By Koos Couvee

Kony 2012, a video made by a campaign called Invisible Children about the abuse of children by rebel forces under the command of Joseph Kony in northern Uganda, has taken the social media sphere by storm over the last two days. The immediate question that struck me was – why the outrage now? And why against one man? I have read stories about Joseph Kony for years, and the abuse of child soldiers and atrocities by rebel groups against civilians in North Uganda, the Congo and South Sudan has been going on for decades.

Whilst there are huge ethical concerns about Invisible Children as an organisation, I will put my cynicism aside and consider its intentions benign. In the video that went viral on Monday, we are made to sympathise with Ugandan children who, particularly in the villages in the north of the country, run great risk of being snatched by Joseph Kony’s soldiers. Kony is the bad guy who must be caught, preferably by US military intervention.

It is well established that Kony is a war criminal whose soldiers have killed and abused thousands of children. But anyone who has been following news about the volatile region of northern Congo, Uganda and South Sudan over the last few years knows that these atrocities are in no way exclusive to Kony’s men. The question this film does not pose is why we know so little about conflicts in this region in the first place. One plausible explanation is that the media has been saturated with stories the war against terror. Events in this part of Africa did not fit that narrative. We know much more about Darfur, a conflict where Arabs were killing black Africans, because it did.

If the mass media has not covered a particular issue that demands urgent attention, it is often up to campaigners and independent media outlets to bring that issue to the attention of the public. But it should do so considering the historical complexity of, in the case of Uganda, a deeply entrenched socio-economic-political conflict. A lack of historical analysis and attention to regional complexity, combined with a disregard for voices on the ground, is usually what is lacking from mainstream media accounts of overseas conflicts.

However, the narrative employed in the Kony 2012 video is even cruder than most accounts in the media. It uses the same good vs. bad guys paradigm that has in recent years been employed by Western governments in their attempts to rid the world of enemies such as Saddam, Bin Laden and Gaddafi for the sake of geopolitical control and resources. Kony 2012 goes one step further, in that it first creates a horrible situation, only to provide us, the public, with a superficial sense of empowerment. We are led to believe that we can change the course of another country’s history through the medium of Facebook, in order to put pressure on our politicians to act.

The fact that Kony’s brutality is reason enough for the campaigners to lobby politicians for US military intervention is indicative of Invisible Children’s true colours. If these campaigners had any respect, or even the slightest regard, for Ugandan civil society, would they call for US military intervention? Ugandan voices not tied to the Invisible Children campaign are not represented in this film. Is there only one Ugandan perspective on the issue of child soldiers and the Lord’s Resistance Army? I highly doubt, considering the recent NATO atrocities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, that many Ugandans would find US military action in their country in any way desirable. More importantly, it is well established that Kony has not been in Uganda since 2006, but is currently operating from within the Central African Republic.

This advocacy campaign is merely treating a symptom, Joseph Kony, of a much deeper problem. Since the colonial days Uganda has known a marked north-south divide, and the continuing marginalisation of the north has allowed groups like Kony’s to terrorise large segments of the rural population. The situation is similar in neighbouring Congo and South-Sudan, areas rich in mineral resources, where rival rebel groups control mining. Removing Kony would allow other brutal rebel groups to fill the vacuum created by his absence.

On the many debates on Facebook and Twitter today, criticism of Kony 2012 is generally met with the rebuttal that ‘we must do something’ and that ‘any awareness is a good thing’. I do not think that the huge oversimplification of a complex issue, coupled with neo-colonial condescension and a call for US military intervention can be called awareness. Genuine awareness would start with the question why there is no awareness of an issue in the first place. A genuine approach would invite people to tell their own story and allow for a multitude of perspectives. Furthermore, the Kony 2012 campaign has an expiry date of December 31, 2012, yet the LRA’s insurgency against the Ugandan government has been going on since the 1980’s. If by then Kony has not been removed, will Invisible Children move on to other issues? Or if he has, does the campaign suggest the problem of child soldiers in the region will be over? Whilst Invisible Children is engaged in community work in the region, the campaign falls short of offering any real, lasting solutions.

Kony 2012 essentially presents itself as a brand, which Western consumers are invited to buy into in order to bring about change. In a consumer based culture that lacks a direct connection to a history of political struggle, this is what it takes to get people to pay attention. Sharing petitions, campaign messages and donating to charities can often help to improve people’s lives. But Egypt’s revolution certainly reminds us that real change must come from within – strategies to get rid of Kony and other rebel groups must arise out of the African debate.

Twitter:@KoosCouvee

Response to Kony 2012 by Ugandan blogger Rosebell Kagumire