THOUGHTBOX

Found this jewel of an animation on the Internet. It's a piece on Kony 2012 and it freaking rocks.

Adam Branch, senior research fellow at the Makerere Institute of Social Research, Uganda, and assistant professor of political science at San Diego State University, USA, has written an interesting piece  (link)  on the entire Kony 2012 movement. He is the author of Displacing Human Rights: War and Intervention in Northern Uganda.   Joseph Kony The truth about Kony 2012, and the hard facts regarding the LRA and Invisible' Children's viral video, is that it completely ignores the more fundamental and relevant issues facing Uganda and its people. The campaign focuses so heavily on US political activism and the LRA, but it fails to address the fact that Ugandans face different and more immediate problems. Downtown Kampala The thing is, willingly or unwillingly, IC's Kony video promotes militarisation, ignorance and a skewed understanding of Africans in Uganda. The best we can do as a world wide audience is, first and foremost, STAY INFORMED. If you're interested ...

I’d made my opinion clear in my earlier  (link)  Kony 2012 post. IC is exploiting the plight of the people of Uganda for money, and the good they’re pretending to do for these people is actually harmful. But let’s see what Ugandans themselves feel about this video and its message. Victor Ochen, victim of Kony’s LRA and founder of the African Youth Initiative Network nonprofit org, travelled to Lira in Uganda and set up a makeshift theater, screening IC’s Kony video. More than 35,000 people saw the video. Some came on bikes from neighboring villages. Two million northern Uganda residents listened in on the video as it was broadcasted by radio stations. But they all had one thing in common: their dislike of the video. This is what Al Jazeera reporter Malcolm Webb’s account of the happening: People I spoke to anticipated seeing a video that showed the world the terrible atrocities that they had suffered during the conflict, and the ongoing struggles they still face trying to ...

There haven’t been any Kony 2012 posts on my blog so far, despite the craze. Why? Joseph Kony Well, I watched the Invisible Children video the day it came out, just like everyone else. I was tempted to share, just like everyone else. But there was just something about the whole message, the whole video that left me feeling uncomfortable. Like there was something missing, like I wasn’t seeing the complete picture at all. The reason I haven’t posted anything about Kony 2012 is that I’ve been doing a lot of research, reading and looking into the issue. Turns out I was right, and the Invisible Children video smelled fishy for a great number of reasons. The Problem With Awareness Let’s start with my first issue. People love being aware . The reason the IC Kony 2012 campaign was so succesful is because the online community draws a great deal of satisfaction from sharing awareness. It makes us feel like we’re contributing, or at the very least, letting our friends and followers know...