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**Rebel Assault** · 12-04-2009

http://redsociology.com/2012/03/07/kony2...ns-burden/

Quote:Kony2012, Imperialism, and the White Man’s Burden
Posted: March 7, 2012 by William Richardson in Africa, Barack Obama, Capitalism, Imperialism, Libya, Race/ Racism
Tags: africa, Central African Republic, Invisible Children, Joseph Kony, Libya, Lords Resistance Army, Uganda, United States
2

1 Votes

If you have been on Twitter or Facebook you have probably seen some post, link, or picture that has Kony2012 in it. On twitter right now there are 3 trending topics that concern this tag. Joseph Kony is the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda who has the goal of creating a theocratic government based on the Ten Commandments. You can look at the linked Wikipedia arguments for more information on the man and the group. This post isn’t meant to be another in a long line of responses decrying his use of child soldiers or the killing of civilians but to put Kony, LRA, and the campaign to take him out (led by Obama militarily and Invisible Children socially) into its proper context.

President Obama on October 15th last year, a few days before Mummar Qaddafi was killed in Sirte, Libya, told America and the world that it was going to send 100 US soldiers and advisers to Uganda to help fight Kony and the LRA. This act was seen along with the Libya intervention as the first real push for humanitarian military intervention since the Clinton era. Along with that announcement within a few days he also authorized military action in the Central African Republic, Congo, Kenya,and Somalia, for similar stated reasons.

5 months later and we see Invisible Children, an organization dedicated to child solider advocacy, launch a campaign against the same people Obama sent in the military to fight. They posted this page with a petition, and this video to drum up support for the cause of taking out/arresting Kony. Over the past few day this video and the attached cause has become viral and has now infected every Twitter and FB feed on the internet.

What issue can one have with this campaign or the people behind it? A lot actually. Now before I write anything else I want to let all of you know that I as much as anyone else wants to do somethings to Kony and the LRA for the abuses they have wrought on the African people. With that said the people who are leading the crusade against him are as much part of the problem as the LRA is.

Let’s look at Obama and the US. He is going into Uganda to help crush this terrorist and evil man to help preserve the stability of the nation and that part of Africa. I question those motives based on past “humanitarian” interventions America has done and the context within which they have happened. There is alot of evidence (that would constitute a book within itself) that alot of what we call humanitarian interventions are nothing more than America flexing its muscles in places where the chaos can give it or its allies an upper hand. We seen it in Bosnia, Libya, Somalia, Haiti, and many other nations. There’s also the issue of launching this campaign right after the west had overthrown the only government in the northern half of Africa that has had a consistent anti-imperialist foreign policy (Libya) that would have resisted US incursions into the continent.

Invisible Children although not as organized in their profiteering as America when dealing with human crisis has a nice rap sheet of its own. According to many sources, including the Better Business Bureau, Invisible Children is not as open with it’s financials as it should be and base on many of its actions and statements supports military intervention into these situations. This blog post goes into much more detail about the issues with Invisible Children.

Now the reason why I mention all of this is not because I’m trying to debunk the organizations themselves but because they highlight the failed thinking that is still pervasive in westerns about world conflicts. There’s an undertone in the IC video and in the writings of those who are supporters of Kony2012 that if we don’t do something that this will never stop. It’s a very typical “white man’s burden” mindset on the world. Most of us look out into the world and see the issues of Uganda, the rest of Africa, and other poor parts of the world and see them as either savages that need to be taught to act decent or as poor souls who are victims of some vague evil of life. Both of these points of view and the idea that we somehow in America and Europe have the right and responsibility to represent the child soldiers and people of these places is a serious problem for me. It continues the paternalistic attitude that enables America and the west to intervene into places which in more cases than not are a result of previous actions by the same nations that are coming to “save” it.

