Social Activism and MTV

[DeletedUser14786]

A number of my friends in American universities have recently started promoting a campaign started by a nonprofit organization called Invisible Children which is attempting to raise awareness about a dictator named Joseph Kony that has historically terrorized Uganda. The link will take you to their website where if you've got the time you can watch the MTV-like 30 minute video that they have put together and donate.

While I typically am supportive of social activism, I am not particularly excited about this for a couple reasons. Here is a link to a blog that was written in 2006 that outlines some of my concerns far more eloquently than I can. In general, I am happy that this goodwill and enthusiasm poured out for Uganda. I dislike the use of excessive pathos (as the video employs) to educate people about these issues. Moreover, this seems to me a perfect case of "white man's burden" where the paternalistic US now needs to go to Africa to "fix" the problems inherent in there. In reality, most dictators/Warlords in Africa exist because our Cold War policy was to empower anybody that wasn't communist, no matter the cost. The CIA assassination of Patrice Lumumba in Congo comes to mind.

I study developing world economies and my concern is that understanding the conflicts in Eastern Congo/Rwanda and Uganda fully is incredibly difficult because of each central African country's use of proxies to promote their interests. Kony is obviously a very bad guy and easy to demonize. But he's a symptom, not a cause of the problem in Eastern Congo/Uganda. If you've got even more time on your hands, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Congo_War is a great place to start. Basically there are no angels in African politics, and the Congo's wealth is really what everybody is after. Anybody that has a stake in establishing control ("security") of eastern Congo has an agenda, whether it's cobalt, diamonds, gold, oil, tungsten, etc.


Back to Invisible Children--The US is now educated about Kony. Now what? I have some questions that I'd like to muse over with the people in this debate section of the forum:

Is awareness in any form of activism for the better? Does this video/publicity campaign mean the start of a new American foreign policy based on morality? Since when has morality ever been a part of US foreign policy? Should charging criminals for war crimes be the decision of the public? If so, who is a criminal? If you ask Egyptians, Tantawi is a criminal. If you ask Palestinians, Netanyahu is a crook. Ask the Israelis and Abbas is a terrorist. Should justice be subjected to who has money and influence over public opinion? What's more, is this the right way to popularize and mass-market social activism?

 

[DeletedUser]

First of all, let me say that I do not support Joseph Kony or his actions in any way.


I do, however, feel that the Kony 2012 campaign is one big fraud.
Firstly, as a registered not-for-profit, Invisible Childrens finances are public. "Last year, the organization spent $8,676,614. Only 32% went to direct services (source, see the sixth page), with much of the rest going to staff salaries, travel and transport, and film production.This is far from ideal, and Charity Navigator rates their accountability 2/4 stars because they haven’t had their finances externally audited. But it goes way deeper than that.”
The 32% that does make it to uganda is most likely further whittled down by the Uganda (local) governments.

Secondly, the movie that everyone has seen was made in 2004, meaning the content is almost 8 years old. Not surprisingly the movie is very misleading and doesn't tell us a few things. Joseph Kony is no longer in in Uganda and neither is the LRA. Additionally, the LRA does not have an army of 30,000+ child soldier, this number that Invisible Children used is the estimated number of total kidnapped children by the LRA in almost 30 year. And their recent child recruitment has dropped with 80%.

Furthermore, even if we catch and kill Joseph Kony, then what? Corruption is not uncommon in Uganda and the Middle-African governments are known to disregard human rights, just like their police force. I personally think that this corrupted system that is surprisingly prominent in Africa is responsible for more deaths that Joseph Kony and his LRA. I also think that this is the first issue that must be resolved.

As you may or may not know, Invisible Children is lobbying to pass a bill that would allow the USA to intervene and work together with the corrupt Uganda forces.

providing political, economic, military, and intelligence support for viable multilateral efforts to protect civilians from the Lord's Resistance Army, to apprehend or remove Joseph Kony and his top commanders from the battlefield in the continued absence of a negotiated solution, and to disarm and demobilize the remaining Lord's Resistance Army fighters;"

Why the USA and not the UN you ask? Recently, oil has been discovered in Uganda. I fear another Iraq, but please draw your own conclusions.

Their charity ratings aren't the best either.

Now, to answer OP's question, I do think that this campaign promoted slacktivism. People who shared the movie on FB, or liked the youtube video feel like they are social activists while they really haven't done anything to help the situation. The only thing it really does is make us feel better.
There are better causes to support than the Kony 2012 campaign.

 

[DeletedUser]

While I don't want to drag this thread off-topic right from the start, to a Kony 2012 discussion, I am of the opinion that the current awareness campaign is nothing more than another bandwagon that people jump onto in the hope of making themselves feel better, without doing anything at all to help.

Awareness of a cause can obviously be very beneficial. Increased awareness can result in donations to a charity, action being taken to improve things, etc. However, the sort of awareness promoted by the current Kony 2012 campaign is, for the most part, entirely useless. People posting videos across social networking sites, commenting on it, making themselves feel like they're making a difference.. it's not getting anything done.

 

[DeletedUser]

Disclaimer: I hate Joseph Kony and I want him dead.

The video, while it contains some truth it blows the issue out of proportion. The publicity and amount of donations this campaign has received are not deserved. The video is very misleading and is also outdated. It is extremely likely that Kony and his followers have left Uganda. If that is true that means the donations do relatively nothing. (Because all donations go to Uganda's government.) Also many Natives of Uganda and other people throughout the world believe that Kony is already dead.

It is my honest opinion that the Invisible Children released simply to make money. If they actually really cared about this they would have released the video as soon as it was finished filming. Another thing that really shows how much they don't care is that only a measly 30% of the money they make goes directly to the cause the money has been raised for, that is pretty bad compared to other charity's. It seems like with all this buzz about Kony that a lot of people have forgotten about the many other more worthy and more truthful causes they could support.

~W