... Or at least most of them don't.
Over the last six months I've spoken to many young people both as friends and just in passing on matters of a political nature in Uganda. Many of them hesitate to talk to me about political issues or at times will reflect on Ugandan politics as a joke.
Some of my friends also claim to be apolitical which in their minds means not supporting a particular party rather than not being political. Those who fall into this category often have well developed personal philosophies and theories relating to politics in Uganda and are frustrated by human rights abuses and corruption.
In Northern Uganda I met more people who openly criticized the government which is likely related to their experiences with conflict and historical structures of violence and political struggles (Finnstrom, 2008). While I was sitting in an office in Lira my colleague looked at a calendar entitled "African Leaders" and said more like "African Dictators" after commenting about the restrictions placed on opposition parties in Uganda. After looking at about 10 of the leaders and suggesting three or four that I thought might be dictators (or at least be dictatoresque), he smirked and said "you missed a few."
Today when I asked one of my colleagues in Kampala what his aspirations were for his newborn daughter he said "she can be anything, although I hope she won't be a politician." When I asked why he said because of the uncertainty (read insecurity) associated with that kind of life.
Although their participation in political dialogue and their opinions differ rather dramatically the one thing that most of these people have in common is that none of them vote because they don't see the point in participating in a political system which always turns out the same way.
This stands in striking contrast to the experience that I had as a door to door canvasser on behalf of a politician during the Federal election last year in Ottawa. I would frequently knock on doors only to have a youth answer and tell me they did not plan to vote because they felt like their voices would not be heard.
This is the same sentiment but the settings are almost completely opposite. In Canada we have an open press that reports frequently and openly on politics even if with some bias whereas the Ugandan press is only relatively open and much of it is state controlled or sponsored. In Canada there is freedom of association and protest, where as in Uganda protestors are met with bullets and tear gas. In Canada there are many avenues for political participation in comparison with Uganda where there are relatively few. Finally, in Canada we have a free and fair electoral system (minus the recent harassing phone calls complained about by some voters).
As a very political individual, I find it hard to reconcile these two realities. I find it even more difficult to understand why young Canadians would choose not to vote or participate in the political process in other ways when there are so many young people around the world with the desire to influence their countries' political systems and economies who don't have the opportunity to do so.
Just some food for thought.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Kony 2012 Part III: Reaction in Northern Uganda
Last week when I first posted about Kony 2012 one of my friends asked me about how Northern Ugandans felt about the movie. At the time I didn't know, very few Northern Ugandans have consistent access to the internet so it was slow to make waves.
That changed yesterday when an organization called AIYNET held a public showing of Kony 2012 in Lira, where I recently conducted field work. Unfortunately I was unable to attend the screening since I'm currently in Nebbi, but I was able to convince my colleagues in Lira.
When I spoke to my friend and colleague Mike Kitara (with permission) over the phone about it this morning, he said in is usual friendly tone that the film provoked a lot of debate in Lira. He indicated that the film included out of date facts, including the suggestion that Kony was still in Uganda and that the situation remained dangerous, and that many of the people who attended the screening saw the film as a cash grab.
More importantly people both questioned the timing of the release of the film since the attrocities it describes ended in 2006 and people even went as far as to question the decision to show the film at all in Lira.
You might also be interested to know that over the weekend New Vision, one of Uganda's leading national newspapers ran an article indicating that while the government appreciated the renewed attention on catching Kony, that no one should misinterpret the campaign to signify that the Lord's Resistance Army remains active in Northern Uganda.
Even if the increased awareness of the LRA does bring about Kony's demise it must not entitle anyone to feel justice in participating in the Kony 2012 campaign. The world sat by while 65,000 children were kidnapped and hundreds of thousands of Northern Ugandans were murdered, maimed, displaced and raped including some of my friends and people I've met through work. A trial at the ICC will bring little peace to those who've lost loved ones and have otherwise been affected by the LRA.
