non-profit advocacy group Invisible Children. For the last three decades, the LRA has terrorized pockets of East Africa, most notoriously abducting children to staff the ranks of an army that long-ago ceased to inspire voluntary recruits.
The US-based charity is broadcasting a simple message: If more people know about Kony, know that he’s a bad guy, and call on their governments to go after him, someone actually will get him, and peace and stability will return to Uganda. So please, everyone, retweet. This is the kind of story that leaves me incredibly morally conflicted. I do, however, have some serious concerns about this campaign and what it is intended to do. What would really help? Invisible Children "Kony 2012" Leader Suggests It's About Jesus and Evangelizing | Visions. "A lot of people fear Christians, they fear Liberty University, they fear Invisible Children - because they feel like we have an agenda. They see us and they go, "You want me to sign up for something, you want my money. You want, you want me to believe in your God. " And it freaks them out. " --- Jason Russell, speaking at Liberty University, November 7, 2011 Is Invisible Children a nonprofit devoted to human needs, or is it a ministry devoted to bringing souls to Jesus ?
Judging by a talk co-founder Jason Russell gave last November at Liberty University, it would seem to be a bit of both. A few days ago, Russell's Invisible Children nonprofit began to blitz the Internet with posts on social media promoting the nonprofit's new KONY 2012 video, which by now has received over 36 million hits. The evangelical magazine Christianity Today has covered the growing controversy over the Invisible Children publicity campaign, and Invisible Children has issued a response to the gathering criticism. Why I think the Kony 2012 Campaign Is Wrong. Stop this I think the Kony12 campaign is wrong. It is wrong in content, tactics, strategy, ethics and politics. The Invisible Children organisation may well be doing some good work in East Africa, but this media effort is wrong.
And it’s not just the wrong means to a good end, it’s a negative in itself. They should stop it or change it. [UPDATE: I am writing a much longer research paper on the future of the public sphere that cites Kony2012 as a case study - you can read an extract here] The one good thing to come out of it is a healthy debate about humanitarian communications, something that Polis and my Department have been researching and discussing with NGOs and academics for years. I won’t go through all the detailed arguments which other people have made much better than me. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What intrigues me is how very intelligent, compassionate people respond to these criticisms by defending the campaign, despite its faults. This is bizarre. Firstly, it’s wrong to lie. Solving War Crimes With Wristbands: The Arrogance of 'Kony 2012' - Kate Cronin-Furman & Amanda Taub - International.
A viral video by a controversial group claims to fix Central African violence with awareness, but such misguided campaigns can do more harm than good. Members of Invisible Children pose with soldiers from the Sudan People's Liberation Army near the Congo-Sudan border in 2008 / Courtesy Glenna Gordon Have you heard? Joseph Kony, brutal warlord and International Criminal Court indictee, is going to be famous like George Clooney. The reason is Kony 2012, a 30 minute film by the advocacy organization Invisible Children, which has gone viral in the 72 hours since its release, garnering over 38.6 million views on Youtube and Vimeo. It has been retweeted by everyone from Justin Bieber to Oprah, and shared on Facebook by seemingly everyone under the age of 25. The video opens with a perplexing sequence of home movies. Awareness of their plight achieved, child soldiers are now visible to the naked American eye.
This awareness-based approach to atrocity strikes many people as worthwhile. The Road to Hell Is Paved with Viral Videos - By David Rieff. Click here to see photos of the evolution of the LRA. When and how so many Americans, young people in particular, were convinced, or convinced themselves, that awareness offers the key to righting wrongs wherever in the world they may be is hard to pinpoint. But whatever else it does and fails to do, Kony 2012, the 30-minute video produced by a previously obscure California- and Uganda-based charity called Invisible Children that seeks to "make Joseph Kony famous in 2012" so that this homicidal bandit leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in central Africa will be hunted down and turned over to the International Criminal Court, illustrates just how deeply engrained in American culture this assumption has now become.
As a film, as history, and as policy analysis, there is little to be said for Kony 2012 except that its star and narrator, Jason Russell, the head of Invisible Children, and his colleagues seem to have their hearts in the right place. Spencer Platt/Getty Images. The real battle in Uganda. While the rest of the world jumps onto the Kony2012 bandwagon -- wrongly assuming that the main problem in Uganda is the Lord's Resistance Army -- Ugandans are worrying about the much more urgent problem plaguing their country: nodding disease.
