TDR Comment: Uganda Is Too Sexy Reflections on Kony 2012

Author(s): Laura Edmondson

Source: TDR (1988-) , Fall 2012, Vol. 56, No. 3 (Fall 2012), pp. 10-17
Published by: The MIT Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23262931

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

The MIT Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to TDR (1988-
)

This content downloaded from

149.129.105.108 on Wed, 30 Dec 2020 07:02:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Uganda Is Too Sexy

Comment Reflections on Kony 2012

Laura Edmondson

In my African theatre class, I often

show a video entitled This Magnificent African Cake (1997) in order to provide the students with
context about the colonization of the African continent in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Africanist historian Basil Davidson's narrative includes a brief mention of an 1894 Punch car
toon, "The Black Baby," which depicts Uganda as an abandoned infant left at the doorstep of a
befuddled and bowlegged John Bull. As European governments and monarchies scrambled for
the "cake" of neighboring Sudan, the Congo, and Kenya, the cartoon implies that Uganda was
forgotten—a helpless child cast at the feet of its generous white savior, who exclaims, "What,
another!!—Well, I suppose I must take it in!!!" (Punch Limited 1894).
The obvious racism of this image aside, my students undoubtedly find this cartoon puzzling
given that Uganda is one of the few African countries that is, relatively speaking, not forgotten.
Thanks in part to the 2006 feature film The Last King of Scotland, students have often heard of
Idi Amin, whose reign of terror in the 1970s led to the deaths of 100,000 to 500,000 Ugandans
(Human Rights Watch 2003). Thanks in part to student-awareness campaigns that the San
Diego-based nonprofit Invisible Children, Inc., has launched since 2006, they've probably
heard of Joseph Kony and his insurgency group the Lord's Resistance Army, which decimated
northern Uganda from the late 1980s up until 2007 before taking refuge in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic (CAR), and what is now South
Sudan. And, thanks to the reprehensible legislation introduced by Ugandan MP David Bahati
in 2009 that calls for the death penalty for people convicted of "aggravated homosexuality" as
well as the murder of Ugandan LGBT activist David Kato in 2011, they've definitely heard of
the "kill the gays bill."1 In 2006, a publicity firm hired by the Ugandan government coined the
slogan, "Uganda: Gifted by Nature," with the aim of helping the country compete more effec
tively for its share of the international tourist market in East Africa, long dominated by neigh
boring Tanzania and Kenya (Mukisa 2007). Considering that David Kato and Joseph Kony
have become international household names while Uganda's scenic Rwenzori mountains and
Murchison Falls languish in relative obscurity, one is tempted to substitute the phrase, "Uganda:
Marked by Trauma and Repression." This particular brand has achieved a startling amount of
success—in terms of symbolic capital if not tourist dollars.
Even Broadway cannot resist Uganda's cachet. The 2011 hit musical The Book of Mormon fol
lows two Mormon missionaries to a village in northern Uganda where they attempt to win con
verts despite the violent intervention of the nefarious warlord General Butt Fucking Naked.2 In

1.
1. In
In February
February2012,
2012,the
the
bill
bill
was
was
reintroduced
reintroduced
although
although
Bahati
Bahati
says that
says the
thatdeath
the death
penaltypenalty
provision
provision
will be dropped
will be dropped
(Chongaile2012).
(Chongaile 2012).
2.
2. Evidently
Evidentlydetermining
determiningthat
that
Joseph
Joseph
Kony's
Kony's
name
name
did not
did lend
not lend
itselfitself
to comic
to comic
effect,effect,
writerswriters
Matt Stone
Mattand
Stone
Treyand Trey
Parker
Parker turned
turnedtotorecent
recentLiberian
Liberian
history
history
andand
named
named
the character
the character
after after
General
General
Butt Naked,
Butt Naked,
the nickname
the nickname
of of
Roosevelt
RooseveltJohnson,
Johnson,a amilitia
militialeader
leader
in the
in the
First
First
Liberian
Liberian
CivilCivil
War of
War
1989—1996.
of 1989—1996.

