So last night - 1thirty a.m to be exact I was on face book and a video catches my eye - its an organization calling itself the Invisible Children and I had seen so much hype about it all day as it had to do with the Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony adn how he was abducting children to join the LRA and how by liking the page and creating this media sensationalization Kony would be brought to his knees and trust me in a night the organization had been able to make 38 million people watch the video....- yeah you can already tell where am going with this...Initially I was like wow this is the stuff social media should be all about , this is what defines social justice, equality for all, humanity at its best etc etc..However as I went to bed my mind started doing a double take....Okay so I lived in Uganda from 2000-2003 well let me change that in between Kenya and uganda and I think this was the time the Lords Resistance Army led by rebel leader Joseph Kony and his croonies were tearing Northern Uganda apart.The little town of Gulu was a war torn zone - women were being abducted raped , children being murdered and recruited into the army wih shoot to kill orders...In short Kony wanted to take over Uganda and be president at the time - there were elections I think in 2002 if I recall and he wanted to use guerrila warfare or bette ryet stage a coup but Museveni stayed put.So the long of the short Musveni has still been in power since - ten years later - Joseph Kony retreated into the forest where he yes still runs the streets however he is very much toned down - he kind of threw in the towel....Okay fast forward March 8th 2012 the power of viral videos - ok do not get me wrong like I said this organization has done soem outstandign work bringing to light the atrocities that face(d)the people of Northern Uganda HOWEVER :
1.)The picture that has been created of Uganda is this war torn country under one man and for the (pardon my language) ignorant Westerner that is the same image that keeps being portrayed of the whole of Africa over and over again in all these relief agency commercials - as this poor nation - not even continent that cannot take care of its problems that has poor government officials who are just sitting back driving their prados eating the wealth and this same nation needs the big bully of the world (cough cough) to intervene by getting people to "like" a video.
2.)Which is my biggest issue and actually what makes me so mad and actually brought me back to the blogosphere - the one minute euphoria and emotion that social media creates and I mean wow tommorrow somethign else will be getting us all teary-eyed.I applaud the great stuff that social media has done my goodness very good stuff however why are some stories more popular than others?Why do some videos generate more likes than others?and what happens on the ground after you and I like and re-post the video?I think of the people who are being slaughtered in Syria DAILY - children hidding from bomb shells as I type this - why are we not so sensitized to this? why cant we say hey guys lets start a group and take down the government that is killing people.I think of the earthquake in Haiti yes we were all hyped up and raised billions and then moved on to the next story, look at the drought in Sudan - the euphoria was there for a while and then bam Kim Kardashian and her 72 hour wedding took over....my point is I do not believe in a Band-Aid approach to healing a wound - just the way they used to patch the roads in Kenya - throw ona little tar and voila you cover up the pothole.
Instead of getting all emotional and upset for a minute, we as the international community should stop sitting back and waiting for a crisis to act - to donate, to like a video - we need to step and step in and take action as the world is bleeding.
So thats my little spill on Kony - below is a video of a lady who put it so well - such intelligence and knowledge of the subject matter - am writing from recall she is writing from the ground ..enjoy and watch the invisible children video and share your views - who knows maybe am joining the ranks of Rush Limbaugh...Its even so hilarious she says he has not been in teh country for a while - who knows maybe he is in Jamaica sipping a margarita thinking , " Mmmmh whats all this?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLVY5jBnD-E&feature=share
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