I would be lying if I said I didn’t believe in Invisible Children and its cause.
In middle school, I watched one of the organization’s videos and was horrified. I dedicated my time to the cause, participated in a school-wide outreach program and even gave a presentation to upper classmen about the conflict.
However, I would also be lying if I said I support KONY 2012.
I know it seems hypocritical, for that girl with an Invisible Children laptop sticker to criticize an anti-Kony campaign, but behind my sticker lies years of knowledge and research that I think the majority of KONY supporters do not have.
The only thing I think the KONY 2012 video did right was tell people that Joseph Kony is an evil man. He is without a doubt a vile human being who has committed various crimes against humanity, specifically against children. What the video did wrong, however, was everything else.
At one point the narrator says, “For people to care, they have to know.” Soon after George Clooney talks about how he thinks war villains should receive the same fame he does, as the video shows two TIME magazine covers, once with Clooney on the cover and the other with Kony.
But it should take more than magazine covers for people to understand Joseph Kony. Sure, for people to care, they have to know; but for people to change, they need to research and have a critical understanding about what they’re talking about.
Here’s what many people don’t know. Invisible Children is a registered nonprofit, which means the public can see its finances. If you were to go to its financial statement for 2010 and 2011, you would see Invisible Children spent $8,676,614. If you were to skip to page six, you would see that only 32 percent of this went to direct services, while the rest went to film productions, salary, transportation and the like. So the money you spent buying a bracelet or an action kit probably went to the KONY 2012 budget.
Invisible Children is also in favor of direct military intervention by the Ugandan army and other military forces like the Sudan’s People Liberation Army. However, the Ugandan army and especially the SPLA have been heavily accused of raping and looting civilians. Nevertheless, Invisible Children continues to defend them, and send money their way.
Uganda has, in fact, enjoyed a long spell of relative peace, and Kony has not been active for six years. (He is currently not even in Uganda.) It seems wiser to invest in essentials like education and health for the Ugandan people who are massacred by their government.
While Joseph Kony is an evil man, he did not just appear out of nowhere. He was constructed by, and is a direct retaliation to, the Ugandan government and its oppression of its people. He is guilty of almost everything, but the government he is fighting is also guilty of the same, if not worse, war crimes.
If, after reading this, letting it sink in and forming your own opinion, you still want to support Invisible Children and KONY 2012, that is fine by me. I have nothing against those who believe in a cause. But I do have something against those who blindly put up posters, change their profile picture or mass-send a link and think they are making a difference.
The situation in Uganda is multi-dimensional and complex, and, as hard as it may be to accept, jumping on the Facebook bandwagon won’t help.
Is donating money and sharing a video helpful? Yes. But helping is not solving or fixing, and I hope people don’t forget that.
Greenwald is a freshman in SOC.
edpage@theeagleonline.com
