Friday 6 April 2012

Kony2012

I meant to write this earlier, and I feel that for the most part this whole thing has washed over, but I want to get it out on here so that I can just refer people to this post for future reference. By the way, don't just trust what I'm saying, (even though I believe I'm pretty accurate,) do your own research!

The Kony2012 campaign is basically explained in a 30 minute video created by the Invisible Children non-profit organization. However, this video is very biased and misleading. I want to leave something out there before I dig my teeth in to this one, IC (which is what we're going to call Invisible Children) is a marketing and advertising organization - they haven't called themselves anything other than that.

My stance on the issue: the whole campaign is a waste of everyone's time... Of course Kony is a bad guy, we get it, but that's completely beside anything that you need to understand about what this whole thing is, and by that I'm talking about the campaign itself.

What needs to be understood is that it's not just about this guy named Joseph Kony and his LRA, this issue is much bigger than that. It goes back 40 years ago to 1972 when Yoweri Musevini had began to gather a rather large group of people and later called this group the National Resistance Army (NRA). In 1986 they over threw the government, of whom apparently weren't very favourable, since they were overthrown and what not. Guess who took over, and is still in power to this day? Mr. Musevini, of course. Joseph Kony was a guy who was into some very interesting things from a young age - mainly cults and all of that fun stuff, and when his government was over thrown, he became very unhappy. I guess it would be safe to say that he really enjoyed the government that was in place. So, he as well gathered a rather large group of people and later calling it the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). They began to kidnap children and kill any adults in their surrounding, therefore not leaving them much of a choice other than to join the movement. In 1987 the LRA made their first real village sabotage, this was Kony's home village of which we know to be named, Odek. In 1988 the UPDA (Uganda People's Democratic Army) made an agreement with the NRA where most of the members of the UPDA were left unsatisfied and joined Kony and his LRA as a form of rebellion. From here on I'm going to make it really short, the LRA basically fucked the NRA up a few times, and the NRA responded by weakening the areas that the LRA was recruiting from.From there on is just back and forth fighting.

I left everything out concerning Congo, Sudan/South Sudan and the other surrounding Central African countries because that's just too much typing - I'm actually doing this from my phone, lol. Any ways, now that we understand a little more about the Kony2012 campaign and the history behind what's happening in Uganda, we get to punch some holes in the campaign. The following are five (5) strong points as to why this campaign isn't worth your time, and if you aren't satisfied then I have five (5) links to supporting articles right after that!
  1. [The NRA have done the same, if not worse.] During the civil war between the NRA and the former Ugandan government, the wars between Uganda and Congo, and the time the NRA spent trying to fight Kony, they've done many of the things that Kony and his LRA have been accused of - if not more and worse. So why are we focussing on Kony and leaving the NRA out of the issue (even though the remaining fees from IC go through the NRA)?
  2. [The remaining donations go through the NRA.] I'm not actually going to focus on the fact that IC's monetary history isn't really in the favour of what most would argue the cause is really about. By this I mean that their monetary history includes that somewhere around 30-32% of the donations actually go to the cause. But as I said, I'm not going to focus on that, the money goes through the NRA. That is the problem. IC is an advertising company, so it's completely understandable that they would need to fund that - the issue is that this doesn't actually help the problem that they're making a big deal about.
  3. [The governments already know who he is.] Awareness is great, we should all be aware about what's happening in the world. However, the point of us being aware is so that we can make a scene and force the government to take action. The problem with that is that it's not like the governments don't know about this. Think about it, why wouldn't they know about this, actually - after 9/11 the LRA was listed as a terrorist group and in 2005 Joseph Kony was listed as one of the world's most wanted. The US had later sent 100 troops into Uganda to train and assist the NRA in finding and detaining Kony. The average person in the western world may not know about something that's happening in another part of the world, but that's because that situation really doesn't apply to us directly... Does he really need to become more famous than he already is? The governments of the world understand what's happening, it's been happening for 30 years and now the world gives a shit? It's time to ask yourself, "so, what exactly is this movement really about?"
  4. [The LRA is a dying cause.] The UN stated that they estimate Kony's LRA to have been diminished down to around 200 members by now. They're a dying cause who have nothing left to do but run to South Sudan and hide until the pressures off. By the way, the LRA never had 30,000 children in their army at one time. That number was apparently created by the NRA as an estimate of how many children were abducted in total up until 2004. Although to be fair, Wikipedia states that some estimate the number goes as high as 104,000.
  5. [IC is calling for War throughout Central Africa.] Lastly, seeing as the governments understand and are aware of the situation, and that the military is already in Uganda (even though Kony isn't), what IC is calling for isn't just about awareness or sending the PoPo to Kony's front door to slap some cuffs on him. Kony is supported by South Sudan and therefore is chilling there with his LRA. The only way to actually arrest this guy is if you were to invade South Sudan, as if war will solve that one? Keep in mind this is over child soldiers, we're now talking about war between two countries that have a history of recruiting just that. So now we want to bring this even further by pushing US military involvement? I didn't know that the US military ever actually helped a country, let alone the fact that any country the US military touches ends up the complete opposite from our desired peace and stability. War is the underlining factor of the Kony2012 campaign, and that won't help anything, it never has - why the fuck would it now?
The overall conclusion from the five points I've just made is really that, why now? All of a sudden the western world seems to care about an issue that isn't much of an issue anymore... The Ugandan people, well - the whole country, has recently (over the past few years) started to recover. This attention isn't actually helping anything, actually the majority of the Ugandan people's are against the general campaign. I really hope now people understand that you shouldn't just blindly follow a cause just because it's a cause and it's the "right" thing to do. Look into exactly what it is that you're funding before you fund it, you wouldn't buy a new phone without knowing about it first, right?

If anyone wants to have some further reading, I've prepared a few informative articles below.

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