What we can learn from this is that in the future we need to act quickly and in unison to stop mass violation of human rights and the laws of war. Before 65,000 more children are kidnapped.
Let's work together and stop the use of child soldiers.
http://childsoldiersinitiative.org/
That changed yesterday when an organization called AIYNET held a public showing of Kony 2012 in Lira, where I recently conducted field work. Unfortunately I was unable to attend the screening since I'm currently in Nebbi, but I was able to convince my colleagues in Lira.
When I spoke to my friend and colleague Mike Kitara (with permission) over the phone about it this morning, he said in is usual friendly tone that the film provoked a lot of debate in Lira. He indicated that the film included out of date facts, including the suggestion that Kony was still in Uganda and that the situation remained dangerous, and that many of the people who attended the screening saw the film as a cash grab.
More importantly people both questioned the timing of the release of the film since the attrocities it describes ended in 2006 and people even went as far as to question the decision to show the film at all in Lira.
You might also be interested to know that over the weekend New Vision, one of Uganda's leading national newspapers ran an article indicating that while the government appreciated the renewed attention on catching Kony, that no one should misinterpret the campaign to signify that the Lord's Resistance Army remains active in Northern Uganda.
Even if the increased awareness of the LRA does bring about Kony's demise it must not entitle anyone to feel justice in participating in the Kony 2012 campaign. The world sat by while 65,000 children were kidnapped and hundreds of thousands of Northern Ugandans were murdered, maimed, displaced and raped including some of my friends and people I've met through work. A trial at the ICC will bring little peace to those who've lost loved ones and have otherwise been affected by the LRA.
What we can learn from this is that in the future we need to act quickly and in unison to stop mass violation of human rights and the laws of war. Before 65,000 more children are kidnapped.
Let's work together and stop the use of child soldiers.
http://childsoldiersinitiative.org/
Friday, March 9, 2012
Kony 2012 Part II: My Letter to Prime Minister Harper
I believe in practicing what I preach. While I still find the Kony 2012 campaign highly flawed I also believe that Kony should be arrested and that steps should be taken by the international community to fully dismantle what remains of the LRA.
This evening I composed an email to Prime Minister Harper outlining my concerns and demanding that Kony be brought to justice.
If you would like to send him your own email he can be reached at:
stephen.harper@parl.gc.ca
If you are a bit more sentimental and write him a letter you can send it to the following address:
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2
My email read as follows:
Dear Prime Minister Harper,
I am writing to you today about Joseph Kony.
My name is Kirsten Van Houten and I am currently working as a CIDA intern in Uganda where I am a Peace and Conflict Officer with the Uganda Cooperative Alliance. The project that I am working on is focused on alleviating poverty for poor rural farmers in Northern Uganda, including in areas affected by the Northern War and the Lord's Resistance Army. I am currently in Arua in the West Nile Region having arrived from Lira and Masindi where I have been conducting conflict-sensitivity training for cooperative members and conducting research to identify conflict indicators for the project.
I am sure you have received several emails over the last few days resulting from the Kony 2012 campaign. While I do not agree with how the campaign is being orchestrated and recognize that it is missing some key facts, I too believe that Joseph Kony must be stopped.
As you know, since 1988 Joseph Kony has kidnapped over 66,000 children who have been forced to work as child soldiers and sex slaves. In addition the LRA is known for its brutal attacks against civilian populations which include rape, murder and mutilation which breaches International Humanitarian Law under the Rome Convention. While the LRA's attacks were predominantly centered in Northern Uganda since 2008 they have moved to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic. I'm sure you are aware of the conflict which has raged in the DRC since 1998 and has claimed over 5 million lives (directly or indirectly) according to the International Rescue Committee.
In 2005 the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Kony. The Ugandan army and the Congolese armed forces are currently searching for Kony in the DRC. Both of these armies have been accused of poor discipline and themselves violating international humanitarian law through the use of child soldiers and attacks on civilian population.