Laura Edmondson is Associate Professor of Theater at Dartmouth College. For the 2012/13 academic
year; she will be based at Makerere University in Uganda as a Fulbright Scholar. Her publications on
East African performance include Performance and Politics in Tanzania: The Nation on Stage (Indiana
(j University Press, 2007). Her current book project explores transnational narratives of violence in
& Uganda, Rwanda, and the DRC. laura.edmondson@dartmouth.edu
P
TDR: The Drama Review 56:3 (T215) Fall 2012. ©2012
10 New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

This content downloaded from

149.129.105.108 on Wed, 30 Dec 2020 07:02:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
one of the more memorable songs, "Hasa Diga Eebowai," the Ugandans revel in their suffer
ing as they recount a litany of exaggerated horrors including rampant female circumcision, an
AIDS infection rate of 80 percent, infant rape, and starvation. Through a satirical deconstruc
tion of the romanticized image of Africa in the 1994 Walt Disney film The Lion King, Uganda in
The Book of Mormon is transformed into the land of trauma par excellence. As a Ugandan chorus
cheerfully sings: "If you don't like what we say / Try living here a couple of days! / Watch all
your friends and family die!" (Wikia 2011).3 As depicted by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, Ugan
dans eat trauma for breakfast.

As if Uganda's place in the international limelight wasn't already assured, Kony 2012 hit
the YouTubesphere on 5 March 2012 and went on to become "the most viral video in his
tory" (Wasserman 2012). The video, which was created by Invisible Children, Inc., calls for
the continued presence of 100 US troops in Uganda, who arrived in October 2011 to assist
the Ugandan army in tracking down Kony. Like many of Invisible Children's advocacy tech
niques, the video was familiar in its self-aggrandizing, sensationalist, and oversimplified rep
resentations of the complexities of conflict and post-conflict Uganda. Decidedly less familiar
was the sustained and rigorous critique of the video that permeated the media, which primar
ily attacked Invisible Children but also touched upon the realities of present day Uganda.4
Although the organization's stated aim was to make Kony famous, I would argue that Uganda
played a costarring role in the film and that its cup of symbolic capital overflowed. From aban
doned baby to Tony-award winning Broadway musical to the most viewed viral video in history:
You go, Uganda!
Of course, it's an easy jump from the "The Black Baby" to The Book of Mormon and Kony
2012. In all three representations, Uganda serves as a convenient terrain for formations of the
white Christian male self. In an especially incisive critique of Kony 2012, Elliot Ross argues
that Invisible Children "comes directly out of a missionary tradition of American evangeli
cism that has been growing more and more obsessed with Uganda for years." He explains that
in a historical moment when Africans themselves are increasingly calling the shots in an inter
national evangelical movement, "any would-be American missionaries who fancy themselves
as adventurers need to find new kinds of mission work, new ways of making themselves rele
vant to African societies like Uganda when converting people no longer makes sense as a pri
mary goal" (Ross 2012). The overtly Christian rhetoric of Kevin Russell, a founder of Invisible
Children and director of Kony 2012, as well as the substantial funding that the organization
receives from evangelical Christian organizations, resonate with what Charles Piot (2010) terms
a post-postcolonial society in which religious institutions and NGOs are filling the gaps left in
African states weakened by neoliberal reform. We move from the bowlegged John Bull to nerdy
missionaries to virile Californians carrying out a new version of the scramble for Africa. In each
incarnation Uganda is infantilized, and whatTeju Cole (2012) calls the "White Savior Industrial
Complex" runs amuck.
But why Uganda, when so many other enticing traumas in the region beckon for White
Saviors of their own? I could analyze Invisible Children's representations of Uganda through
the lens of what Didier Fassin and Richard Rechtman have called the empire of trauma (2009),

3. Lyrics are available at http://lyrics.wikia.c0m/Michael_P0tts:Hasa_Diga_Eeb0wai, and a recording of the song can

be heard at www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IjBileEaAA.

4. Some of the most useful critiques that I found include Tavia Nyong'o's posting, "Inaudible Children" (2012);
Jack Bratich's "The Rise of the Flashpublics: My Little Kony" (2012); and Mahmood Mamdani's "What Jason H
Didn't Tell Gavin and Other Critiques of Invisible Children" (2012). As this article was going to press, Amanda a
»
Taub launched a new ebook, Beyond #Kony2012: Atrocity, Awareness, and Activism in the Internet Age (2012), r>
o
which includes a range of academic and journalistic critiques of the Kony 2012 phenomenon. I refer to other use 3
ful critiques (such as Cole 2012) in the body of the essay itself. 3

