His name has been on everyone’s lips: Joseph Kony. The actions of this Ugandan criminal were made known to nearly everyone through the internet-posted documentary, Kony 202. The 30-minute film, directed by the non-profit organization, Invisible Children, Inc., was posted on March 5, and nearly reached a million hits overnight on both YouTube and its official website: www.kony2012.com.
The film quickly spread through Facebook as users shared the video link on their pages, urging their fsdfriends and family to watch and become educated on the human rights situation in Uganda. Kony 2012 is not just a film, but “an international campaign… aiming to bring Joseph Kony to justice” as seen on the Kony 2012 official website.
As a campaign, Kony 2012 is trying to bring attention to Kony and his atrocities regarding rape, sex slavery, abduction, murder, and more. He is the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which consists of child soldiers, and he is on the list of top criminals wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The LRA is a militia organization that began in 1987 as an offshoot of rebel groups in Uganda, the Holy Spirit Movement and Uganda People’s Democratic Army. Declaring that it would establish Uganda as a theocracy, the LRA’s ideology is a mix of mysticism, Acholi (an African ethnic group) nationalism, and Christian fundamentalism.
The purpose of spreading awareness of Kony is to show the U.S. government that Kony is a national issue and to urge the government to continue funding the 100 U.S. military advisers it sent in October 2011 to train Ugandan and neighboring troops to search for the war criminal.
Responses to the film were diverse. Many students were shocked to see the atrocities being carried out and were even more shocked that they did not know about them beforehand.
Some students felt the urge to do something after being educated about Kony. Cleveland High School junior Laura Lemus created a Facebook event page called “Cover the Night KONY 2012” after hearing about the Kony crisis through Facebook and Tumblr posts overflowing her dashboard. “I decided to create the event to help spread awareness about the issues going on in Uganda,” said Lemus.
In the same day the event was created, there were already over 1,000 Facebook users “attending”. Now, over 4,100 users are “attending” and about 640 stand at a “maybe.”
The event is set for April 20 and attendees are from different parts of the world, but mostly concentrated in the U.S. On this day, dedicated people will create posters and fliers to put up around their neighborhood to spread awareness about Kony and the Uganda crisis.
However, the credibility of the film is being questioned by some critically thinking students. Jazley Sendjaja, a junior from Cleveland High, did some self-research on Kony 2012.
“It appears that the footage from the video was taken back in 2003. That’s nine years ago,” said Sendjaja.
Not only this, but Invisible Children has been criticized for overdramatizing and oversimplifying an issue that is a past problem in Uganda. According to the Ugandan government, the LRA is no longer active in the LRA; it was expelled by the Ugandan Peoples Defence Forces in mid-2006. The government also said in a statement that the LRA is now a “diminished and weakened group with numbers not exceeding 300.”
The Ugandan people’s response to the film has been critical and angry because the country’s problems have been depicted inaccurately. According to UK’s The Telegraph, Rosebell Kagumire, a Ugandan multimedia journalist, said that Kony 2012 irresponsibly “paints a picture of Uganda six or seven years ago, that is totally not how it is today.”
Lemus herself is against Invisible Children for advocating both U.S. and Ugandan troops. She does not believe more violence is the answer.
In responses to negative responses to the documentary and Internet campaign, Cleveland High junior Kate Lee said that KONY 2012 “is a really good cause. People are coming together to help out people in Uganda. I don’t care if people are saying that by supporting it, you’re just hopping on the band wagon. If hopping on the band wagon means saving lives, then so be it. When people say ‘there are other causes too’, I know there are. But you can’t fix them all at once. Like the video said, take one step at a time.”
Hi, Haeeun~ 🙂
First off, I see some typos, like KONY “202” on the second sentence and “fsdfriends” on the second paragraph.
I like how you introduced two opposing views regarding the video.
However, the article would have been more developed and interesting if you included the updates of KONY 2012 at the end,like how the producer of the video has gone mentally ill by the fame of the video, and how “KONY 2012: Part II” was not as successful as the first part.
Overall, I enjoyed reading your article~