Mr. Prime Minister, Joseph Kony needs to be arrested as soon as possible. While I am not an expert on international military operations I implore you to take action either to support the Ugandan and Congolese troops searching for Kony while complying with international humanitarian law or to support a UN or African Peacekeeping mission to assist in his arrest.
However, I would also like to ask you to take a few more steps. While it is important that Mr. Kony be brought to justice, his arrest alone will not dismantle the LRA or heal the damage which it has caused. As a result I suggest that you send a delegation to facilitate peace talks with the remaining members of the LRA. Further, I would also suggest that that you should provide funding to organizations such as War Child Canada, Save the Children and the Child Soldier Initiative who can provide assistance in disarming, demobilizing, rehabilitating and reintegrating child soldiers back into their community.
In addition, I would like to stress that in the event that Kony is arrested and brought to trial in front of the ICC it should not entitle any Canadian to feel a sense of justice because we as Canadians and as members of the international community have allowed the LRA to operate with impunity for far to long and no justice will be felt by those who lost loved ones to this army in East Africa. In the future rather than waiting for over twenty years Canada should act as quickly and early as possible to prevent such grave violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.
I believe that Canada still has the capacity to be a leader in international human rights. Arrest Kony, support Disarmament, Demobilization, Rehabilitation and Reintegration and recognize our Responsibility to Protect.
Sincerely,
Ms. Kirsten Van Houten
This evening I composed an email to Prime Minister Harper outlining my concerns and demanding that Kony be brought to justice.
If you would like to send him your own email he can be reached at:
stephen.harper@parl.gc.ca
If you are a bit more sentimental and write him a letter you can send it to the following address:
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2
My email read as follows:
Dear Prime Minister Harper,
I am writing to you today about Joseph Kony.
My name is Kirsten Van Houten and I am currently working as a CIDA intern in Uganda where I am a Peace and Conflict Officer with the Uganda Cooperative Alliance. The project that I am working on is focused on alleviating poverty for poor rural farmers in Northern Uganda, including in areas affected by the Northern War and the Lord's Resistance Army. I am currently in Arua in the West Nile Region having arrived from Lira and Masindi where I have been conducting conflict-sensitivity training for cooperative members and conducting research to identify conflict indicators for the project.
I am sure you have received several emails over the last few days resulting from the Kony 2012 campaign. While I do not agree with how the campaign is being orchestrated and recognize that it is missing some key facts, I too believe that Joseph Kony must be stopped.
As you know, since 1988 Joseph Kony has kidnapped over 66,000 children who have been forced to work as child soldiers and sex slaves. In addition the LRA is known for its brutal attacks against civilian populations which include rape, murder and mutilation which breaches International Humanitarian Law under the Rome Convention. While the LRA's attacks were predominantly centered in Northern Uganda since 2008 they have moved to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic. I'm sure you are aware of the conflict which has raged in the DRC since 1998 and has claimed over 5 million lives (directly or indirectly) according to the International Rescue Committee.
In 2005 the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Kony. The Ugandan army and the Congolese armed forces are currently searching for Kony in the DRC. Both of these armies have been accused of poor discipline and themselves violating international humanitarian law through the use of child soldiers and attacks on civilian population.
Mr. Prime Minister, Joseph Kony needs to be arrested as soon as possible. While I am not an expert on international military operations I implore you to take action either to support the Ugandan and Congolese troops searching for Kony while complying with international humanitarian law or to support a UN or African Peacekeeping mission to assist in his arrest.
However, I would also like to ask you to take a few more steps. While it is important that Mr. Kony be brought to justice, his arrest alone will not dismantle the LRA or heal the damage which it has caused. As a result I suggest that you send a delegation to facilitate peace talks with the remaining members of the LRA. Further, I would also suggest that that you should provide funding to organizations such as War Child Canada, Save the Children and the Child Soldier Initiative who can provide assistance in disarming, demobilizing, rehabilitating and reintegrating child soldiers back into their community.
