Invisible Children, Kony 2012, and criticisms

[essius.livejournal.com]

The other day I noticed the Kony 2012 video by Invisible Children that has been receiving a great deal of attention on the Internet as of late (it’s received over 56 million views on YouTube). I watched the video and was immediately curious. Evidently, the video has received multiple lines of serious criticism. No one denies, of course, that Joseph Kony must be brought to justice. But Invisible Children’s methods (and in some respects even intent) are highly questionable. I’ll mention just a few of the criticisms brought against the film and the movement.

Chris Blattman, a Poly Sci & Econ Assistant Professor at Yale, argues not only against the style of the film (“the hipster tie and cowboy hat” and the “macho bravado” tend to detract from the message) but also against the notion of rescuing or saving African children: “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.” One result, says Blattman, “is a lot of dangerously ill-prepared young people embarking on missions to save the children of this or that war zone. At best it’s hubris and egocentric. More often, though, it leads to bad programs, misallocated resources, or ill-conceived military adventures.” Finally, Blattman is also troubled by the film showing the faces of child soldiers, as well as implying (erroneously and incredibly) that the US and Invisible Children “were instrumental in getting the peace talks to happen.”

Grant Oyston, Sociology and Poly Sci student at Acadia University, has made several criticisms—such as the fact that “[m]ilitary 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” (q.v.)—and also provided links to many others as well. Among the latter, perhaps the most important are lawyers Kate Cronin-Furman and Amanda Taub’s article, “Solving War Crimes With Wristbands: The Arrogance of ‘Kony 2012’,” which raises methodological criticisms, and writer Joshua Keating’s post “Joseph Kony is not in Uganda (and other complicated things),” whose chief argument is that IC “has made virtually no effort to inform” concerning important details (such as where Kony is located, where the LRA’s members are currently distributed, and how many “mindless child soldiers” the LRA presently has).

Author Michael Deibert helpfully lays out some of the important historical details and concludes with another heavy charge against IC: “By blindly supporting Uganda’s current government and its military adventures beyond its borders, as Invisible Children suggests that people do, Invisible Children is in fact guaranteeing that there will be more violence, not less, in Central Africa.”

My father, a retired juvenile hall peace officer, was also pretty critical of the video and, in addition to some of the familiar criticisms, he said it “seemed to violate some pretty serious child rearing tenets, i.e., ‘tis not good to expose a child to an adult’s world as it robs them of their childhood, etc.; and, beyond that it seemed to prepare the film maker’s kid to early indoctrination (and believe me, he’ll get that soon enough as kindergarten is just around the corner for that boy)…”

Meanwhile, IC has responded to some of the above criticisms, and the group certainly has its defenders (e.g.), but it would seem IC has yet to address one of the main claims many are raising: that it is working with groups that are guilty of the same atrocities as the LRA.

Here is another recent source attempting to make sense of the issue.

I’m still wading through some of the various criticisms and IC’s response, but I tend to think IC’s basic motives are pure, but their methods and strategic intent are questionable and in various ways even dangerous. What do you think?

Comments

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Except for AIDS and condoms.

[fornikate.livejournal.com]

what are you getting at, exactly

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

That AIDS and condoms and birth-control are important things.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Meanwhile, brutal war, genocide, slavery, oppression and unspeakable cruelty are none of our business. As long as people can safely engage in sex, our job is done and we should just step back and let the rest sort itself out.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

It isn't? I would disagree. But I suppose you were speaking ironically, which is something that gets you killed in the French Revolution.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

zut alors!

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree it is our business, as long as there is no reasonable belief that we would or could actually do anything about it.

This way we can be excoriated for being moral monsters for not getting involved in Uganda, but we can also be lambasted as being moral monsters for getting involved in Afghanistan. I guarantee you that as soon as the US military started doing to the LRA what we've been doing to the Taliban, the Youtube videos would sing a different song. Cue "sad faced African child soldier freedom fighter made an orphan by US Imperialism macro."

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I think it is unfortunate that "doing something" almost always reduces to "sending the military", so "doing something" arguments always end up arguing about war. But thankfully there is a broad spectrum of things one can do to "do something". Of course, there are just blatant limitations and sometimes you're busy with two other things so you can't do the third or fourth thing, but that's just like choosing which charities to give to in a sense. OMG YOU DON'T DONATE TO AIDS RESEARCH?! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?!

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

I don't think that doing something always amounts to sending in the military. G. W. Bush is a hero in large parts of Africa because of his support of AIDS treatment. But in this case, when you are dealing with folks like the LRA or the Ugandan military, I think we are kidding ourselves if we say that the sending in the military isn't the logical thing to do.

And you'll get no debate from me about the scarcity of resources available to do these things.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

We didn't start getting involved in Afghanistan because of the Taliban.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

That is true, for some values of "start" and some values of "getting involved." But for the current involvement, it was the Taliban who were sheltering AQ and who refused to hand over OBL.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Nope, we deliberately prolonged the USSR's stay there with all that entailed in the 1980s. That qualifies as involvement in all senses except that of the moral cowards who think if it's aimed at Commies it's OK.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Hey man, we didn't start the fire. It was always burning since the worlds been turning.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

The US military has been in there for years...

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

In the same way you can say the US military has been any number of places in small, pro forma ways.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

What countries? What nations? When I look at places like Uganda or large parts of Democratic Republic of Congo I see no nations, only rival gangs of criminals systematically looting the country and running amok. Some of those gangs happen to have representatives in the UN. Big deal.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Ironic that conservatives forget the whole "Pro-USA dictator here, overthrown due to the legacy of the Rwandan Genocide." I'm not surprised. We felt that bombing Iraq for another useless short raid was more important than the largest war since WWII. Americans, like everyone else at the time, simply didn't give a damn about genocide if blacks were the victims of it.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Who says I forgot it? I'm talking about the facts on the ground as they have been for a generation, in some cases in many generations.

Not for nothing, I am not an altruist. Our interest in the Persian Gulf so far out weigh any interest we have in central Africa that the cost/benefit is not debatable. Are we suddenly no longer supposed to embrace "Realism?"

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Our interest? It seems to me we're asked to support Israel with *its* interests far moreso than we are with our own. For instance an Iran War is good for Israel, but not for us. But we're asked to see it as an inevitable positive good with arguments suited to Nutandyahoo, not Obama. In case the people who think *is* our interests want to make that argument, I advise them to get a map.

[terminator44.livejournal.com]

I see no nations, only rival gangs of criminals systematically looting the country and running amok.

That makes them different from other nations how, exactly?

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Give me a break.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

In the case of the DRC it's really our business, but nobody gives a flying fuck about it unless it's the Virunga gorillas. The largest war since WWII, and people are the men passing the robber victim on the road, while Good Samaritans no longer exist. We made Mobutu, we did nothing. We were too busy getting our jollies plastering Iraq and furthering our endless obsession with Mesopotamia.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Given how much of that brutal war and genocide were white people's doing in the first place.....take, for instance, the Congo Wars when a US Cold War-era puppet finally got his just desserts only for Africa to be the location of the biggest war since WWII. Where was the USA in all this? Bombing Iraq.

[fornikate.livejournal.com]

that's true.