11

This content downloaded from

149.129.105.108 on Wed, 30 Dec 2020 07:02:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 which I define as a neoliberal world order in which trauma serves as currency. Humanitarian
narratives provide crucial access to the empire of trauma through the definition of subjectiv
ity as victimhood. Uganda's prominence in the empire's gaze could be attributed to the theatri
cality of the LRA as well as the deceptive simplicity of the conflict. The graphic brutality of the
LRA's tactics, which include mutilations and mass abductions of both children and adults,5 has
provided an abundance of entry points into the empire through the proliferation of victim tes
timonies. In addition, unlike civil wars in the DRC and South Sudan, the LRA was not bogged
down by the presence of competing insurgencies on the northern Ugandan landscape and thus
was more easily digested by the international media. One could also point to Joseph Kony's
possibly prescient decision to call his insurgency group the Lord's Resistance Army in light
of the bewildering acronyms of other regional insurgencies, ranging from the FDLR to the
CNDP to the SSDM.6 Simpler is sexier. And the empire loves sexy.
But Uganda's recent surge in fame complicates this interpretation of the country's posi
tion in the empire of trauma. In an interview with Stone and Parker about The Book of Mormon,
Terry Gross asked, in effect, the very question that is haunting this essay—why Uganda?
Stone's response not only included the expected litany of African stereotypes but also veered
into some unexpected territory:

We just wanted it to be that place that you always read about [...] where it's just that place
you go, can this place get a break? You know, they have earthquakes and then cholera
and then a warlord, you know, and then a famine and then, you know, no water. And you
know, it was just supposed to be that place. And we settled on Uganda honestly because
they speak English there. So that seemed one, like, less leap to make. And we setded on
Northern Uganda, which has had a humanitarian crisis of its own, and it borders Congo
and the Sudan. So really it was kind of a bunch of different things that brought us to that.
We didn't start with Uganda. It's supposed to be just [that] generic, war-torn worst-place
on-Earth that where, if you are from Utah, nothing [...] makes any sense when you get
there. (Stone and Parker 2011)

The inarticulateness of his response speaks to Uganda's ambiguous position in the empire
of trauma. Uganda is often characterized as a semi-authoritarian state; that is, President Yoweri
Museveni's government allows certain civil and political liberties but arbitrarily, and capri
ciously, cracks down on those same liberties. In an analogous light, could Uganda be consid
ered a semi-traumatized state? In Museveni's Uganda: Paradoxes of Power in a Hybrid Regime, Aili
Mari Tripp (2010) argues that Uganda should be understood as a hybrid state that embraces
the contradictory impulses of authoritarianism and democracy. Taking a cue from Tripp, I've
begun to think of Uganda as a hybrid state poised between "traumatized" and "tame": as semi
traumatized, tainted with just enough trauma to make it tantalizing but not so much to make it
disturbing. The "epistemic murk" (Taussig 1987) of the turmoil in bordering South Sudan and
the DRC is too extreme, whereas Tanzania and Kenya are too tame. Even better—Ugandans
speak English, making it all the easier to understand their (post-conflict) tales of woe. And all
the easier for the Euroamerican Christian male to indulge in his navel-gazing formations of self.

5. See Blaatman and Annan (2010) for a detailed analysis of LRA tactics that helps to clarify the extent of abduc
tion in northern Uganda as well as the experiences of the abductees during captivity. Although the statistics that
they provide are extremely disturbing—for example, they state that "55 percent of abducted youth report that
abductees were often or sometimes forced to beat or kill new arrivals" (140) — their findings also serve as a much
needed corrective to the sensationalist and exaggerated portrayals of the LRA in the international media.
s
E 6. The FDLR, the French acronym for the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, is based in the eastern
o
U DRC; the CNDP, another French acronym for the National Congress for the Defense of the People, is also based
04 in the eastern DRC; SSDM stands for the South Sudan Democratic Movement.
Q
H