In addition, I would like to stress that in the event that Kony is arrested and brought to trial in front of the ICC it should not entitle any Canadian to feel a sense of justice because we as Canadians and as members of the international community have allowed the LRA to operate with impunity for far to long and no justice will be felt by those who lost loved ones to this army in East Africa. In the future rather than waiting for over twenty years Canada should act as quickly and early as possible to prevent such grave violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.
I believe that Canada still has the capacity to be a leader in international human rights. Arrest Kony, support Disarmament, Demobilization, Rehabilitation and Reintegration and recognize our Responsibility to Protect.
Sincerely,
Ms. Kirsten Van Houten
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Kony 2012
Several People have asked if I can include sources in this blog post. Much of the information comes from books which I don't have with me in Arua but I can give you the title and the author of the books which the information comes from and that you can refer to for further information.
Also to give you some additional context, I have an M.A. in International Development Studies from Dalhousie University and wrote my thesis on Armed Violence in the DRC. I have presented a couple of conferences on the topic and I was a member of War Child Dalhousie. I have also participated in the Gulu Walk which does a fantastic job of raising awareness about the use of Child Soldiers by the LRA and I have volunteered with the All Party Parliamentary Committee on the Prevention of Genocide. I really appreciate that so many people have taken the time to read this post and send me feedback.
I have spent the last four weeks in Northern Uganda and will be here for one more week. I am currently conducting research through which to identify conflict indicators for the project that I'm working on. I have also just finished training over 120 people in conflict sensitivity and conflict transformation with help from the Centre for Conflict Resolution. My work has been in Lira, which was directly affected by Joseph Kony's Northern War, Masindi where many of the internally displaced people from the Northern War resettled between 1988 and 2008 and West Nile which receives refugees from North Eastern DRC which is currently being affected by the LRA among other things.
When I was in Lira last week I met a child soldier for the first time. It was a 16 year old boy who was kidnapped when he was about 7 and released when he was about 14. He is not in grade 6 at school and is being cared for the owner of the hotel I stayed at, not his parents. He didn't talk much and seemed very timid although he warmed up to me over the week that I was staying at the hotel. One of the questions I ask as part of my research is whether participants feel that their communities are peaceful. In Lira, several participants indicated that they were not at peace because they feared the return of Joseph Kony.
Who is Joseph Kony? Joseph Kony is the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Its stated purpose is to enforce the 10 commandments in Uganda and to oppose Musevini's governing party the National Resistance Movement (Aboke Girls, de Temmerman and The Lords Resistance Army Myths and Reality, eds. Allen and Vlassenroot).
If you've watched the film "Kony 2012" you probably didn't get that information, in fact you probably heard that the LRA has no stated objective. That's only one of the factual errors
The LRA emerged out of the Holy Spirit Movement in Northern Ugandan which combines Christianity and traditional beliefs. The LRA started to advance towards Kampala in the late 1980's after Musevini ejected a Northern leader, Okello, out of office in 1986.
When you consider the LRA's tactics including the abduction of children to be used as child soldiers, rape, murder and mutilation. Victims eyes, mouths and ears were often cut off so they could not see or hear the attrocities that were being committed around them or so that they could not tell the authorities (Aboke Girls, de Temmerman). And for years the Ugandan government did nothing about it, until it launched a military operation in 2008 which all but exiled the LRA in Sudan, the DRC and the Central African Republic.
If you haven't seen "Kony 2012" it is a 30 minute film by the organization Invisible Children demanding immediate action in Western countries to demand that Kony be arrested by any means necessary.
I agree that Kony must be stopped, but they are leaving out some information you might care to know.
The first point of the video that I would like to challenge is that the "LRA uses girls as sex slaves and boys as child soldiers." In fact this is a very gendered take on the LRA where both boys and girls are used as child soldiers AND both boys and girls are used as sex slaves, although girls are the more common victim (Aboke Girls, de Temmerman AND They Fight Like Soldiers and Die Like Children, Dallaire). Children are also used to cook, care for wounded soldiers and to carry equipment.
