Invisible Children vs. Joseph Kony…and everyone else

If you’ve been living under a rock for the last few weeks and haven’t heard these two names, here’s a quick recap.

On March 5, a U.S. based advocacy organization, Invisible Children, released a video called “Kony 2012” that sparked an avalanche of controversy. The goal of the video was to raise awareness about a Ugandan war criminal, Joseph Kony, and the atrocities he has carried out against children as the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army.

Where’s the controversy? In a nutshell, Invisible Children received widespread criticism for presenting a simplistic view of a very complex problem, for not getting its facts straight and for using too much money raising awareness and not enough on helping the victims.

Over the last four weeks, every possible angle has been taken on the subject. The video has had 120 million (and counting) views and the organization has been reamed and celebrated, scoffed at and championed, demonized and praised. One wonders if it knows what hit it.

Sadly, the answer seems to be no.

In the aftermath of this colossal response, the organization’s co-founder, Jason Russell, was hospitalized and is being treated for a “brief reactive psychosis” after he was found walking the streets in a “state of undress” and ranting unintelligibly. It appears the stress was too much to handle.

The arguments have all been made, the positions taken and the criticisms leveled, so this will be none of the above. Rather, what seems the most interesting piece of this growing puzzle is the “why” behind it all.

The intensity to which both the positive and negative reactions have risen is mind-boggling and, as they say, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Something is burning within the consciousness of our nation and, for better or for worse, Russell and his organization stoked the white-hot coals.

There are two overarching themes that have emerged—desire and delusion.

Desire: Through its clear and empowering message, Invisible Children has mobilized hundreds of thousands of youths all over the world to see themselves as part of the solution to end injustices against children. In 2006, the organization held a Global Night Commute, a campaign to identify with children who walked for miles to escape capture by the LRA. Young people numbering 80,000 across 130 cities in seven countries spent the night sleeping in parks to show support for them.

And that was just one event.

Fast-forward to today. The Kony 2012 video has gotten 120 million views. Say what you will about the methods, naivety and fact checking—Invisible Children has tapped into something that is undeniable. People want to help. Young people, at that.

The massive response says our country is hungry to get behind something that really matters. People are tired of hypocritical politicians and ridiculous celebrities, so when a video about a man most people have never heard of manages to gain traction faster than even Lady Gaga, something’s going on.

Second: delusion. There has been major criticism of the video’s simplistic view of an extremely complex problem. The message of the video is, basically, that the good guys need to get the bad guys, and we know how to do it. The good guys are, of course, all of us, and the bad guy is one Joseph Kony.

There is no doubt that Kony is an evil man, but the suggestion that one 30-minute video will tell us all we need to know about a situation that has evolved over decades and even centuries is wince-worthy. Yet, it’s nothing new.

History has shown that superpowers rarely know what is best for the not-so-super-powers. It would take volumes of books to cover how western governments have waltzed into countries to solve their problems (many of which they caused in the first place) with devastating effects.

Whether by throwing millions of dollars at an issue or providing weapons to the “right side,” the superior, paternalistic attitudes that have marked centuries of western involvement in other countries have largely resulted in short-term bandages and long-term dependency. Unfortunately, many humanitarian efforts have followed the same model.

There’s an established belief that we know what other people need, a belief that supersedes listening and asking questions. Rather than riding in on a white horse waving a shiny sword, what would it look like if we were to walk on the ground with a desire to learn?

This is a question that the video has sparked, and thankfully so. Twenty-five years of attempts to catch Kony have failed, and the fact that most of his soldiers are children he has kidnapped means that military campaigns would undoubtedly leave them the victims.

Additionally, a poignant moment in the video is when Russell states that because of his growing notoriety, Kony has gone further into hiding. Does this not suggest that a video making him more famous is effectively making him more elusive?

Desire. It’s there and it’s good. We’d be stupid not to celebrate and encourage it.

Delusion. It’s often ingrained. But we cannot let the spirit of Invisible Children’s cause become, well, invisible, just because it’s not perfect.

Their passion should be embraced, not vilified or mocked. We have an opportunity to see how, with a willingness to listen and learn, we can work with others to seek justice for those children.

That is, if we stop throwing stones long enough to remember them.