Kony 2012 As Viewed From East Africa

March 26, 2012

If youve been on the internet at all in the past few weeks, you have
probably noticed a lot of talk over the recent Kony 2012 video by the charity
Invisible Children. This thirty-minute viral video attempts to create a grass-roots
movement of Americans to act out and advocate for the capture of a
ruthless African warlord named Joseph Kony. Kony, who is already a well-known
figure in East Africa, has led a military group known as the Lords Republican
(LRA) army for over twenty years. The LRA is responsible for the abduction of
children, rape, torture, and some of the most horrific human rights atrocities
imaginable. If you havent seen Kony 2012 yet, you should watch it. Its worth the
viewing and sheds important light on this issue.
As its creators hoped it would, Kony 2012 went viral and was viewed by
millions of people, creating an unprecedented buzz for the charity. Unfortunately
Invisible Children and their main spokesperson and the videos director Jason
Russell, Kony 2012 also generated an unprecedented backlash against him
and his charity. Among the main accusations levelled against the video from
critics in the US, Europe, and more significantly East Africa, was that the video
oversimplifies a very complex issue and reinforces the harmful notion of a white
savior complex.
As if all this wasnt interesting enough, several weeks after the video first
went live, Russell was detained by San Diego police following an episode that
found him stripped nude and ranting incoherently in public in what one can only
assume to be a psychotic break brought about by the stress of withstanding the
virulent, and often personal attacks that characterized the backlash. It was a
cruel touch of irony. The same channels that enabled Kony 2012 to go viral and
be seen by millions of people, internet video and social media, also meant that
amateur cell phone videos of Russells naked breakdown were quickly spread
around the internet and seen all over the world.
So what does this all mean for the future of Invisible Children? As
someone who is in the same line of work as the filmmakers behind Kony 2012, I
am still trying to figure this out myself. Without delving too deeply into the
complexities of the argument around this viral video or its creators breakdown in
the space of this column, the best I can do is offer my genuine reaction as both a
humanitarian filmmaker and a resident of East Africa.
While I am impressed by the videos ambition, I take issue with certain
things I feel Kony 2012 gets wrong. Firstly, the idea that any problem
facing Africans can so easily be reduced to a matter of good versus evil. This is
generally a harmful over-simplification that has the potential to provoke knee-jerk
responses. Secondly, the idea that it is okay to over-simplify a complex issue in
order to garner widespread awareness is tricky territory for charities. While

charities cant expect the public to be interested in dry, academic dissections of

the issues theyre trying to address, they also have to weigh the long-term
consequences of gross oversimplifications. Problems arise when charities make
implicit promises of radical change to their donors if this change fails to
materialize as easily as their campaigns suggest. Thirdly, and this is what
perhaps bothers critics in Africa the most, is the notion that it is a moral duty of
Americans to intervene and provide solutions for problems that exist so far
outside their own country and culture. While I actually believe this impulse comes
from a genuine desire to do good in the world, we too often ignore our own
ignorance of other countries at the peril of the very people were trying to help.
In their quest to reach as wide an audience as possible, my concern is
that filmmakers like Russell ignored these concepts without considering the
implications. Though I completely understand and commend their reasoning for
making the film the way they did (after all, what charity wouldnt love to have over
100 million views of a video in the first week alone), I happen to disagree with it.
If living in Africa has taught me anything it has taught me that its
dangerous to start oversimplifying African issues in order to make them fit into an
American perspective. It has also taught me to accept that I can never
understand the issues facing Africas inhabitants better than Africans themselves.
Few things upset people in Africa more than foreigners who come to the
continent and immediately start trying to solve problems without first taking the
time to understand the inherent complexities. Finally, as tempting as it may be to
our own egos to think so, living in Africa has taught me that we Westerners were
not sent here on a mission to save Africa from its problems. For those who arent
strong in world history Africans have had a bit of a problem with this kind of
thinking in the past (see European Colonialism: 19th and 20th Century).
So while there will be a lot of immature name-calling, thinly veiled antiAmericanism, and feigned world-weary cynicism in the scathing attacks directed
at the Kony 2012 video, if you read through enough of them you will also find
some very well-balanced and rational criticisms of what was, I believe, a wellmeaning video that was made by people who have simply failed to learn key
lessons.
Interestingly enough, the best of these criticisms arent coming from
cynical aid workers and expatriates like myself. Theyre coming from young
Africans who are tired of seeing their countries and cultures reduced to a cause
that foreigners feel they must rally around and save. Lets hope that one of the
unintended successes of Kony 2012 that it brings these new voices to the
forefront and makes them part of future discussions.