The second point is that Kony has no clear objective which I've already addressed.
Third, the movie claims that Kony enjoys no international support, when in fact he is known to have received direct support from the government of Sudan and from AlQaeda (U.S. Exclusion List for Terrorist Organizations AND The Lords Resistance Army, Myth and Reality).
Fourth, the movie fails to acknowledge that the LRA has not been active in Northern Uganda since at least 2008 and that they now operate in North-Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic (Dancing in the Glory of Monsters, Stearns). That's where the movie falls apart. The U.S. did send 100 troops to Uganda to support UPDF (read Ugandan army) operations against the LRA, but since they aren't in Uganda, the operation also requires support from Congolese and CAR troops. I don't know much about the CAR but I do know that the Congolese Army does not have the capacity to hunt down Kony (I wrote my M.A. Thesis on the DRC so I'm not including a citation here if you want to read my thesis you can google my name).
And one might also ask why the group is supporting the use of a military solution at all considering the fact that the Ugandan Army has also been accused of using Child Soldiers, not repatriating returned abductees with their families and committing rape, as has the Congolese army.
I'm also concerned about the treatment of the subject of Child Soldiers by the film. First as my colleague Tanja Bergen points out, the fact they are showing video clips of a young Jacob crying over the loss of his brother, at an age where he could not have consented to be in the video is highly questionable from a research ethics standpoint. The second thing is that the movie oversimplifies what happens to returned child soldiers. Child soldiers who are rescued or escape are rarely able to return to their homes either because their parents were killed or because of the shame that their actions have brought to their families and communities. If these former abductees are lucky, they get to participate in a rehabilitation program led by UNICEF, Save the Children or War Child but many don't and their families and communities simply don't have the resources to support them (They Fight Like Soldiers and they Die Like Children, Dallaire). On another point you might notice that while the film focuses on the use of Child Soldiers it discusses the other atrocities committed by the LRA very little. This is likely because they would have to acknowledge the the abducted children are forced to kill, rape and mutilate their family members and others which makes them "Victim-perpetrators" which means that they were forced to commit crimes through their victimization and were revictimized through the process. And of course, that would just confuse people... (?)
As a fundraiser last year, I learned that sometimes it was better to have less knowledge on an organization to try to get people to support it because it raised fewer questions and made it simpler to explain, and perhaps that's what Invisible Children is going for.
When Amnesty International runs advocacy campaigns, they do not ask for money anywhere in the body of their campaign. However the fundraising component of this campaign is quite apparent as they indicate that in order to receive an advocacy kit that one must commit to making monthly donations. What is particularly worrisome about that is that the campaign targets you people who are least able to make that form of commitment. As my friend Jesse points out Invisible Children has never been externally audited and has other questionable rankings as a charitable organization.
Any reputable add campaign should promote activism before donations. Full Stop.
Although I think that the rhetoric the movie uses and the methods it is suggesting for activism are interesting and relatively effective I am also going to take a moment to cover on some of the theoretical underpinnings that bug me about the film.
First, I find it highly problematic that the film focuses on a small white child to try to help viewers relate to the plight of child soldiers. Although the kid is cute I think this undermines the viewers compassion and their capacity to understand that childhood should have universal norms.
The second problem that I think is more significant is that there is no discussion of what the victims of the LRA would like to see happen. Many of the former heads of the LRA have been subject to amnesty laws and have participated in traditional peace processes. Although I would personally love to see Kony tried in front of the International Criminal Court, I am not certain that, that is what most of Northern Ugandan's want.
To conclude, I would like to point out the almost complete absence of the voices of Northern Ugandans in the video which I think is its biggest flaw.
Joseph Kony must be stopped, together we can do something about it.
Like the video suggests, you can send your MP or Prime Minister Harper/Obama or whoever your leader is a letter, you can organize a march, put up posters and spread the word. But you can do that without Invisible Children, and certainly without donating to them.