12

This content downloaded from

149.129.105.108 on Wed, 30 Dec 2020 07:02:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Consider, for example, the much debated point that Kony 2012's extensive use of outdated
footage gives the impression that the LRA is still present in Uganda. The film does include
a four-second clip that depicts the LRA as a red cloud moving out of Uganda into the DRC,
South Sudan, and the CAR, followed by Russell's voiceover reference to Uganda as "relatively
safe." We also see that the frightened young boy from northern Uganda named Jacob Acaye
has grown into a smiling, apparently well-adjusted young man. I'm less interested, though, in
the clarity (or lack thereof) of the film regarding the LRA's current whereabouts than in the
filmmakers' reluctance to delve into the complexities of the LRA's presence in neighboring
countries. Why didn't Invisible Children attempt to make an even stronger emotional impact
through the inclusion of testimonies or photographs of, for example, an alleged LRA attack in
northeastern Congo in 2009, which Human Rights Watch calls "one of the largest single mas
sacres in the LRA's 2 3-year history" (2010)? Is this footage too raw, too disturbing, not yet
"semi" enough?
Ugandan responses to the video could be understood as a staunch refusal of the "trauma
tized" label. Amama Mbabazi, the Ugandan prime minister, posted a YouTube video response
to Kony 2012 whose primary point is that the LRA is no longer in Uganda, which is now a
"modern, developing country, which enjoys peace, stability, and security" (YouTube.com 2012).
Although Ugandan journalist and blogger Rosebell Kagumire's widely viewed response is
far more complex and nuanced in her critique of the neocolonial underpinnings of the film,
she also emphasizes that the film does not depict the "tremendous" improvement in north
ern Uganda, where "people are back at home, children are going to school [...I]t's about post
conflict recovery" (Kagumire 2012). The formal, relatively stiff Mbabazi signifies the Ugandan
establishment whereas the charismatic, dreadlocked Kagumire suggests a youthful, more grass
roots perspective; both, however, are united in their attempt to reclaim Uganda from the
clutches of Invisible Children.

This dynamic is vividly at play in another widely publicized Ugandan response to Kony 2012
that was documented by A1 Jazeera. Journalist Malcolm Webb attended a public screening of
the film in Lira, a town in one of the districts that was directly affected by the LRA conflict.
As depicted in a video posted on the A1 Jazeera blog on 14 March 2012, the screening was shut
down due to the angry response of the northern Ugandan spectators, some of whom threw
stones at the screen. The A1 Jazeera video also includes brief clips of Lira residents responding
to the film. "It celebrates our suffering," explains one former LRA abductee with the last name
of Odongo.7 An unidentified spectator at the screening expresses anger against "some kind of
NGO [that is] trying to mobilize funds using the atrocities committed in northern Uganda!"
Both of these responses indicate an awareness of how their suffering has been appropriated
for Invisible Children's gain. The last individual to speak in the video expresses a more blunt
desire to see the representation of Lira's violent past; he exclaims that "we wanted to see how
our local people were killed but these are all white men in the film, they are different from
northern Ugandans!" In a broadcast of the A1 Jazeera footage on the Ugandan network NTV,
Victor Ochen of the Lira-based NGO African Youth Initiative Network, which organized the
screening of Kony 2012, seems to dismiss the complexity and range of these responses when he
explains that the organization is withdrawing the video from public screenings "in order not to
keep retraumatizing [the victims]" (NTV Uganda 2012).8 It is startlingly clear that the Lira res
idents were not "retraumatized," they were simply and defiantly angry about a current world

7. The survivor's first name was not intelligible on the video.

8. This broadcast was posted on YouTube.com on 14 March 2012; available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=

H
PJYisE8vjv4. It should be noted that the NTV broadcast oversimplifies Ochen's perspective; see Kagumire and O
W
Smith (2012) for a fuller discussion of Ochen's decision to cancel additional screenings of Kony 2012. See also n
o
Ochen's posting on 10 March 2012, "A War Victim's Opinion on Invisible Children's Kony 2012," on www 3
.africanyouthinitiative.org. 3
CD
3
rt

