I know that being against Invisible Children might have you thinking of me as some sort of heartless jerk. Child warfare is one of the most despicable, heinous crimes against humanity, but the argument is not about child warfare or even about Kony himself. This face-off is about the validity and positive or negative consequences of a video.
The film’s logic is this: make people care, encourage them to donate money, make politicians aware, keep the 100 American advisers to train the troops, capture Kony.
Give money . . . to what? It’s a well-known fact that only 32 percent of Invisible Children’s (the creators of Kony 2012) funds go to its charity. As a non-profit organization, its finances are public and we all know that they have not been independently audited. The film says the group has created schools, jobs and a radio network. What else could the donor funds have financed had a little less money been spent on film production? The filmmakers of Kony 2012 admit in the video that their primary goal is to spread awareness. The problem is they’ve accomplished this goal very poorly.
The video over-simplifies the issue and explains very little, if anything. Most of the film’s persuasive techniques are montages of horrifying images followed by montages of happy or empowered children. The images strike home and rip at the heartstrings, but it actually tells very little, and this is what worries critics of Kony 2012. The film is inciting mob mentality, which is effective if the goal is to be very large and loud with a fragile hold on direction. The film never advises people to do their own homework – after all, should not the fact that Kony is in direct violation of human rights as set by the U.N. be enough to intervene?
Do you even know what your rights are as set by the U.N.? Did you know you had those rights, or even agreed to them? It isn’t part of the public school curriculum, but that’s another rant for another day.
So what are you supposed to say to your Congressman – “Please arrest Kony because he is a bad, bad man.” The sentiment is sweet, heartfelt and true, but even the documentary admits that politicians will not do anything not in the interest of American finance or security.
Wait a minute. I sense a discrepancy in the premises: our government, which is in possession of all these Kony documents the film showed us, does not want to intervene. But if we all band together and tell our government what it already knows, it will intervene.
So maybe that is a little oversimplified, but try looking at it like this: we have established that the film said, in the beginning, that our government will not act outside of American financial or security interest. It then suggests our passion will spur action – passion that does not fit in financial or security interest. And truth be told, whether or not a politician advocates involvement in the Ugandan crisis or not will have little to no effect on his or her re-electability because Americans are concerned with too many other issues to let foreign aid policy usurp.
But Obama did send those 100 advisers, yes? And yet, by this film’s own logic this should not have happened. That would be because it didn’t.
We’ve already been sending people to Africa and we’ve already been sending people to capture or kill Kony. Kony 2012 had nothing to do with it. We have been previously unsuccessful because Kony uses child body guards, and no one can get close to him without slaughtering children – a fact no one is comfortable with. By its own admission, Invisible Children supports intervention by the Ugandan and U. S. militaries (I won’t even get into the allegations against the Ugandan military).
But let us return to the issue of spreading ignorance.
The Lord’s Resistance Army, created by Kony, is not even in Uganda. It left in 2006 to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Kony 2012 came out in 2012 and did not once mention this fact. Moreover, Invisible Children did not say otherwise until brought under fire by reporters.
So what are they trying to do? Spread a bunch of misinformation, get us all fired up and storm in guns a-blazing?
If they want to inform us, then inform us! The guys of Invisible Children care, I have no doubt about that, but Kony 2012 is riddled with misinformation and may do more harm than good.