If you want to watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc
If you would like to read about the Norther War I would recommend reading "The Aboke Girls" or referring to War Child's Website.
If you would like to read more about Child Soldier's you can read "They Fight like Soldiers and Die Like Children" by Romeo Dalliare
If you would like to read about Justice in East Africa you can read "Drink the Bitter Root.
If you would like to send me an email I can be reached at k_van_houten@hotmail.com
Also to give you some additional context, I have an M.A. in International Development Studies from Dalhousie University and wrote my thesis on Armed Violence in the DRC. I have presented a couple of conferences on the topic and I was a member of War Child Dalhousie. I have also participated in the Gulu Walk which does a fantastic job of raising awareness about the use of Child Soldiers by the LRA and I have volunteered with the All Party Parliamentary Committee on the Prevention of Genocide. I really appreciate that so many people have taken the time to read this post and send me feedback.
I have spent the last four weeks in Northern Uganda and will be here for one more week. I am currently conducting research through which to identify conflict indicators for the project that I'm working on. I have also just finished training over 120 people in conflict sensitivity and conflict transformation with help from the Centre for Conflict Resolution. My work has been in Lira, which was directly affected by Joseph Kony's Northern War, Masindi where many of the internally displaced people from the Northern War resettled between 1988 and 2008 and West Nile which receives refugees from North Eastern DRC which is currently being affected by the LRA among other things.
When I was in Lira last week I met a child soldier for the first time. It was a 16 year old boy who was kidnapped when he was about 7 and released when he was about 14. He is not in grade 6 at school and is being cared for the owner of the hotel I stayed at, not his parents. He didn't talk much and seemed very timid although he warmed up to me over the week that I was staying at the hotel. One of the questions I ask as part of my research is whether participants feel that their communities are peaceful. In Lira, several participants indicated that they were not at peace because they feared the return of Joseph Kony.
Who is Joseph Kony? Joseph Kony is the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Its stated purpose is to enforce the 10 commandments in Uganda and to oppose Musevini's governing party the National Resistance Movement (Aboke Girls, de Temmerman and The Lords Resistance Army Myths and Reality, eds. Allen and Vlassenroot).
If you've watched the film "Kony 2012" you probably didn't get that information, in fact you probably heard that the LRA has no stated objective. That's only one of the factual errors
The LRA emerged out of the Holy Spirit Movement in Northern Ugandan which combines Christianity and traditional beliefs. The LRA started to advance towards Kampala in the late 1980's after Musevini ejected a Northern leader, Okello, out of office in 1986.
When you consider the LRA's tactics including the abduction of children to be used as child soldiers, rape, murder and mutilation. Victims eyes, mouths and ears were often cut off so they could not see or hear the attrocities that were being committed around them or so that they could not tell the authorities (Aboke Girls, de Temmerman). And for years the Ugandan government did nothing about it, until it launched a military operation in 2008 which all but exiled the LRA in Sudan, the DRC and the Central African Republic.
If you haven't seen "Kony 2012" it is a 30 minute film by the organization Invisible Children demanding immediate action in Western countries to demand that Kony be arrested by any means necessary.
I agree that Kony must be stopped, but they are leaving out some information you might care to know.
The first point of the video that I would like to challenge is that the "LRA uses girls as sex slaves and boys as child soldiers." In fact this is a very gendered take on the LRA where both boys and girls are used as child soldiers AND both boys and girls are used as sex slaves, although girls are the more common victim (Aboke Girls, de Temmerman AND They Fight Like Soldiers and Die Like Children, Dallaire). Children are also used to cook, care for wounded soldiers and to carry equipment.
The second point is that Kony has no clear objective which I've already addressed.
Third, the movie claims that Kony enjoys no international support, when in fact he is known to have received direct support from the government of Sudan and from AlQaeda (U.S. Exclusion List for Terrorist Organizations AND The Lords Resistance Army, Myth and Reality).
