Should We Be Making Kony Famous?

Kony 2012. Make Kony Famous. Last week, all our emotions were aroused with a persuasive, pathos-ridden video convincing us to take a war criminal out of the world. Great idea, right?! We should give all our savings to Invisible Children to stop this man with his army of 30,000 innocent children! Well, yes, that would be great, if the things presented in the video were not skewed to confuse us and toy with our emotions. Now, don't get me wrong, I am so glad my generation is finally becoming more aware of the world around us, I just don't think we should be following a movement like lemmings just because we watched a video with inspiring music. I believe we should do our research before we jump headfirst into something. 


First of all, we should be looking into the organization called Invisible Children who put out this video. You can look up charities & see how much money they actually give to their cause, the best are those with a 10% overhead and 90% of their funds go to the cause. With Invisible Children, however, only 30% goes to Uganda. This is partly because they spend a lot on raising awareness & travel to Africa, but a lot also goes to the individuals on the board of Invisible Children. There are better charities for the same (or very similar) cause. Also, we should be looking into the statistics on Kony himself. Yes, Joseph Kony is a horrible, cold-hearted man. He lies to the world, saying he is fighting for a "Christian cause", when, in fact, he is a witch doctor. He kills thousands, also true. But does he have an army of 30,000 innocent children ready to charge and take control of the world? No. That is an estimated total of those children who have been in his army in the last 26 years. It's definitely still horrible, but didn't Invisible Children's video manipulate you to think there were 30,000 in his army right now? They did for me, when I first watched the video. This leads into my tertiary point, which is the manipulation of our emotions by Invisible Children through this video. Truth is, the pathos (emotional pleas) and inspirational music in the video were pointed at our generation because the charity knows how they can manipulate our emotions. Yes, Kony needs to be dealt with. Of course he does. However, Joseph Kony has been in hiding since 2006! The video didn't say anything about this. WE must stop this man, yes, but, for the moment, he has stopped.


My point here is, we should look into things before we allow ourselves to buy into them , At the heart of this movement is a huge gold nugget, despite the truth-twisting in the video. This gold nugget, worth so much to the world, is the new found awareness and good intentions of my generation, which, before this movement, had little to no interest in the problems of the world. Now that a seed of awareness has been planted in their hearts, I have high hopes that my generation will open their eyes to the world around them.

The Internet Can Save The World

The world is messed up, yes. You want to help, yes. But do you have the time or money to do huge advocacy programs or donate a huge amount? If you do, that's great! But most people in the current economy are unable to spare much money, and that's where the internet comes in. Many charitable organizations have websites that can help you with your awareness and advocacy. For example, freerice.com can donate rice meals to people without food with you merely expanding your vocabulary a little. The Action Center of the World Wildlife Fund's website will give you form letters that you can add your information to and you can advocate for things you believe in. These links can help you open your horizons to new things you can do for the world.