The cause of the disease is unknown. It affects thousands of children in Northern Uganda, causing symptoms similar to epilepsy, but with more severe mental and physical retardation. (The photo above shows 12-year-old Nancy Lamwaka, a victim of the disease.) Yet the Ugandan government has been notably slow to deal with the problem. A lot has happened since I last blogged about the government's strange priorities. So the Hon Beatrice Anywar, an MP for Kitgum District, decided to take action: she ferried a number of children from her constituency to Mulago National Referral Hospital in the capital, Kampala. When the sick children arrived in Mulago, journalists had a field day taking pictures.
How to Help African Children At Risk. Thanks to the "KONY 2012" video made by the San Diego-based organization Invisible Children, millions of people are suddenly interested in humanitarian crises in Central Africa. This is great news, but the challenge now is to translate that concern into constructive activism. Joseph Kony has led the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) since the mid-1980s. He created it from the remnants of a quasi-Christian movement led by the mystic and spiritual leader Alice Auma; its early followers opposed the marginalization of the Acholi people in northern Uganda by the government of Yoweri Museveni. At times the LRA was supported by the government of neighboring Sudan, as retaliation for Museveni's support of rebels there. From 1987 to 2006, the LRA attacked and murdered civilians in northern Uganda.
More than two million people were uprooted from their homes and most ended up living in camps that lacked food, clean water, and sanitation. To continue reading, please log in. Don't have an account? Register. KONY 2012 and the Prospects for Change. Earlier this month, more than 30 civilians were killed during armed attacks in South Kivu, in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Those killings were committed not by the Lord's Resistance Army but by one of the many Congolese militias operating in the area.
In recent months, those groups have been responsible for a marked increase in violence, but in most cases, such attacks go unnoticed by international media. So it was in this case: as usual, it is only thanks to local sources that we know about such events at all. The lack of attention is ironic at the moment because of the sudden popularity of the KONY 2012 video campaign. With more than 70 million views so far, Invisible Children's documentary on YouTube, coupled with a stupendously successful viral media campaign, has achieved its aim of reaching a mass audience. To continue reading, please log in. Don't have an account? Register Register now to get three articles each month. Register for free to continue reading.
Ugandans are not amused. Since the Kony 2012 video went viral, the commentary hasn't stopped. We have criticized the film, praised it, even satirized it. Invisible Children has the whole world talking. But one key question has gone unanswered: What do people in northern Uganda think about the video? Last evening, there was a screening of the video in Lira, one of the areas most affected by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) during the days of the war.
It was a chance to hear from Ugandans who actually went through the LRA conflict, to hear what they think about the video and how their stories are being told to the world. Victor Ochen of the African Youth Initiative Network (AYINET) decided to screen the movie in Lira, and Al Jazeera's Malcolm Webb was there to cover the story. When the film was over, Ochen issued a statement suspending further showings of Kony 2012. Ugandans have remarked upon the fact that there have been very few local voices making themselves heard. Guest Post: I've met Joseph Kony and Kony 2012 isn't that bad. WikiLeaked cable: Invisible Children helped Ugandan security forces arrest government opponent. Just days after releasing its new video, Invisible Children -- the U.S. -based NGO behind the phenomenally successful "Kony 2012" campaign -- has yet again found itself in the midst of controversy over a U.S. diplomatic cable released last year by WikiLeaks, which reports that the group cooperated with the Ugandan military to facilitate the arrest of a former child soldier who was allegedly involved in the formation of a new rebel group.
The cable, released as part of WikiLeaks' massive "Cablegate" series, was sent on June 11, 2009, and signed by then ambassador Steven Browning. Titled, "GAMES THE ACHOLI DIASPORA CONTINUE TO PLAY," it concerns reports of a "new rebellion in northern Uganda" organized by members of the Acholi ethnic group, of which Joseph Kony is also a member. According to the cable, it was Invisible Children that gave the government the tipoff on where to find Komakech: Komakech is currently facing treason charges, along with over a dozen other alleged PPF members.
Mission From God: The Upstart Christian Sect Driving Invisible Children and Changing Africa - Josh Kron - International. Many of the men responsible for the Kony 2012 campaign follow something called the Emerging Church, which has become an unusual and newly influential wing of the larger evangelical mission to Africa. Jason Russell dances in an Invisible Children video. YouTube For Jason Russell, co-founder of Invisible Children, stumbling into Uganda's one-time civil war wasn't an accident; it was a divine calling. While the rest of the world laughs at or ponders the psych ward-ridden creator of Kony 2012, the unlikely Internet video sensation that brought both himself and a vicious Ugandan rebel instant and overwhelming fame, the mystery of his inspiration and success only grows more curious.
Who is this man? Is he crazy? What drives him? "For me, that's the motivator," Russell told me in an interview early one morning from California in March, as the video was first going viral. "I can't do it without that faith," he said, calling Jesus the "ultimate storyteller. " "It changed my life," Russell said.