PHONY 2012

Joseph Kony has been terrorizing Uganda for decades and now he's terrorizing my Facebook feed. Everytime I log in, someone says something about stopping him, and the first step, apparently, is to watch a 30 minute youtube video. I was surprised that people on Facebook had the attention span to actually watch  a video on youtube that was over 5 minutes that didn't have something to do with cats. So, being my usual curious self, I watched the video just to see what all the hype was about.

The video was heartbreaking, but didn't completely sit well with me. To sum it up, it had clips of the director interviewing his child sponser in Uganda several years ago, pictures of disfigured children, snippets of politicians, video of his wife giving birth to his son and then the director holing up said child in a room with a picture of Kony telling him that he's a bad man and that he -being the good guy- is going to put a stop to Kony and all the bad things that happen in Uganda.

Can you say Messiah Complex?

What's worse is that the director is explaining his purpose behind the video thus: watch, share video, write letters to politicians, put up posters on 420 (assuming you're not too stoned on that day), the States will have a vested interest and not leave Uganda behind.

Hmmm...so the Americans have already sent 100 military peeps into Uganda to help their government find Kony and the LRA, even though Kony isn't in Uganda and hasn't been since about 2005 or 2006? And the LRA have been thinning out ever since? And are more prevalent in OTHER countries?

Seems a tad silly and misleading if you ask me (AND if you bother to do your research instead of believing a 30 minute video on youtube). Anyone who straight out believes that video and follows it wholeheartedly might as well wear a brown shirt and an arm-band with a swastika on it because clearly, that sort of gullible naivete belongs during the Hitler Regime.

But hey -that's just my opinion. If you've done your research and you already know the reasons why supporting the whole KONY 2012 and Invisible Children isn't particularly helpful and you STILL (for some weird reason) dismiss it as a bunch of bull, then at least consider the following:

They want to support American troops going into Uganda to help their military find Kony.

Who is no longer in Uganda.

That's like sending someone to my high school to find me even though I graduated about 6 years ago.

That aside, the Ugandan government and their millitary aren't exactly paragons of virtue. You're talking about soldiers who have been known for such atrocities as mass rape -a sadly common practice not just in Uganda but in most central African countries.

And yet this video is asking that you send American troops to help them out.

Troops that have been known to go into countries with the intent of profiting from that land for their own personal gain. This, as Kipling put it, is the "White Man's Burden". Things like imperialism and colonialism have not stopped and what the Americans have been doing for several decades now is proof of that.

But I digress.

The government of Uganda isn't all that sane. Sure they want Kony which is fair -the guy is pretty crazy- but so is a government that finds homosexuality punishable by life imprisonment and even death. THAT is what you're helping by sending money to Invisible Children. Sadly, most people don't see it because one of the greater things that IS invisible in the video is the fact that less than 1/3 of their budget actually goes to helping children in Africa.

Yes, Africa, the continent. Not just Uganda, even though that's the main focus of the film (which, in essence, isn't the main focus seeing as the focus is on the director telling his child that he's the saviour of Uganda).

And yet, with all this information easily accessible by our own fingertips, thousands of people would readily believe what's put into a 30 minute youtube video. So I suppose it was wrong of me to think that our generation is the kind that has a greater attention span than anticipated if this is as far as we're willing to go. As if pressing a few buttons, printing out a few posters and wearing a bracelet is REALLY going to make a difference.

We're living in a time where change can actually happen if we raise our voice -but we need to know how to use it and when to use it. Let's not raise our voice for the wrong cause. We don't want to be known as the generation that had tons of information available at our fingertips, yet ignored it to blindly follow a manipulative politician hiding behind hipster glasses and a camera.