#StopKony

[Incandenza]

Chances are if you're on Twitter and/or Facebook, you've been exhorted to watch Invisible Children's half-hour documentary drawing attention to Uganda's Lords Resistance Army's leader Joseph Kony and his all together terrible record of human rights abuses.

But what real change can a widespread social media campaign about an issue like this have? It's not like the UN isn't aware of Kony.

And the organization behind the video, Invisible Children, is now finding itself being looked at more closely.

Is watching a video and saying you're outraged and that asking your online friends and followers to do the same just a way of feeling good about yourself for being outraged, without having to do anything at all? Can social media spreading this message really accomplish anything, or is making people educated better than doing nothing at all?

[matt j]

#StopKony

I thought this FP post summed things up nicely:

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/03/07/guest_post_joseph_kony_is_not_in_uganda_and_other_ complicated_things

I have a lot of facebook friends talking about 'buying the kit'. But we can't buy our way to a better world can we...

[ooh aah]

#StopKony

interesting to see that one of the links to the Washington post link is 'Rush Limbaugh defends LRA'.

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

#StopKony

I was in Uganda this morning, weirdly enough. Can't help thinking this type of consciousness raising is way, way too late and an enormous social media red-herring, taking much-needed resources away from other issues affecting the region.

[Incandenza]

#StopKony

Here's one of Invisible Children's earlier efforts at conscious-raising:





That was a t-shirt "Rescue Pack" from 2009, and their idea was to separate the LRA from Kony, and embrace the LRA as a group of abducted children, who need love from the world. They also had an "Abduct Yourself" campaign for people to stage being abducted....well, here's a description:

This weekend (25-26 April), The Invisible Children campaign organized a protest action in over 100 cities throughout the world. The idea was simple. For just one day, people involved in the protest would pretend to be 'abducted'. Then they would be 'rescued' by a mogul and, having spent a single night in discomfort would go back to their homes, hopefully having achieved a degree of media exposure and sufficient motivation to spread the word that the kidnapping of children with the aim of training them to be soldiers is a moral outrage which the authorities should place at the top of their political agendas.

Christ on a bike.

Here are the founders of Invisible Children, from a few years ago:



Found that at this blog:

Via Chris Blattman, we learned that Invisible Children (brief background of the organization: 3 kids go to Africa, make movie about child soldiers, show it to every college student on the planet) has launched a new film and campaign: “Abduct Yourself to Free the Abducted.” Um.

Chris posts a letter he wrote to Invisible Children’s Mission Director explaining his discomfort with the project. He makes the point that their work is (a) kind of obsessed with glorifying the filmmakers, (b) based on a creepy, White Man’s Burden-y savior complex, and (c) taking up resources that could be occupied by “intelligent advocacy.”

We completely agree and offer this photo of the three founders of Invisible Children in support of the “who is this about anyway?” critique:

We also have a couple of related concerns:

First, organizations like Invisible Children not only take up resources that could be used to fund more intelligent advocacy, they take up rhetorical space that could be used to develop more intelligent advocacy. And yeah, this may seem like an absurdly academic point to raise when talking about a problem that is clearly crying out for pragmatic solutions, but, uh, the way we define problems is important. Really, really important. Choosing to simplistically define Congolese women as “The Raped” and Ugandan children as “The Abducted” constrains our ability to think creatively about the problems they face, and work with them to combat these problems.

Second, treating their problems as one-dimensional issues that can be solved by a handful of plucky college students armed only with the strength of their convictions and a video camera doesn’t help anyone.

[Crusoe]

#StopKony

Mmm. Some laudable thoughts obscuring genuine complexity on this topic. See also http://visiblechildren.tumblr.com.

[Incandenza]

#StopKony

So...

http://gaw.kr/xc3BwD

[ursus arctos]

#StopKony

The scuzziest part of San Diego is near Sea World?

When did that happen?

(haven't been back in 25+ years)

[DCI Harry Batt]

#StopKony

I missed this thread on here.

Lenin's Tomb's take:

The video from Invisible Children by the despicably narcissistic Jason Russell is supposedly about a conflict in Uganda, but it tells us not a thing about Uganda's politics, its rulers, the military who are hunting down the remnants of the Lords Resistance Army, Museveni or his US-backed invasion of the Congo (death toll from that war is close to 5m), or the Lord's Resistance Army.

We have a US intervention. The hundred or so US advisors assisting the Ugandan army are supposedly there in part due to pressure from Russell and his organisation. We have an evil-doer about whom no one knows anything, aside from the fact that he's a Hitler or, worse, a Bin Laden.

This approach, in which we learn only that Kony is a bad man, is justified with the repellently manipulative technique of having the film-maker's son stand in for the audience - Daddy 'explains' to his son that Kony steals away children and makes them shoot people, and the little treasure gurns "that's sad".

We have the helpless victims, who articulate only their suffering, reduced to bare-forked creatures of the imperialist imagination, and firmly locked in the missionary position. We have the absurdity of hundreds of thousands of well-meaning but slightly silly people who have allowed themselves to be manipulated and bullied into supporting the combined forces of US imperialism and the Ugandan military in the name of human rights. We have, in all, a white man's burden for the Facebook generation.

[Renart]

#StopKony

Is Pacific Beach scuzzy? It's right by La Jolla, isn't it?

