Koney 2012

So I tried traction the other day. I felt an inch taller, but couldn't sleep through the night in the hours that followed. Instead, I went on Twitter and looked at shit I wouldn't normally look at in the light of day. Twitter is actually good company at 2:30 a.m.

I came across the new sensation to stop Koney. They are doing a good job of marketing the video because I had no idea what it all meant, but everyone was talking about it.

Turns out James Koney is a real bad guy in Uganda who preys on little children. The video is heartbreaking as it runs down a list of Koney's crimes. The emphasis seems to be that we have to stop this madman's reign.

The video presentation is well done and the goal of the stop Koney movement seems sincere. I was thinking about putting the link up here but I'm kind of dopey when it comes to that stuff.

Regardless, I am sorry to say that as I watched the video I was skeptical. Why is it that these days we are skeptical of anything that appears to be too heartwarming, or too good?

Think Tim Tebow.

Or maybe it is just me.

The thing about it is that the narrator seems to be coming from a place where all of our hopes arise. He is trying to stop crimes against children. The video is a half an hour long.

Ten minutes in I felt it was a sales pitch of some sort.

Fifteen minutes in I was asking, 'What the hell do you want me to do to stop a bad man in Uganda?'

Twenty minutes in I almost shut it off.

I thought about suffering kids right here in the United States. Obviously they are not being beaten or raped and murdered, unless you count what their own parents do to them, but Koney 2012 made me uncomfortable for a number of reasons.

First, people don't want to see evil personified for a half an hour.

Second, I don't know about you but when it seems overwhelming to me I sort of back away.

Third, although the narrator and the organization appears legit, I was uncomfortable feeling as if there was more to the video.

Fourth, I thought that using his own kid in the video was sort of creepy.

I don't know.

Google it for yourself. Watch it instead of American Idol.

One thing is certain.

It'll find its way into the back of your mind.

And stick there.

It's worse than traction.

AND JUST AFTER I WROTE THAT, I READ THIS (HARD TO TRUST ANYTHING, RIGHT?):


We got trouble.
Please note that posting date has been edited to keep this at the top of the page. Post written March 7, 2012. Updates follow below, more reading here.

I do not doubt for a second that those involved in KONY 2012 have great intentions, nor do I doubt for a second that Joseph Kony is a very evil man. But despite this, I’m strongly opposed to the KONY 2012 campaign.

KONY 2012 is the product of a group called Invisible Children, a controversial activist group and not-for-profit. They’ve released 11 films, most with an accompanying bracelet colour (KONY 2012 is fittingly red), all of which focus on Joseph Kony. When we buy merch from them, when we link to their video, when we put up posters linking to their website, we support the organization. I don’t think that’s a good thing, and I’m not alone.

Invisible Children has been condemned time and time again. As a registered not-for-profit, its finances are public. Last year, the organization spent $8,676,614. Only 32% went to direct services (page 6), with much of the rest going to staff salaries, travel and transport, and film production. This is far from ideal for an issue which arguably needs action and aid, not awareness, and Charity Navigator rates their accountability 2/4 stars because they lack an external audit committee. But it goes way deeper than that.

The group is in favour of direct military intervention, and their money supports the Ugandan government’s army and various other military forces. Here’s a photo of the founders of Invisible Children posing with weapons and personnel of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Both the Ugandan army and Sudan People’s Liberation Army are riddled with accusations of rape and looting, but Invisible Children defends them, arguing that the Ugandan army is “better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries”, although Kony is no longer active in Uganda and hasn’t been since 2006 by their own admission. These books each refer to the rape and sexual assault that are perennial issues with the UPDF, the military group Invisible Children is defending.

Still, the bulk of Invisible Children’s spending isn’t on supporting African militias, but on awareness and filmmaking. Which can be great, except that Foreign Affairs has claimed that Invisible Children (among others) “manipulates facts for strategic purposes, exaggerating the scale of LRA abductions and murders and emphasizing the LRA’s use of innocent children as soldiers, and portraying Kony — a brutal man, to be sure — as uniquely awful, a Kurtz-like embodiment of evil.” He’s certainly evil, but exaggeration and manipulation to capture the public eye is unproductive, unprofessional and dishonest.

As Chris Blattman, a political scientist at Yale, writes on the topic of IC’s programming, “There’s also something inherently misleading, naive, maybe even dangerous, about the idea of rescuing children or saving of Africa. […] It hints uncomfortably of the White Man’s Burden. Worse, sometimes it does more than hint. The savior attitude is pervasive in advocacy, and it inevitably shapes programming. Usually misconceived programming.”

Still, Kony’s a bad guy, and he’s been around a while. Which is why the US has been involved in stopping him for years. U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has sent multiple missions to capture or kill Kony over the years. And they’ve failed time and time again, each provoking a ferocious response and increased retaliative slaughter. The issue with taking out a man who uses a child army is that his bodyguards are children. Any effort to capture or kill him will almost certainly result in many children’s deaths, an impact that needs to be minimized as much as possible. Each attempt brings more retaliation. And yet Invisible Children supports military intervention. Kony has been involved in peace talks in the past, which have fallen through. But Invisible Children is now focusing on military intervention.

Military intervention may or may not be the right idea, but people supporting KONY 2012 probably don’t realize they’re supporting the Ugandan military who are themselves raping and looting away. If people know this and still support Invisible Children because they feel it’s the best solution based on their knowledge and research, I have no issue with that. But I don’t think most people are in that position, and that’s a problem.

Is awareness good? Yes. But these problems are highly complex, not one-dimensional and, frankly, aren’t of the nature that can be solved by postering, film-making and changing your Facebook profile picture, as hard as that is to swallow. Giving your money and public support to Invisible Children so they can spend it on supporting ill-advised violent intervention and movie #12 isn’t helping. Do I have a better answer? No, I don’t, but that doesn’t mean that you should support KONY 2012 just because it’s something. Something isn’t always better than nothing. Sometimes it’s worse.

If you want to write to your Member of Parliament or your Senator or the President or the Prime Minister, by all means, go ahead. If you want to post about Joseph Kony’s crimes on Facebook, go ahead. But let’s keep it about Joseph Kony, not KONY 2012.

Comments

Anonymous said…
thank GOD for the computer age..
African dictators have been around for hundreds of yrs. killing their own people.. only government of the countries of the world.[UN etc.] knew and did what>>???
NOW the people of the countries will cry out for justice... the governments are lame as usual.
Anonymous said…
I have just posted IC to my FB page and now am wondering if I was wrong.... should have delved a little deeper
Mike said…
I found this very helpful/informative for my belief in the whole deal. Thanks for giving us your 2 cents.
Anonymous said…
Thanks for reading along

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