The WMB mentality also covers up not only closeted forms of american exceptionalism and racism, it also covers up the imperialistic roots of these conflicts. Before the west enslaved and kidnapped millions of Africans and stripped the continent of it’s resources, religious fanaticism like we see here was not prevalent. Nor was starvation, or war, or poverty, or even AIDS. All of these (at least at the levels they are today) are a result of European colonialism. By making the story of some crazed religious fanatic that we should hate it distracts from the Ugandan dictatorship which is a major cause of much of the suffering of the people there and the US government who has supported the regime for over 20 years. It also hides the desperation due to neo-colonial destruction of Africa’s economy that has pushed people to join organizations like the LRA. All of this is hidden if we focus all the attention on making Kony “famous”.

What are we to do then? How do we advocate for the child soldiers, innocent civilians, and others affected by these conflicts? Well for starters we should ask the people of Uganda and African what they want. I can’t say I have seen any sources that give a wide point of view on the conflict and what the people are feeling about it and the US intervention into it but if anyone does please link it in the comments. I would also say if there is going to be intervention into the conflict that it ought to at least come from the African Union not from the US, EU, or UN. None of these institutions have the right to dictate to these people or anybody for that fact how they should deal with their problems. We can give moral support but most military interventions that aim to bring peace end in new dictators and criminals or they end with mass civilian deaths due to the intervention (Iraq and Afghanistan are examples of both results). When we see these campaigns against some “evil” person in some other nation let’s be careful to put that person, their organizations, and the conflict into their proper contexts. Without doing so we are no better than the generations before us who allowed imperialism to gain a hold over the world in the name of first God, then civilization, then freedom, and today democracy and wet it’s wheels with the blood of humanity.

As an aside, it stands to note that this whole campaign may be irreverent based on the fact that Kony hasn’t been active in Uganda since 2006. So America sending troops over there can’t be to help win the conflict because it doesn’t exist there anymore. The statement was made in the Huff Post article about US sending troops to Uganda that “The U.S. doesn’t have to fight al-Qaida-linked Shabab in Somalia, so we help Uganda take care of their domestic security problems, freeing them up to fight a more dangerous – or a more pressing, perhaps – issue in Somalia. I don’t know if we would necessarily say that but it’s surely a plausible theory…” Just something else to think about

**Boboulas** · 03-08-2012, 11:59 AM

The kony memes are the best thing to come from this whole situation xD

http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/news...83/db8.jpg

http://www.inquisitr.com/wp-content/2012...h-kony.jpg

http://i3.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/orig...pped-1.jpg

http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Kony+Ha...424946.jpg

**Rev** · 03-08-2012, 04:03 PM

LOL
HAHHAAAHAHAHA I ADMIT SOME ARE FUCKING FUNNY BUT ON THE SERIOUS SIDE

I COPPED THIS FROM LORD LHUS:
"i see people making fun of the "KONY 2012" shit and hey i have a good sense of humor i mean some is even funny but yo! next time your sitting in front of your Macbook charging your iPhone in your nice home eating your mothers home made dinner bitching and complaning about having no weed or no girlfriend or whatever just think about that African kid talking about his dead brother like it's fucking normal.... shit is real!! you people make me fucking sick!! I MAKE ME FUCKING SICK!!! let me get abunch money on some hip hop bullshit i'd give it ALL to these 3rd world country familys i dont give a fuck bout money."

**Boboulas** · 03-08-2012, 06:25 PM

This kony shit is the same as syria. We overlook our own crimes but highlight and pronounce them with a fucking microphone the crimes of others. We silently nod at the attrocities of our friends and point and scream at the crimes of those who wont do as they're told.

Thats what makes me sick.

**Introcluse** · (This post was last modified: 03-09-2012 01:31 AM by Introcluse.)

seem of them are mems kinda kony to be honest

so is the video stuff really true or is it propuganda?

i just looked at youtube and it said 42 millions hits. It's been the fastest thing to spread out of africa since aids.

**Whisper_Of_Silence** · 03-09-2012, 01:48 AM

dammmm really kony are we still on that..!!!

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**YaelTheGreat** · 03-09-2012, 01:49 AM

Thats a pretty poor and disgusting joke. People are talking about it, but they'll forget about it in a week and never think deeply into the issue and how their government, Ghana's government, and economics play into the issue.