Kony 2012

A video was released last week by Invisible Children called Kony 2012 - perhaps you've heard of it.  Either that or you live under a rock.  The instant success of the online film, and the subsequent public mental breakdown of its creator, Jason Russell, fascinate me.  The public discourse intrigues me even more.  Across the world, people are not just talking about the Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony, and his army of child soldiers.  They are not just talking about the atrocities he's committed or his position as the International Criminal Court's most wanted human rights abuser.  They are also talking about the morality of a documentary that is deemed decidedly simplistic and narrow in its aim and content.  They are also asking the conversation to allow for nuance and critique.  The film proposes U.S. military intervention to arrest Kony, whom the filmmaker calls the "bad guy."  Is this the solution to Uganda's ills?  Is this the task of young people today?

Not just because of its far-reaching effects but also because of its various assumptions, Kony 2012 is quite complex in its simplicity.  It seeks to mobilize young people across the world in a very basic way - with social media, posters, and bracelets that say "Kony 2012," so that this man might be truly infamous, so that the world might know his name, his face, and his crimes.  Then, and only then, the argument goes, will he be arrested and will all the child soldiers be able to "return to their families."  I am not surprised that the mission of Invisible Children is best captured in a film - it is a mission that seems more Hollywood than anything else.

Like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, or any number of other fantasy movies that I love oh-so-much, Kony 2012 proposes the elimination of one man, a man termed the "bad guy" and even directly equated with the bad guys from Star Wars.  Never could I disagree that Kony is a bad guy, the villian in the story of the kidnapping, oppression, and killing of thousands of Ugandan children.  If the ICC says he's bad, he's got to be bad.  But aren't other things bad too?  Things like former British colonialism in Uganda, the evangelization of patronizing Christian missionaries, and the fact that over a million Ugandans are currently HIV positive?  I know very little about Ugandans or their daily lives.  But I do know that the removal of one man from a position of authority cannot be a fix-all.  I do know that military intervention is never the solution I seek.

I also struggle to fully support Kony 2012 because it places young Americans in the role of Superman instead of Jesus Christ.  By simply wearing a bracelet, a t-shirt, or plastering posters up in the middle of the night, the young college student is made to feel good and feel like a true changemaker.  "I am helping poor Africans," the student is invited to think.  "Every life is worth the same, and I am showing that to the world."  Then, this student can go back to her dorm room, to her Range Rover, to her designer clothes, without ever interacting with the poor or marginalized.  Her worldview never has to change, her heart never has to be cracked open.  Kony 2012 allows students to become activists without even meeting, or loving, the people for whom they advocate.  And worst of all, the student is left believing that she is, and has always been, a part of the solution.  Kony is the problem, and she is not.  This is not what my faith invites me to, not at all.  

The Kony 2012 video points out that, because of globalization and social media, we are all more connected than ever.  What it doesn't want to also acknowledge is that this very globalization puts US citizens on the side of the oppressor.  We buy cell phones or laptops made with conflict minerals like coltan that currently fuel violent conflict in central Africa.  We buy diamonds with the same story.  We throw away food while Ugandans starve.  Sorry Invisible Children, but I cannot put on a magic bracelet and pretend to be Superman against the evil Kony.  My radical work of social justice from a Christian perspective must begin with confession - confession that leads to incarnational suffering.  The more I understand that I am a perpetrator, the more I seek to side with those I have indirectly or directly oppressed.

The social justice work that I invite young students into at USD, though I usually fail, is about humble listening, radical relationship, and true solidarity.  I believe that students (and I) need to enter into the lives of the marginalized over and over again, so that our hearts can break.  Do I hope that Kony 2012 succeeds in capturing a man who has caused so much suffering?  Absolutely.  But my deeper hope is that students can then put down the posters, the bracelets, the dualism of good and evil, the Superman mentality, and the idea that the military can bring about peace.  It is my wild and impossible hope that Kony 2012 can invite students to reflect not on how they can save others but on how they too need to be saved.  And salvation can only come with humble confession and relationships of solidarity.  No 30 minute video can do that...