“Invisible Children 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.”
This is the quote that heads the official Invisible Children website.
On Monday March 5, 2012, the nonprofit organization released a 27 minute film highlighting a man by the name of Joseph Kony. The message of the video was to make Kony “famous,” and famous he is.
In a matter of days the video reached over 50 million views due to Facebook posts and world-wide trending topics on Twitter, among other social networking sites.
When I first heard of Invisible Children, I was 14. I saw the group’s first film that introduced the stories of thousands of young children who were being targeted as future soldiers for the Lord’s Resistance Army. The LRA was and is notoriously known for the kidnapping of children and murder of thousands of people across Uganda and surrounding countries.
As a kid, that kind of thing just doesn’t seem real. Here I was sitting at my computer, watching in terror as these children sobbed over their siblings who had their throats slit right in front of them. Imagining someone thrusting a gun in my hands and telling me to kill seemed impossible and unreal.
But here I was, watching it unfold before my eyes.
Then on March 5 I revisited all those memories.
The backlash that has begun to surface around the video mostly focuses on the funding of the project and the “band-wagon-ing” that people seem to have a problem with. Others have an issue with Invisible Children’s support of military action and subtle “neo-colonialism” activism.
Yes, it’s been discovered that only about 32 percent of the money that Invisible Children receives directly goes to the Ugandan efforts. But also keep in mind that these people’s mission isn’t to steal and spend your money.
They want justice.
And donations make their efforts easier. By this funding, the group was able to film, travel and report Monday’s video and spread the word. The power of the Internet is absolutely astounding, in that an unheard of group by many can disseminate a message across the globe and even gain the support of the United States government.
I will fully support and donate to a group who is able to relay such unbelievable messages to the world. Raising global awareness is something that must be done before any change can be made.
In 2010, President Barack Obama appr0ved a motion that enlisted American advisers to travel to Uganda to track Joseph Kony and his army, in hopes of capturing or killing him.
This was the green light for Invisible Children to finally head out and seek national public support.
Personally, I greatly approve this movement. Kony should be stopped. He is labeled as public enemy number one by the International Criminal Court. He was indicted by the ICC and is being charged with crimes against humanity among several other atrocities. Justice must be met.
Many also aren’t satisfied with the new found publicity. Yes, this has been an existing problem within African countries. But its prevalence in the international spotlight has been overlooked. The majority of people before March 5 had no idea who Invisible Children was or their mission. But it doesn’t bother me that this uproar over such an issue has become famous in a matter of hours.
All in all, I’ll stand up for what I believe. I’ll fully support something or someone who fights for what they believe. And personally I think Kony 2012 is a phenomenon that must be met with the appropriate response and not judged superficially.
