Before I get to my amazing journey here in Jinja, I really need to clear my head about the atrocities of this Kony 2012 that has besieged the world from Jason Russel, a man who used to somewhat be respected for his Invisible Children campaign some years ago. But with his new viral video that indeed got viral, was a success, and a failure, both big ones. To keep it short and simple, the basic point of Russels “Documentary” is conformist, and it is almost disgusting to think that Russel could fool every man, women and collage student (who I think he was aiming at in this video) into thinking that this is the way to help a developing country, by westernizing it! Fight violence with violence? Dismiss the complicated steps and social revise and make an ideology mass suited with having potentially millions of people well un-aware of the consequences raise their fist in support?
Being a former social justice student and TA, I’m well enlightened with the fact this video should clearly be subtitled, "How not to change to world”, and with a description and disclaimer citing that all this is simply mass propaganda, id like to see who would follow the fight in this campaign. Having an abhorrent feeling watching the first ten minutes of Russels video, take away the first 8 minutes in the beginning and what do you got? Something your surely to dislike and really question that this is, and maybe the absolute wrong way to approach and help those who really need help. Watching this video while I am here Uganda, I literally slapped my laptop closed and went for a walk into Jinja town when Russel states that this video isn’t for him or Jacob, its For Us!? Are you joking? April 1st isn’t for a month, and even if, why not even mention that the Kony 2012 campaign is for the invisible children? Very ironic and gross, and actually gets me worked up about it.
Westernizing an African campaign shows that Russel uses propaganda in the western world by Americanizing something to get the attention of the lazy patriotic American government.
But back to the first 8 minutes of the film. Gavin, or Gabin, don’t even remember the poor kids name (Russles son), but you don’t raise your son telling him and the world that he was raised in a complicated and an annihilate world. My father raised me to be my own man, to be myself, and live my life no matter what this world throws at my face, I was raised no fool, and this Kony 2012 does not fool me at all. But I could see in the beginning of the clip that it tries to make one emotional, all the happy and sad clips, and then getting to his point was a wrong way to make an approach on such a serious matter that really does terrorize the lives of many people that the LRA have affected here in Uganda. But somebody with a lack of inspiration and lots of money, it doesn’t surprise me that this has become the outcome.
Lastly, though this may sound like a revolting post, remember that it is just my thoughts on such a matter that has impacted this world in such a quick amount time and that a lot of people have really not giving it a thought on what could have been a better way. This could have been the verge of something that really had true potential. This post is a little long, so everybody expect a post on the time of my life here in Uganda in the coming days!
PS, nice fancy camera and CGI shots Jason, how much did that cost and where’d the money come from? Where could have it gone? Hypocrisy at its embarrassingly best.
Peace till next time.
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