h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Have you heard of Joseph Kony? The Lord's Resistance Army?

What do you think of the Invisible Children campaign that aims to make Joseph Kony famous?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc

I've seen the name bandied around on Twitter. No idea who he is or what he stands for though.

I don't think he stands for anything.

There are various bands around Africa - Interahamwe in Rwanda/Congo; groups in Sierre Leone and Liberia. My understanding is that are essentially a bunch of dispossesed men united in the common goal of getting by by brutalising the population. Occasionally their needs coalesce with more structured, political objectives.

The Lord's Resistance army is that it is unusual in that it has a Colonel Kurtz figure - although it does not seem to be in any way a disciplined force. I see to recall one of their high heid yins has issued statements that they are for peace, democracy and human rights...but this seems unlikely.

It is not clear where the syncretic pseudo-Christianity bit comes in. Possibly they have taken on Christianity as a badge of convenience because the areas of Uganda and Sudan they terrorise have a convenient Muslim 'enemy'. They're Christians only in the way that certain Scottish football clubs associate themselves with particular confessional groups. (A bad analogy: even Old Firm supporters don't go in for rape and dismemberment).

At last! A social use for Facebook that doesn't involve kittens or virtual wall posters!

Mom and apple pie- of course we are united in our distaste of Kony and his ilk and of course those of us who will, will help in whatever way we can. Just spreading that Youtube link around is a good first step.

I'm curious as to why it's suddenly come to prominence: Kony and the LRA have been terrorising the region for at least a decade and US Special Forces have been fighting them since iirc 2008.

I agree with a lot of Ed's analysis: the Christianity is a façade to justify their atrocities against Muslims and other ("not proper") Christians, Kony has claimed to have magical powers and it does seem to be an agglomeration of the dispossessed, sadistic and psychotic. They're the sort of group who don't really want to take over the state, because there's no way they'd be able to run it, but instead create a certain level of disruption that's enough to give them power and freedom of action, but not severe enough for the state or international powers to make a concerted effort to wipe them out. That calculation might change with the large oil discoveries in northern Uganda, one of the LRA's main areas of operation.

The independence of South Sudan has removed their usefulness as a proxy army (Uganda and especially Kenya were widely rumoured to support them when they attacked the Arab Sudanese army), though Rwanda is still rumoured to support their activities in the Dem. Rep. of Congo. Kenya, which has a history of meddling in its neighbours internal conflicts, is pretty heavily committed in Somalia and so isn't able to get involved with/cause others woes. Again that might significantly hamper the LRA.

Reinforcing what I said about convenient alliances with more organised politics...many of the central African conflicts involve the use of irregulars. They're not necessarily directed by governments as such...but it can sometimes be useful not to do too much about them.

(Question: Is this the first time some are hearing about the LRA? As HI says - they've been around a while.)

I've heard of him before but this is the first I've learned about the campaign by Invisible Children.

(last comment sounded sniffier than i'd intended.)

Fair question, just like the governments of most post industrial countries African politics are pretty low on the radar for their citizens.

I've been told that about half what is being said on t'Internet at the moment is how bad Kony is, and the other half is that we should support a charitable organisation aimed at bringing him down, even though they do it by giving the money to the Ugandan Military, even though Kony left Uganda in 2006, and the said Ugandan Military's Human Rights record is not impeccable either.

I've read some reports that of the millions raised by this Invisible Children thing, most of it is spent in administration and marketing to the First World and only a small proportion is actually spent in Africa. There are some charities which spend virtually all of their raised money in Africa. And, of course, Governments spend huge amounts in foreign and military aid, including to fight this Kony.

I watched the Invisible Children video, all thirty minutes of it earlier today, and it openly admits that its principal (only) aim is to promote the exertion of overwhelming public opinion pressure on the U.S. Government with a view to maintaining the deployment of about a hundred or so U.S. military advisers to Uganda (the suspicion that they will be pulled out soon is the reason for the current surge in publicity).

While it strikes me as a positive employment of the social media generation, I would rather see it all directed to pushing the governments of the world to fully implement the Responsibility to Protect as a fundamental principal of international law, with all the difficult obligations that would involve, including, by the way, sending more than just advisers to get this Kony.

Kony is, BTW, the number one person on the ICC's Most Wanted list, and he has been since the beginning of the court's existence.

A news story about the Kony 2012 thing: http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DTSTo5_vjcMc&v=TSTo5_vjcMc&gl=CA

And a good Guardian article, with (for once) some quite intelligent comments BTL.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-news-blog/2012/mar/07/kony-2012-video-viral-invisible-children

sprout

I hadn't heard of the LRA or Kony before.

I was somewhat reluctant to watch the video, but decided that i would rather know what it was all about.

I think raising awareness is a good idea. i am of the Social Media generation. I might even join in with putting up posters all over Dundee in april.

anyone who hasn't watched the video yet. I think they should.
http://www.invisiblechildren.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/

mini

i also found this page on the Invisible Children website

http://www.invisiblechildren.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/critiques.html

also worth a read.

mini

Awareness raising is A Good Idea, mm - but I suggest it might be better to raise awareness of what organisations like Unicef have been doing to help child rehabilitate soldiers and to care for their victims.

I was aware of the LRA already and wondered why I was geing given this particular link. I now discover it has popped up because it's gone viral. But I am not sure I would want to get behind this particular organisation.

I know the woman who runs the Glasgow Unicef support group...fairly well. Here's a link for Dundee:

http://www.unicef.org.uk/Fundraise/Community-Fundraising/Join-a-group/Scotland/Dundee-Group/

Attempt by the Guardian to get to the bottom of all this....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/reality-check-with-polly-curtis/2012/mar/08/kony-2012-what-s-the-story