Anyway, this whole Invisible Children saga is really delivering the goods as a crazy media/culture story.

[ursus arctos]

#StopKony

Yeah, PB is next to La Jolla.

It ain't La Jolla (then again, the part of La Jolla I lived in briefly wasn't "La Jolla"), but it was much more surfer than scuzzy.

[Incandenza]

#StopKony

He was doing this at 11:30am.

From the NBC San Diego story:

nvisible Children released a statement after 1:40 p.m. saying:
“Jason Russell was unfortunately hospitalized yesterday suffering from exhaustion, dehydration, and malnutrition. He is now receiving medical care and is focused on getting better. The past two weeks have taken a severe emotional toll on all of us, Jason especially, and that toll manifested itself in an unfortunate incident yesterday. Jason’s passion and his work have done so much to help so many, and we are devastated to see him dealing with this personal health issue. We will always love and support Jason, and we ask that you give his entire family privacy during this difficult time.”

"Exhaustion." Because when I'm exhausted and dehydrated, there's nothing I feel like doing more than going out in my underwear, beating up some cars, and whippin' my dick out.

[Renart]

#StopKony

Everyone chills out in different ways, bro.

[ursus arctos]

#StopKony

The headmaster at ursus minor's school is going to be wondering just why he decided to make this campaign a focus of assembly this week.

[Renart]

#StopKony

ursus arctos wrote:

The headmaster at ursus minor's school is going to be wondering just why he decided to make this campaign a focus of assembly this week.

Indeed!

[DCI Harry Batt]

#StopKony

He should have been wondering that anyway. Bloody awful campaign by bloody awful people.

[Lucia Lanigan]

#StopKony

Did you see it?

Poor bastard. That could be a clip from Brass Eye or - worse - Jam.

[Lucia Lanigan]

#StopKony

(In fact, this is what I'm thinking of isn't it.)

[steveeeeeeeee]

#StopKony

Lucia Lanigan wrote:

(In fact, this is what I'm thinking of isn't it.)

Brilliant!

Jesus, watching the TMZ clip really makes me want to take hard drugs again, preferably many at the same time.

Do I get into an apple sh*tstorm if I say I haven't watched KONY2012 and I'm quite happy not to have done so, proud even.

[San Bernardhinault]

#StopKony

San Diego is our latest stop on our US tour (although right now I'm in the UK). Only been there for a week or so, but I'm getting no sense at all that Pacific Beach is scuzzy. It's definitely surfy, but not scuzzy. La Jolla isn't all its cracked up to be, mind you. It definitely seems like the kind of place that deeply narcissistic people would go for public masturbation.

[jason voorhees]

#StopKony

Re:UM's Headmaster

I've never been so happy to be a member of otf than when I got this email from my principal (AT LEAST she was cognizant enough to include a counter-argument)

Hello everyone -

I have had some interesting news from the Social Studies Supervisor's Association this morning and a student who approached our guidance counselor because he had watched an “online documentary” with his parent last night. Both were in response to an aggressive campaign gone viral. If you have not yet heard the term you may hear the following from a student: "Kony", "Kony 2012" or "Invisible Children".

Kony is a reference to [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kony ]Joseph Kony a Ugandan guerilla fighter who leads an army called the "Lord's Resistance Army". He abducts children into his army, commits atrocities upon the children, and is responsible for thousands of deaths and may be responsible for the displacement of over 2 million people in central Africa.

An organization called "Invisible Children" has been in existence a few years now, but just launched a full-scale Facebook-Twitter-YouTube campaign thorough a group of young activists who have taken the mission upon themselves to use the power of media technology to bring attention to this tragedy.

Invisible Children produced a 30-minute film called “Kony 2012” which is targeted to, “raise support for {Kony’s} arrest and set a precedent for international justice.” However – there is also criticism for Invisible Children. In my research it is clear that no one doubts the inhumane and tragic actions of Kony and the LRA, but before you jump on a bandwagon supporting the actual charity Invisible Children I invite you to do some research yourself.

Here is a link to an article that cautions you regarding the charity because although it raised over $8 million dollars it questions how the donations are spent. The article has a link to the KONY 2012 video so you can see it for yourself.

http://facecrooks.com/Internet-Safety-Privacy/kony-2012-invisible-children-awareness-campaign-read-this-before-sharing-their-video.html

Link to a tracker that accounts for the actions of the LRA: [ http://www.lracrisistracker.com/ ]

Link to another counter article: [ http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2012/03/is-the-kony-2012-viral-vid-another-case-of-white-savior-syndrome/ ]

We often address situations in Africa very little, and this is an outstanding opportunity to discuss world events but it is a situation that requires careful stewardship from a teacher.

This whole thing has been so bizarre, but at least it had a happy ending.

[DCI Harry Batt]

#StopKony

UM's HM could learn a thing or two from that.

[E10 Rifle]

#StopKony

The other Chris Morris sketch this brought to mind was, of course, this one

[Incandenza]

#StopKony

steveeeeeeeee wrote:

Do I get into an apple sh*tstorm if I say I haven't watched KONY2012 and I'm quite happy not to have done so, proud even.

Not at all. Did you read the earlier posts?

[DCI Harry Batt]

#StopKony

What's an apple shitstorm, anyway?