On March 5, 2012, just one year ago, the now-controversial
non-profit, Invisible Children, launched a short film online and campaign called,
Kony 2012. With an initial goal of
500,000 views by the end of the calendar year, it’s suffice to say the small
grassroots organization was caught off-guard by what happened next. With over 100 million views in just a week’s
time, it became the focal subject of conversation, on our televisions, facebook
feeds, and family dinners. Whatever
initial applause and approval it had received dissipated within a matter of
days. To the average person, Kony 2012
is now synonymous with the words, “scam,” “fraud,” and “wasn’t that dude jerki...” But in fact, Invisible Children got it right,
and we all got it wrong. And one
year later, most of us still haven’t caught on.
Armed with the old adage, “Don’t believe everything you
read,” Kony 2012’s targeted audience, the outspoken youth, did indeed adhere to
IC’s message that their voice could indeed make a difference. However, rather than the unified support IC
was hoping for, the internet rebutted with a seeping, pervasive cynicism,
justified as an arduous quest for “truth” and “healthy discourse.”
Unfortunately, most of those attacking the Kony film for its
emotional “propaganda,” a film they claimed was devoid of substantial fact and
dissenting opinions, inherently produced literary diatribes completely absent
of any amount of intellectual reasoning or impartiality. More often than not, these “anti-Kony
2012ers” arbitrarily selected the reasonable and justified criticisms of the
film by experts and amateurs alike, and simply filled in the gaps with, at
best, quasi-facts and anecdotal evidence masqueraded as expert opinion.
If the film and campaign were indeed negligent
misrepresentations, than most of the Op-Ed’s we shared were surely well-beyond
the periphery of the bottom rung of the credibility ladder. What is most unfortunate is that most
qualified experts with reasonable discontent and uneasiness over the film and
campaign surely did not intend for a vicious and scathing counter-movement
against the organization, but instead a healthy discussion to promote growth in
previously unforeseen directions. For
all of the hullabaloo that IC was deliberately creating a generation of
arm-chair advocates, I was shocked at critics seemingly deliberate oversight towards
the proselytized arm-chaired critics they inevitably empowered.
It isn’t that fact that so many people disagree with the
movement that bothers me so much; it’s the self-assured nature, the derisive
mantra that many took after a modicum of research. It’s the fact that so many people, who have
never investigated the reliability and levels of empirical evidence, who have
never thought to distinguish causation from correlation from coincidence, and
who continue to be convinced that our largely qualitative world can not only be
quantified, but be transcribed into veritable fact based on a couple of blog
posts and a video of a girl who has a grandma from Uganda that really makes me
tip-toe along the edge of losing faith in humanity.
It’s not that we shouldn’t be entitled to our opinions; it’s
that we too often formulate our opinions, and then gather the evidence,
selectively and conveniently dismissing anything that does not neatly conform
to our predetermined dispositions. It’s
that some of us are convinced the most worthy way to spend our time is to
denigrate and demonize a non-profit we hadn’t even known about a week ago.
You see, all too many people were convinced that buying an
action kit would ultimately result in some sort of apocalyptic scenario in
which IC staff showered in Benjamins and dined over Faberge eggs, while
Ugandans sat destitute, feeling duped and taken advantage of. And in doing so, they made it their personal affidavit
to convince would-be fifteen-year-old supporters to save their twenty bucks,
ignoring the fact that they will never follow up on how that money is actually
spent, and further ignoring even 37% expenditure allocated for development sure
beats the hell out of the 0% our money usually ends up towards when we buy a
shirt or bracelet (and we haven’t even touched on why I believe the other 63%
is soundly invested).
The outcome of their advocacy is obviously up to debate, and
perhaps enough to warrant withholding a financial contribution; however, as
filmmaker Jon Turteltaub said, “There is no such thing as just putting it out
there.” You see, if the critics are
right, that sometimes well-intentions produce paradoxical results, then
certainly withholding financial contributions would logically not solve the
situation, but it would at least prevent it from slipping into a misguided
quagmire. And I could contend that would
be a worthy effort.
However, this seemingly innocuous stance largely ignores the
fact that, if indeed IC is on the right path, then critics and skeptics alike
have actively worked against efforts to end senseless violence, as well as
against sound education, microfinance, civilian protection, and rehabilitative
programs, that, unlike advocacy speculation, have very real and very measurable
results. In fact, in all of my
experiences, I have found a near universal paucity in criticism for their
approaches and implementation of ground programs. To me, I just can’t fathom how anyone could
be sure enough in their convictions that they must convince others that not
only is a donation not going to be as effective as perceived, but that it is
resolutely detrimental.
I am totally open to the fact that there are perceivable
faults in the video, campaign, and organization. In fact, I fully realize that no entity is
any more perfect than the imperfect individuals that make it (fun fact: a study
found a couple people at IC are actually perfect). But I can’t help but think, with all of IC’s
continued efforts to end a war, that many authors attacking the organization,
in another generation, might have written articles entitled, “Why Jim Crow Laws
are a complicated issue,” “Sure Apartheid is bad, but it’s not so simple,” “How
much MLK actually spent on his march to Selma” and “The Slavery Dilemma: Why
trying to change anything is dumb and we should never, ever try.”
Absent was the article we really needed to read, entitled,
“Why Joseph Kony is quite actually the worst, but all we seem to care about is percent
spending, paralyzing regional dynamics, and why IC's founder was detained on
the streets of San Diego” Our focus
and energy was not on the kidnapper, pedophile, and mass murderer and how we
could collaboratively find a better way to capture him, but instead on
vilifying an organization with at most questionable spending habits and
misguided advocacy (hint: they are neither).
I know that, if anyone has actually even read this far, you might
be clamoring that this was nothing more than a fluff piece devoid of
substantial refutations, and well, I’d agree. But to defend even common
criticisms in a concise way would’ve produced literature much too long to read
in one sitting, which is, in part, why IC was defenseless to last spring’s
fusillade of acrimonious accusations. Discovery,
it seems, is actually far more work than settling.
As political commentator, Bill Maher, noted last spring, “We
might look back on this week as the week where everything changed for bad guys
around the world.” That prediction
depends solely on ourselves, and how we choose to act moving forwards.
The grandiosity of the LRA’s crimes and a multi-faceted
approach to apprehend them was largely lost in translation. I mean, surely, if we took a second to
consider the barbaric nature of forcibly padlocking lips shut, amputating limbs,
lips, and noses, ordering children to kill their parents, crushing skulls,
lighting inhabited homes on fire, the displacement of hundreds of thousands and
the absence of any retrospective justice for millions, then perhaps we could’ve
started asking the questions that really mattered- namely, is there truly a
better approach than the one this organization has taken? And, after a year of debate, as well as clear
benchmarks of unmistaken progress that have been made in the international
community, I resolutely believe that no, there isn’t, and that the next time we have the
opportunity to stand in solidarity against unspeakable violence, we should be
ready to ask the right questions.
http://invisiblechildren.com/kony-2012-one-year-later/
