Kony 2012

I know that probably no one will see this post. Especially not before December, but I'm going to post this anyway. Because this video is so inspirational and it made me cry, which doesn't happen often. It makes me, a self-professed lazy ass, want to jump up and look for that motherf*cker and take him down.

Follow this link to watch it.

But then I, not wanting to mis-educate anyone, did some digging and found out a few things.

1. The US government may not be all that great as this video made it out to be. Being the suspicious realist that I am, I suspected that the politicians didn't really care enough for the children's rights to do anything. I thought at first that the reason they finally decided to join the effort was so that they didn't seem so cold-hearted and cruel. But it seems as if there is another reason. An even worse reason. Oil.
   What now? Yes. Oil. Which everyone knows, or should know, is huge when it comes to politics and what the government would do. But you may be asking, what has Kony anything to do with oil? Well, Kony used to be in Uganda. Which is where oil was found. So that may be the answer to the question, why now? Why not years ago when Kony was actually in Uganda and doing all the horrible things he had been doing?  Because the oil was found... last year.
   
   
2. Only 32% of the money is being directly used to help the Africans. I'm not sure where the rest of the money is going. But I'm very, very suspicious.
   
   
3. It's turning a very complex situation into something simple. Now, I don't really know the actual bits because I'm, again, too lazy to look it up. But that's the general gist.
   
   
4. The scenes and issues in the video are quite old. About five to six years old. I mean, there are still lots of issues and such that need to be attended to, but most of them are different. Currently, in Uganda, it's getting better and mostly, it's going under reconstruction and recovery from the war.
   
   
5. And here's something I'm really about: It's told from one point of view, white people or more precisely, educated, middle-to-high class North Americans. Sure they include some African people, but you don't really hear their voice. The video paints the Africans as weak, dependent, and not self-efficient. Here's an African's response to the video.

Even so. Watch the video. People are bashing the success of this even though it's doing some good. I get that this is distracting us from what should matter to us, as United States inhabiters, or if there are any international readers reading this, in your own country there are issues that aren't being as fussed about. In our own countries there are thousands upon millions of abuse, rape, murder cases. Where's the awareness for that?

But I think the reason there isn't as much hype about home issues is because the Kony case is so far from us. There really isn't much we can do to help. As there isn't much we can do to help the cases close to home, without actually doing something since, there are a lot of things that are being done already. For example, Amber Alerts. Now, it's mainly up to our ciminal justice systems and the few citizens that witness stuff. So we feel helpless if we focus too much on these issues. But in faraway issues, it's easier to feel helpful since we're so far from it. For the Kony case, we can feel helpful and like we're actually making a difference by sitting in front of our computers and sharing videos, or by putting up posters all around the major cities of the US. And then we can go home and continue on with our lives, feeling a little better about ourselves. Maybe it'll help. How?

It's getting the awareness up and people are buying these things and donating money. As stated in the 30 minute movie, some of the money goes to helping the children who had faced these atrocities (But as stated above, only 32% are directly accounted for). And while Kony is no longer in Uganda, Kony is still out there and, I'm not sure if he's still being bad, but if he's not, no one knows when he'll start again. And by bringing up the awareness, it puts pressure on the United States government to catch him. And say what you will about peer pressure, but sometimes it's a good thing. So while the handful (compared to an actual army) of soldiers present there reap the benefits of oil from Uganda, they will also be expected to catch Kony. And hopefully, they will eventually.