Kony 2012

We got trouble.

I do not doubt for a second that those involved in KONY 2012 have great intentions, nor do I doubt for a second that Joseph Kony is a very evil man. But despite this, I’m strongly opposed to the KONY 2012 campaign.

KONY 2012 is the product of a group called Invisible Children, a controversial activist group and not-for-profit. They’ve released 11 films, most with an accompanying bracelet colour (KONY 2012 is fittingly red), all of which focus on Joseph Kony. When we buy merch from them, when we link to their video, when we put up posters linking to their website, we support the organization. I don’t think that’s a good thing, and I’m notalone.

Invisible Children has been condemned time and time again. As a registered not-for-profit, its finances are public. Last year, the organization spent $8,676,614. Only 32% went to direct services (page 6), with much of the rest going to staff salaries, travel and transport, and film production. This is far from ideal for an issue which arguably needs action and aid, not awareness, and Charity Navigator rates their accountability 2/4 stars because they lack an external audit committee. But it goes way deeper than that.

The group is in favour of direct military intervention, and their money supports the Ugandan government’s army and various other military forces. Here’s a photo of the founders of Invisible Children posing with weapons and personnel of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Both the Ugandan army and Sudan People’s Liberation Army are riddled with accusations of rape and looting, but Invisible Children defends them,arguing that the Ugandan army is “better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries”, although Kony is no longer active in Uganda and hasn’t been since 2006 by their own admission. These books each refer to the rape and sexual assault that are perennial issues with the UPDF, the military group Invisible Children is defending.

Still, the bulk of Invisible Children’s spending isn’t on supporting African militias, but on awareness and filmmaking. Which can be great, except that Foreign Affairs has claimed that Invisible Children (among others) “manipulates facts for strategic purposes, exaggerating the scale of LRA abductions and murders and emphasizing the LRA’s use of innocent children as soldiers, and portraying Kony — a brutal man, to be sure — as uniquely awful, a Kurtz-like embodiment of evil.” He’s certainly evil, but exaggeration and manipulation to capture the public eye is unproductive, unprofessional and dishonest.

As Chris Blattman, a political scientist at Yale, writes on the topic of IC’s programming, “There’s also something inherently misleading, naive, maybe even dangerous, about the idea of rescuing children or saving of Africa. […] It hints uncomfortably of the White Man’s Burden. Worse, sometimes it does more than hint. The savior attitude is pervasive in advocacy, and it inevitably shapes programming. Usually misconceived programming.”

Still, Kony’s a bad guy, and he’s been around a while. Which is why the US has been involved in stopping him for years. U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has sent multiple missions to capture or kill Kony over the years. And they’ve failed time and time again, each provoking a ferocious response and increased retaliative slaughter. The issue with taking out a man who uses a child army is that his bodyguards are children. Any effort to capture or kill him will almost certainly result in many children’s deaths, an impact that needs to be minimized as much as possible. Each attempt brings more retaliation. And yet Invisible Children supports military intervention. Kony has been involved in peace talks in the past, which have fallen through. But Invisible Children is now focusing on military intervention.

Military intervention may or may not be the right idea, but people supporting KONY 2012 probably don’t realize they’re supporting the Ugandan military who are themselves raping and looting away. If people know this and still support Invisible Children because they feel it’s the best solution based on their knowledge and research, I have no issue with that. But I don’t think most people are in that position, and that’s a problem.

Is awareness good? Yes. But these problems are highly complex, not one-dimensional and, frankly, aren’t of the nature that can be solved by postering, film-making and changing your Facebook profile picture, as hard as that is to swallow. Giving your money and public support to Invisible Children so they can spend it on supporting ill-advised violent intervention and movie #12 isn’t helping. Do I have a better answer? No, I don’t, but that doesn’t mean that you should support KONY 2012 just because it’s something. Something isn’t always better than nothing. Sometimes it’s worse.

If you want to write to your Member of Parliament or your Senator or the President or the Prime Minister, by all means, go ahead. If you want to post about Joseph Kony’s crimes on Facebook, go ahead. But let’s keep it about Joseph Kony, not KONY 2012.

Downfall http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363163/

FAQs

Your numbers are wrong.

I’m talking about the amount of money that Invisible Children spends on active aid, as opposed to advocacy. I understand that their mission is largely focused on advocacy – my question is whether this is what’s best at this point in the conflict.

They’re working on the CharityNavigator score.

Great! I think Invisible Children does lots of great work. I wouldn’t know about any of this if it weren’t for them. All I want you to do is decide if an organization that focuses on filmmaking and advocacy is the best way to end the conflict.

They’re doing a good thing at their heart, so how can you be against that?

They’re doing what they think is best, but not everyone agrees with their strategies. Lots of smart people are discussing what’s going on, and I think you should read that discussion before you make up your mind.

Don't feel to bad because you gave money or helped out.

Did anyone actually say Hey MR2R2M what you are doing is wrong? I have read the hole 6 pages of writing and didn't find any post saying that :/ or did I miss something?

No, you didn't miss something Squizzel. No one was attacking his decision But that's okay. It's all over now anyway.

By saying put it in perspective, I was addressing the masses. MR2R2M you just opened up the opportunity to address them all... Nothing was directly attacking you as an individual.

No bad blood, please. I do not have a negative opinion of you personally. Sorry to offend you. This is why politics and religion do not need to be discussed outside of their respective "acceptable" communities... These things cause real wars.....

I would appreciate it if you don't accuse me of 'hatin'' on something.

Thank you.

Mission: Accomplished.

It worked!! Now to tell her the fact that her life was a science experiment

Joke

D:

Good job dropping the ball there... Clones are never supposed to be validated that their life is an experiment...

oops I thought I put that in grey :/

Basically, i couldn't agree with twitch more. This is kinda sliding off topic and this "Debate" is pretty much dead and buried IMO.
P.s. Do you have any IDEA how long it took me to read through those pages.. Damn..

I believe that stuff like this should not be discused or even talked around the EMC servers, this refers to stuff that has nothing to do with the purposes of Minecraft, Empire Minecraft servers or even gaming at all.

IF Invisibe Children is an organization that's doing good/bad/kindabad/maybebad/abitbad/ whatever that's something i don't realy want to talk about, but yes that this is kinda a family server, and presenting stuff like that would hurt the principles of some families or children who maybe don't even know what Uganda is.

I respect this, i don't support it tho.
I do support the idea that EMC should just be focused (as Justin stated) on playing minecraft and having fun, not in talking or showing about horrible things.

This guy needs to be stopped. Have everybody sign the petition against him.

What makes him so important?

mind taking a minute of your time and reading what is this thread all about?

i reserve mi right to not post my comments about this topic, but c'mon... what are you trying to do here SWM?

I know what he has done, but people act as if this is something new and that he is the only one who has done these things.

complain about it to the OP of this thread... as he's the one who brought this kind of "debate" if u anna call it that way into EMC a MINECRAFT community... guess we'll start talking later on about how Greece is in debt and taht we need to save it, or about how wrong might some previous/current/future "heads" (just to not call em presidents since different netions might have diff ranks) of the government act...

What has EMC turned into? I'd suggest locking the topic and having an official post regarding the creation of ths threads

god, grow up already...