13

This content downloaded from

149.129.105.108 on Wed, 30 Dec 2020 07:02:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 order that sensationalizes, appropriates, and oversimplifies their past. The film's attempt to
brand them as traumatized was met with the throwing of stones.
As the Lira spectator's comment about "mobilized] funds" indicates, the appropriation of
financial capital is of paramount concern. Once Mbabazi completes his long-winded explana
tion that the LRA is most emphatically not in Uganda, he announces that the Lonely Planet
travel book series named Uganda the number one place to visit in 2012. This moment marks
an attempt to take the money that currently flows to Invisible Children and other humanitarian
NGOs based outside of Uganda and redirect it to Ugandan state and local economies as tour
ist revenue. Mbabazi goes on to explain that he personally "tweeted" the 20 celebrities targeted
by Invisible Children to join the Kony 2012 campaign. His invitation to "show them the beauty
of our country and the warmth of our people" perhaps overlooks the point that Uganda's sta
tus as semi-traumatized is what helped to propel it to the top of Lonely Planet's list in the first
place. As explained in a posting on the Lonely Planet website: "This list of the top 10 coun
tries for 2012 —in ranked order—was voted for by a panel of in-house travel experts, based
on topicality, excitement, value and that special X-factor" (Lonelyplanet.com 2011). In other
words—Gifted by Trauma (But Not Too Much).
Uganda's sexiness in the eyes of empire blots out more urgent situations in the Congo,
South Sudan, and the CAR. These three countries, which the media commonly strings together
as the current locations in which the LRA operates, might be perceived as collectively con
signed to the "traumatized" end of the humanitarian scale. For the BBC article "Joseph Kony
Victims Back Online Campaign," James Copnall interviewed residents of the Makpandu refugee
camp in Western Equatoria, a state in South Sudan that borders northern Uganda, to gauge the
reactions of recent victims of LRA violence. The Congolese and South Sudanese refugees inter
viewed by the BBC hadn't watched Kony 2012, but Copnall's article indicates that they're rel
atively unconcerned about the specifics of the film and the politics of representation—they're
simply keen to see Kony arrested so that they can return home. Unlike their semi-traumatized
(though desperately poor) peers in Lira, the refugees and internally displaced in Western Equa
toria do not have the luxury of expressing their anger against a system that so thoroughly works
against them, due to the risk of alienating a potential source of capital — symbolic or otherwise.
What I find especially intriguing about Copnall's article, though, is that it reveals one of the
empire's blind spots. That blind spot is the CAR, a country that receives only passing notice in
the article despite its focus on the damage wreaked by the LRA outside of northern Uganda.
Although Copnall mentions that CAR refugees also stayed in Makpandu, only the statements
of South Sudanese and Congolese appear in the article. Similarly, voices and testimonies from
the CAR are strikingly absent from the international humanitarian and human rights landscape.
Despite its own recent history of unspeakable violence that includes the mass rape and killing
of men, women, and children by local insurgency and counter-insurgency forces in addition to
Kony's army,9 the CAR is arguably the most "invisible" player in the LRA saga. The DRC did,
after all, make it to off-Broadway in Lynn Nottage's 2009 Ruined-, meanwhile, South Sudan has
George Clooney and the photogenic human rights advocate John Prendergrast of the Enough
Project on its side.10 While the DRC and South Sudan indeed seem to qualify as "traumatized,"
the Central African Republic doesn't even register on the scale.

9. See Marlies Glasius (2009) for a more detailed discussion of the atrocities suffered by the civilian population of
the CAR during the 2002-2003 conflict between President Ange-Felix Patasse's forces and an insurgency led by
Francois Bozize. She writes, "Rape of both women and men was particularly prevalent on the Patasse side, while
killings, maltreatment, and pillage were committed by both sides" (51). Another spate of violence occurred from
2005—2007 in the wake of two new rebellions in the northeast and northwest. In tandem with my own observa
tion about CAR's invisibility in the eyes of empire, Glasius notes that the CAR remains "an extraordinarily iso
lated country, relatively small and neglected by international agencies and international NGOs alike" (65).

10. See enoughproject.org for an introduction to the advocacy work of Prendergrast and Clooney. See also wronging
rights.com and africasacountry.com for critiques of their approaches.

