Kony...

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past couple days you have probably heard at least something about KONY 2012. This is Invisible Children’s latest campaign against Joseph Kony who has been a warlord in Africa for quite some time now. Rather than telling you all about this campaign, I encourage you to go to their website (www.kony2012.com) and watch the video and read about what their plan of action is for yourself.

This video is very impactful and it’s easy to see why it has been spreading like wildfire over various social media outlets. I myself immediately jumped on the bandwagon (even ordered a t-shirt) following one of the campaigns slogans: “one thing we can all agree on”. But can we?

This morning I woke up and went online and found that already several articles and blogs have begun to surface encouraging people to further research what it is exactly that Invisible Children hopes to do to stop Kony, before blindly following the video that has been posted. There is no question that Kony is a bad man and needs to be stopped and that people, certainly children, deserve to live in freedom; the question is whether this is the way to achieve that.

Most of these articles highlight how Invisible Children uses their funds, the way in which they support a military that has done questionable things itself, the naivety of thinking that putting up posters will make a huge difference, and the idea of the black man needing to be saved by the white man that is being portrayed.  (I have posted links to a couple of these articles at the bottom)

Now, I am not saying that I fully agree with these articles, and I am certainly not opposed to the idea of KONY 2012, but I do think it is important for people to take into consideration what they are actually supporting.

Here is what I know: I know that Joseph Kony is without a doubt a bad man and that he should to be captured. I believe that it is important to raise awareness of this issue and that we should find a way to help. I also know that no organization is perfect and they all have their flaws, Invisible Children is not exempt from that. But I also know that getting the US military involved might not be the best option. What the best option is, I unfortunately don’t know.

So for now I will spread awareness about Joseph Kony in the hopes that he is arrested for the terrible things he has done, and I will admire the world pulling together for a cause that we can all believe in. But I will also look into things myself and research the cause, rather than blindly following a 30-minute video without questioning it. I encourage you to do the same.

A couple articles opposed to KONY 2012:

-http://justiceinconflict.org/2012/03/07/taking-kony-2012-down-a-notch/

-http://visiblechildren.tumblr.com/post/18890947431/we-got-trouble