Diddy, Jennifer Hudson, Kevin Hart, and George Clooney are just a few celebrities that are bringing attention to the title of this post. For a day and a half, #stopkony, Uganda, and Invisible Children have been trending. On your newsfeed, you might have seen links to Youtube titled Kony 2012. If you have not have not heard by now about what Kony 2012 is, then simply put, it is to make a man famous.
Famous for what you might ask? Nobel Peace Prize Winner? Saved a baby from a well? Found the cure to cancer? Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with anything positive or uplifting. Joseph Kony has started a pointless war (as far as I am concerned most of them are but I digress) in Uganda where he abducts children from their homes and turn the boys into young soldiers and the girls into sex slaves. In some cases, the soldiers have had to kill their parents. If a child refuses to not be a part of the war effort, they risk being mutilated or killed. The Youtube video says that he has accumulated 30,000 children for his unnecessary war.
I have stated before that I do not write on current events or jump on bandwagons unless I have researched both sides of the story and considered everyone involved. I was not a journalist major but I try to have a journalist approach with stories as sensitive as this one. With that said the rest of this post is about what has been told to us and what others have had to say about the matter.
Around March 5, a video was released on Youtube describing who Kony was and what needs to be done. A couple of days later the video had over 1 million views. The video instructs viewers to make the name known (do this by tweeting celebrities and contacting policy makers) so that policy makers will see that people care and possibly continue to send U.S. troops to Uganda to advise the army there, who are trying to catch Kony. The video also ask viewers to donate what they can and then they will get an action kit. In the action kit you get braclets, posters, and stickers that have Kony 2012 printed on them. You are to put these items up in your community to inform those in your community about Kony.
The video not only pulls, but grabs tightly at your heart strings. When I was done watching the video I was ready to post Kony 2012 poster all over central Arkansas
With any cause you have your critics. Some have said that the video makes it seem as if we kill Kony then the country of Uganda will magically become this booming society. Others have said that the footage of Uganda we see in the video is over 6 years old. And even others have said that the non-profit has spent more money on films, salaries, and office space than on the ground in Uganda. The video is said to be misinforming people by saying that Kony is still in Uganda. According to reports, he has not been in Uganda for years.
Relief workers in Uganda have been in some way insulted by this video making it seem as if there has not been any effort done by those who are in Uganda such as Betty Bigombe. I am not writing this post to make short of the efforts of Invisible Children but before you jump on any cause step back and see the bigger picture. In this case, is finding and killing Joseph Kony going to poof-be-gone the problems in Uganda?
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