14

This content downloaded from

149.129.105.108 on Wed, 30 Dec 2020 07:02:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Beyond Famous, Invisible Children's online video sequel to Kony 2012, underscores the arbi
trariness of empire (Invisible Children 2012b). Advance publicity promised that the sequel
would include "more voices from the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic
of the Congo" (Smith 2012). Not surprisingly, this promise translated to an abundance of testi
mony from Ugandans with more limited footage and testimony from the DRC and brief foot
age of the 2008 peace talks in the former southern Sudan. Interestingly, CAR nationals do
appear in the film—Arthur Zoungagbe briefly discusses the ways in which his radio broad
casts persuaded an LRA combatant to surrender, and an unidentified young woman, who had
been forced to become one of Kony's "wives," explains that Invisible Children fliers promis
ing amnesty encouraged her to escape. What is striking, though, is that I was only able to iden
tify these people as CAR nationals through additional searching on the internet.11 Whereas
Congolese or Sudanese locations are usually identified as such when they appear onscreen, the
CAR does not even merit a subtitle. This omission could be explained as an oversight consider
ing the haste with which the sequel was put together, but it also speaks to the extreme invisibil
ity—that is, the non-seeableness—of the CAR. Peggy Phelan asks, "How does our blindness to
the opacity of the not-seen frame our experience of the visual?" (2003:293). Phelan's use of the
term "not-seen" instead of "unseen" suggests a deliberate force of negation. Given the extremi
ties of violence that the people of the CAR have suffered and their sustained exclusion from the
international stage, the possibility of intentional oversight does not seem far-fetched.
The question that lingers is how the "trauma ratings" of the CAR, South Sudan, and the
DRC will be affected in the aftermath of Kony 2012. In particular, I find myself dwelling on the
question of the CAR: I anticipate that the legacy of the LRA will serve as that country's ticket
to admission into the empire of trauma and thus endow the country with an "X factor" rating
of its own. At the risk of sounding like an apologist for the White Savior Industrial Complex,
I'd like to return to the image of the Punch cartoon and suggest that in the empire of trauma,
infantilization is a more viable alternative than invisibility. I write this with the full realization
that visibility and the commodification of suffering go hand in hand, that testimonies of human
rights violations afford an extremely limited form of subjectivity, and that symbolic capital does
not necessarily translate into the material capital that the majority of the CAR population so
desperately needs. But to enter the empire of trauma is to begin to manipulate its considerable
resources for one's own purposes and ends. You go, CAR. I for one will cheer it on. Well, maybe
not cheer.

References

Blaatman, Chris, and Jeannie Annan. 2010. "On the Nature and Causes of LRA Abduction: What the
Abductees Say." In The Lord's Resistance Army. Myth and Reality, eds. Tim Allen and Koen Vlassenroot,
132-55. London: Zed Books.

Boswell, Alan. 2012. "Joseph Kony: 2 Rare, Firsthand Views." The Seattle Times, 8 March. http://seattletimes
.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2017703 762_konyprofile09.html (20 April).

Bratich, Jack. 2012. "The Rise of the Flashpublics: My Little Kony." Counterpunch, 13 March, www
.counterpunch.org/2012/03/13/my-little-kony/ (20 April).

Chongaile, Clar Ni. 2012. "Uganda Anti-Gay Bill Resurrected in Parliament." The Guardian, 8 February.
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/08/uganda-gay-death-sentence-bill (18 April).

11. Zoungagbe is identified as the founder of Radio Zereda, which I searched in order to learn that it is based in the
town of Obo in eastern CAR, which was especially hard hit by LRA raids in 2008. Kony's former "wife" (briefly
identified in an easily missed voiceover as being from the CAR) was also identified through quick additional
u
searching as Guinikpara Germaine, who was abducted from Obo in 2008. It is possible that Invisible Children w
n
chose not to identify her on the film because of concerns over her safety; however, Germaine's story and photo o

graph had already been published on 5 March 2012 through McClatchy Newspapers and widely publicized; see, 3
3
for example, Boswell (2012).

15

This content downloaded from

149.129.105.108 on Wed, 30 Dec 2020 07:02:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Cole, Teju. 2012. "The White Savior Industrial Complex." The Atlantic, 21 March, www.theatlantic.com
/international/archive/2012/03/the-white-savior-industrial-complex/254843/ (20 April).

Copnall, James. 2012. "Joseph Kony Victims Back Online Campaign." BBC News, 19 March, www.bbc
.co.uk/news/world-africa-17432481 (25 May).

Fassin, Didier, and Richard Rechtman. 2009. The Empire of Trauma: An Inquiry into the Condition of
Victimhood. Trans. Rachel Gomme. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Glasius, Marlies. 2009. "'We Ourselves, We Are Part of the Functioning': The ICC, Victims, and Civil
Society in the Central African RepublicAfrican Affairs 108, 430:49-67. www.afraf.oxfordjournals.org
(2 April 2012).

Human Rights Watch. 2003. "Uganda: Idi Amin Dies Without Facing Justice." HRW.org, 19 August.
(31 March 2012).

Human Rights Watch. 2010. Trail of Death: LRA Atrocities in Northeastern Congo. HRW.org (24 March 2012).

Invisible Children. 2012a. KONY2012. YouTube video, 29:59, posted by invisiblechildreninc, 5 March.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc (28 March).

Invisible Children. 2012b. Kony 2012, Part II: Beyond Famous. YouTube video, 19:48, posted by
invisiblechildreninc, 5 April. www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_Ue6RekeTA (20 April).

Kagumire, Rosebell. 2012. "My Response to Kony 2012." Rosebellkagimiire.com, 8 March. (29 March).

