Gunning for Joseph Kony

A Ugandan child soldier

I was going to jump on the internet bandwagon and post some anti-Joseph Kony photos here and in Facebook until I learned that things aren’t as black and white as they seem.

A group known as Invisible Children is working to increase public awareness of Kony, an African warlord who took over an extremist rebel group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda and has for decades kidnapped local youngsters and turned them into child soldiers or sex slaves, even forcing them to murder their own parents in some cases. Invisible Children – which “uses film, creativity and social action to end the use of child soldiers in Joseph Kony's rebel war and restore LRA-affected communities in central Africa to peace and prosperity” – released a 30-minute documentary of sorts that’s been viewed over 100 million times in the week since it was uploaded to the net. You've got to see it.

One website claims the video is nothing more than “an attempt to influence viewers to support U.S. military operations in resource-rich Central Africa under the pretext of capturing the LRA’s commander.” Nikita, my 12-year-old, saw it in her fifth period English class yesterday and came home all fired up about sharing it with her family and hundreds of her closest friends. So I checked it out.

Gavin Russell

The video – which opens with the quote, “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come” – is indeed compelling if somewhat self-congratulatory. It makes the case for online activism and features a number of clips that have gone viral. It introduces us to a young Ugandan boy named Jacob who’s reduced to tears by the memory of losing his brother to Kony’s henchmen. The filmmaker’s young, smart, cute-as-a-whistle (and very white) son, Gavin, appears several times, as do U.S. Senators Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and John Kerry (D-MA), Luis Moreno Ocampo (an International Criminal Court prosecutor), Bono, George Clooney and Kony himself. It’s at times gripping and at times heavy-handed; I resist obvious attempts to yank my heartstrings and this was no exception. And the video’s simplification of what one can safely assume is a complex situation struck me as condescending.

Who doesn’t think Kony is an evil war criminal who should be captured, tried and punished to the fullest extent of international law? Who doesn’t think all children have the right to live free from fear, to not be forced to slaughter their families and commit despicable acts at the direction of a madman? Of course I’m opposed to the use of child soldiers and want the guy stopped – but I feel a tad uncomfortable with how much attention this campaign is receiving online and in real life at the expense of a host of other pressing issues.

The bad guy

According to Invisible Children, President Obama finally succumbed to pressure and sent 100 “military advisors” to Africa to help find Kony. But we’ve got to keep pressing our politicians, the video warns, or their commitment to freedom, justice and the American way just might wane.

A website called Money Trends Research makes some less than flattering points about Invisible Children, including that the group earned just two stars for accountability from Charity Navigator, the independent charity evaluator; that less than a third of the group’s funding actually goes toward helping people; and that Invisible Children supports the Ugandan government’s army which is itself corrupt and kind of rapey.

Additionally, it’s common knowledge that Kony hasn’t been active in Uganda in over five years. Yet Invisible Children has 100 full-time employees in Uganda and another 42 at its San Diego headquarters. In 2010, the group paid its top dogs between $87,000 and $90,000 which some say is low or average for charities of its type but seems like a lot to me.

Invisible Children’s website includes an entire page devoted to answering its critics and responding to the accusations of Money Trends Research and others. I’ve decided that although I’m not sending ‘em any money, I’ll still mention ‘em here at “What’s the Diehl?” and even offer links. (Speaking of links, visit this one for a heavy, cynical take on Invisible Children’s campaign.)

I asked Nikita if she thought the admittedly disturbing plight of Kony’s victims was more worthy of our time, attention, money and military intervention than, say, the current situation in Syria. She knew nothing about it. I asked her if last Sunday’s airstrikes on innocent civilians in the Gaza strip by the Israeli military were any less noteworthy of online activism. She knew nothing about it. I asked her if it made more sense to take to the streets to oppose our own country’s seemingly inevitable attack on Iran than to marshal our forces against an admittedly bad dude whose army, however, numbers no more than 250 soldiers. She couldn’t say. Then she told me that in the time it took for me to ask those questions, I could have forwarded the video to all my friends and actually made a difference. I would have sent her to her room for being insolent at this point but she was already on her way upstairs.

When I checked her Facebook page later, I noticed that she posted a Syria-related video along with her Kony-related posts and even typed, “This is so horrible! People are getting massacred by the police who are supposed to help.” Underneath she typed, “I still think Kony should be stopped wherever he is.”

I made a difference.

This mocking photo of Invisible Children co-founder Jason Russell and other staff posing with guns and members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army at a Lord’s Resistance Army camp in the Democratic Republic of Congo wasn’t well-received; Russell later apologized.

Sources: Los Angeles Times, InvisibleChildren.com, MoneyTrendsResearch.com.