Monday, April 2, 2012

KONY 2012: Digging deeper


If any kind of new media exists in your life, it is likely that you have already heard something about the movement called KONY 2012.

Joseph Kony is a rebel from Uganda, who forced over 30 thousands children to join the army and killed tens of thousands of civilians. As a result of this, the action ‘Make Kony Famous’ has been taken place by the non-profit organization ‘Invisible Children’. In such a way, they want to attract the attention of western governments, particularly USA to the crimes of Joseph Kony. People can make contributions, send messages to celebrities and politicians, so that influential people would know about these problems occurring in Africa and help them with their voice. What is more, they plan to arrest Kony by the end of this year.
After watching this video I felt proud of all the people who were ready to do something in order to obtain justice which is not related to their everyday life. And they all want to help to catch this evildoer. Unfortunately, this feeling hasn’t lasted for a long time. My wish to contribute money disappeared and I didn’t feel like sticking posters Kony 2012 on walls when I started getting concerned with Uganda and the issue of Kony crimes.

Reasons for that are more serious, cynical, objective and rational than all this rubbish which is just nicely wrapped and tagged as ‘Let’s Fight Kony’. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely agree that criminal should be caught and punished.

People who established ‘Invisible Children’ fund have proved that well-edited emotional video can make a great impact on the mind and the attitude of the mankind. I am a little bit surprised how easily few sentimental fragments could make such a big wave of hype. Majority of people undoubtedly believe in all things shown in the movie without even having thought of browsing for more sources on this topic. There aren’t any standpoints or objective reality, just 6 year old video.

Most of things shown in the movie have been recorded in 2000s. It is briefly mentioned that Kony has left Uganda and isn’t posing big hazard to the civilians anymore. Wouldn’t it be more effective to start solving current problems of the country rather than throwing millions of dollars in order to catch Kony? In my opinion: education, medicine, infrastructure and security are the way more important for the Ugandans than an old man hiding in the jungles.  There are no considerations giving the relevant support to Uganda in the movie. We only see frightened faces of the children, commercial stuff with logos of KONY 2012 and a cute little boy.

Sales, brands, popularization and centralization of celebrities are arousing only irritation and cynicism as a response of their cynicism. What is interesting, that only 37% of all collected finances actually go to help Africa. Invisible children reports that in an official account of the $13.7 million raised in 2010/11 financial year, $8.8 million was allocated for expenses - including filming costs, transportation and production. All these money are invested for brainwashing of teenagers, so they contribute few bucks taken from their parents' pocket. Is really all this done in order to make Joseph Kony famous?

It was found that only 30 percent of the money goes to help children in Africa. Strangely, they help only few hundred children. The organization that receives millions of dollars of donations helps only few hundred students. Don’t you think that it would be more rational to spread such large resources over as many people as possible, without creating inequality between those who get help and those who are staying behind? As was stated above the rest of funds are allocated to the promotion and advertisement of the campaign. It includes websites, movies, posters, trips etc...

This film was aimed to the youth because they are more inclined to make risks and jump to conclusions without basing it on any understandings. They look at how well the documentary has been made, how well the music has been composed and then believe that the ‘Invisible Children’ project is going to send all donations to help capture Joseph Kony. Criminals have to be caught but we don’t have to throw away millions of dollars in order to make them celebrities.

If we really want to render assistance, we have to contemplate rationally and study this issue. We have to think of primary issues which caused all this to happen and to allocate finances in the most efficient way. It’s not just Joseph Kony – it’s more about the economical situation in Africa.

Recently, oil reserves have been found in Uganda. Should we take it as a coincidence that immediately after that they decided to send troops and fight Kony? Don’t you recognize the same plot as it was with the oil in Iraq, opium in Afghanistan and finally recent USA intervention to Libya? What we see is whenever a country has a boom in natural resources; USA finds any means of excuse to get their hands on to it. Joseph Kony has been doing these crimes for the last 20 years, why are they now all of a sudden changed and going ahead with their plans?

‘The point is this: we should ALL question Kony 2012. Let’s try to look at the Kony 2012 movement with a little more objectivity and to separate ourselves from the emotional content of the video. We all want freedom, liberty, and rational equality for the people and children of Uganda. But what we don’t want is another military occupation that is funded by the corporations who seek to ravage the land at all costs—to save their costs…’
"Kony 2012 Fraud?"
posted Mar 08, 2012 by RedPillPopper-CD







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