Fourth, the movie fails to acknowledge that the LRA has not been active in Northern Uganda since at least 2008 and that they now operate in North-Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic (Dancing in the Glory of Monsters, Stearns). That's where the movie falls apart. The U.S. did send 100 troops to Uganda to support UPDF (read Ugandan army) operations against the LRA, but since they aren't in Uganda, the operation also requires support from Congolese and CAR troops. I don't know much about the CAR but I do know that the Congolese Army does not have the capacity to hunt down Kony (I wrote my M.A. Thesis on the DRC so I'm not including a citation here if you want to read my thesis you can google my name).
And one might also ask why the group is supporting the use of a military solution at all considering the fact that the Ugandan Army has also been accused of using Child Soldiers, not repatriating returned abductees with their families and committing rape, as has the Congolese army.
I'm also concerned about the treatment of the subject of Child Soldiers by the film. First as my colleague Tanja Bergen points out, the fact they are showing video clips of a young Jacob crying over the loss of his brother, at an age where he could not have consented to be in the video is highly questionable from a research ethics standpoint. The second thing is that the movie oversimplifies what happens to returned child soldiers. Child soldiers who are rescued or escape are rarely able to return to their homes either because their parents were killed or because of the shame that their actions have brought to their families and communities. If these former abductees are lucky, they get to participate in a rehabilitation program led by UNICEF, Save the Children or War Child but many don't and their families and communities simply don't have the resources to support them (They Fight Like Soldiers and they Die Like Children, Dallaire). On another point you might notice that while the film focuses on the use of Child Soldiers it discusses the other atrocities committed by the LRA very little. This is likely because they would have to acknowledge the the abducted children are forced to kill, rape and mutilate their family members and others which makes them "Victim-perpetrators" which means that they were forced to commit crimes through their victimization and were revictimized through the process. And of course, that would just confuse people... (?)
As a fundraiser last year, I learned that sometimes it was better to have less knowledge on an organization to try to get people to support it because it raised fewer questions and made it simpler to explain, and perhaps that's what Invisible Children is going for.
When Amnesty International runs advocacy campaigns, they do not ask for money anywhere in the body of their campaign. However the fundraising component of this campaign is quite apparent as they indicate that in order to receive an advocacy kit that one must commit to making monthly donations. What is particularly worrisome about that is that the campaign targets you people who are least able to make that form of commitment. As my friend Jesse points out Invisible Children has never been externally audited and has other questionable rankings as a charitable organization.
Any reputable add campaign should promote activism before donations. Full Stop.
Although I think that the rhetoric the movie uses and the methods it is suggesting for activism are interesting and relatively effective I am also going to take a moment to cover on some of the theoretical underpinnings that bug me about the film.
First, I find it highly problematic that the film focuses on a small white child to try to help viewers relate to the plight of child soldiers. Although the kid is cute I think this undermines the viewers compassion and their capacity to understand that childhood should have universal norms.
The second problem that I think is more significant is that there is no discussion of what the victims of the LRA would like to see happen. Many of the former heads of the LRA have been subject to amnesty laws and have participated in traditional peace processes. Although I would personally love to see Kony tried in front of the International Criminal Court, I am not certain that, that is what most of Northern Ugandan's want.
To conclude, I would like to point out the almost complete absence of the voices of Northern Ugandans in the video which I think is its biggest flaw.
Joseph Kony must be stopped, together we can do something about it.
Like the video suggests, you can send your MP or Prime Minister Harper/Obama or whoever your leader is a letter, you can organize a march, put up posters and spread the word. But you can do that without Invisible Children, and certainly without donating to them.
If you want to watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc
If you would like to read about the Norther War I would recommend reading "The Aboke Girls" or referring to War Child's Website.
If you would like to read more about Child Soldier's you can read "They Fight like Soldiers and Die Like Children" by Romeo Dalliare
If you would like to read about Justice in East Africa you can read "Drink the Bitter Root.
If you would like to send me an email I can be reached at k_van_houten@hotmail.com
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