Kagumire, Rosebell, and David Smith. 2012. "Kony 2012 Video Screening Met With Anger in Northern
Uganda." The Guardian 14 March, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/14/kony-2012-screening
anger-northern-uganda (20 April).

LonelyPlanet.com. 2011. "Lonely Planet's Best in Travel: Top 10 Countries for 2012." Lonely Planet Tips &
Articles, 27 October, www.lonelyplanet.com/europe/travel-tips-and-articles/76856 (20 April 2012).

"This Magnificent African Cake." 1997. VHS, 57 mins. Written and presented by Basil Davidson. Chicago,
IL: Home Vision Select.

Mamdani, Mahmood. 2012. "What Jason Didn't Tell Gavin and Other Critiques of Invisible Children." The
Monitor, 13 March. www.monitor.co.ug/artsculture/Reviews/-/691232/1365090/-/c8108/-/index
.html (20 April).

Mukisa, Brian. 2007. "Is Uganda Suffering from Brand Deficit?" The Monitor, 28 September, www.monitor
.co.ug/Business/Commodities/-/688610/788208/-/gyhriw/-/index.html (1 April 2012).

NTV Uganda. 2012. "Kony 2012: Screening Angers Lira Locals." YouTube video, 1:41, posted by
ntvuganda, 14 March. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJYisE8vjv4 (30 March).

Nyong'o, Tavia. 2012. "Inaudible Children." Bully Bloggers, 12 March, http://bullybloggers.wordpress.com

/2012/03/12/kony-2012-inaudible-children/ (20 April).

Phelan, Peggy. 2003. "Performance, Live Culture, and Things of the Heart." An interview with Marquard
Smith. Journal of Visual Culture 2, 3:291-302. www.vcu.sagepub.com (19 April 2012).

Piot, Charles. 2010. Nostalgia for the Future: West Africa After the Cold War. Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press.

Punch Limited. 1894. "The Black Baby." Punch.photoshelter.cotn. http://punch.photoshelter.com/image

/I0000F4DSGX7zpwA (23 March 2012).
Ross, Elliot. 2012. "The Invisible Christians of #Kony2 012." Africa Is a Country blog, 13 March, http://
africasacountry.com/2012/03/13/the-invisible-christians-of-kony2012/ (20 April).

Smith, David. 2012. "Kony 2012 Campaigners Announce Sequel Video." Guardian, 2 April, www.guardian
.co.uk/world/2012/apr/02/kony-2012-campaigners-sequel-video (20 April).

Stone, Matt, and Trey Parker. 2011. "'Book Of Mormon' Creators On Their Broadway Smash." National
Public Radio, Fresh Air hosted by Terry Gross, 19 May. www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript
,php?storyId=13614232 (27 March 2012).
e
Taub, Amanda, ed. Beyond #Kony2012: Atrocity, Awareness, and Activism in the Internet Age. Leanpub, 2012.
s
o
Ieanpub.com/beyondkony2012 (24 April).
U
Pi
Q
h

16

This content downloaded from

149.129.105.108 on Wed, 30 Dec 2020 07:02:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Taussig, Michael. 1986. Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man: A Study in Terror and Healing. Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press.

Tripp, Aili Mari. 2010. Museveni's Uganda: Paradoxes of Power in a Hybrid Regime. Boulder, CO: Lynn Rienner
Publishers.

YouTuhe.com. 2011. "The Book of Mormon—Hasa Diga Eebowai." YouTube video, 4:24, posted by
MrSwiket, 10 May. www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IjBileEaAA (28 March 2012).

YouTube.com. 2012. "Kony 2012 'Invisible Children' viral video response from Ugandan PM Amama
Mbabazi." YouTube video, 7:56, posted by WMTVofficial, 17 March, www.youtube.com/watch
?v=ye5X9Xdg2CE (29 March).
Wasserman, Todd. 2012. '"Kony 2012' Tops 100 Million Views, Becomes the Most Viral Video in History."
Mashable, 12 March, http://mashable.com/2012/03/12/kony-most-viral/ (19 April).

Wikia. 2011. "Michael Potts: Hasa Diga Eebowai." Lyric Wiki. 31 May. http://lyrics.wikia.com/Michael_
Potts:Hasa_Diga_Eebowai (19 April 2012).

This content downloaded from

149.129.105.108 on Wed, 30 Dec 2020 07:02:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms