White Man's Burden Indeed

With  all the recent hubbub around Kony 2012 and the like there's been a truly amazing display of networking and human interaction surrounding it. As of right now the video has amassed 82,515,732 views. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the meaning of the word 'viral'. Having been spread around the world in such a short time, the Ugandan people have been the center of attention for millions of people now. But they are a bit overwhelmed by this recent attention given to their plight. While some of the more technological and politically inclined Ugandans knew about the Kony 2012 campaign when it first came out, most Ugandans had no idea what it was besides knowing it was a video that was raising awareness of their situation. And that overjoyed them. Just picture living through war, famine, the constant threat of gunmen kidnapping you, disease, all these unchecked horrors. And then a video rapidly circulates around the world and now people are lining up to help you and your country. It has to be a thrilling feeling, a feeling of maybe getting somewhere, getting closer to a better future, a better tomorrow. 

So they thought this Kony campaign was aiming for that, to help them get back on their feet and highlight their suffering. Yet very little of Ugandans have seen the video in question, leading to a recent drive by Victor Ochen, a victim of the Lord’s Resistance Army and a founder of the nonprofit African Youth Initiative Network (AYINET),to show them what it was all about. He and his team set up makeshift outdoor theaters so that local communities could witness the video that has sparked so much conversation on the subject of Kony and the LRA. Reports from the AYINET say that over 35,000 showed up to the northern Ugandan town of Lira to witness the screenings, and even more listened as it was broadcast over local FM stations.

Al Jazeera reporter Malcolm Webb, who was on hand to gauge people’s reactions, filed the following account:

"People I spoke to anticipated seeing a video that showed the world the terrible atrocities that they had suffered during the conflict, and the ongoing struggles they still face trying to rebuild their lives after two lost decades.
The audience was at first puzzled to see the narrative lead by an American man – Jason Russell – and his young son.
Towards the end of the film, the mood turned more to anger at what many people saw as a foreign, inaccurate account that belittled and commercialized their suffering, as the film promotes Kony bracelets and other fundraising merchandise, with the aim of making Kony infamous."

As you can see, reactions to the video were a mix between confusion and anger as they saw a white man and his son talk about an issue that happened over 5 years ago, and then trivialize it through what they saw as a cheap marketing campaign aiming to smear the facts in order to get a better profit. Imagine that, the people it claims to support and help find it insulting and belittling? What a surprise, never would have seen that coming with the whole 'White Man's Burden' and everything going on there. The fact that they started to throw rocks at the screening just goes to show how insensitive and hurtful they found it. Salt on a fresh wound, insult to injury, however you like to put it, that's what it is. In fact, a woman Webb spoke to later compared IC’s approach of selling products with Kony’s image to “selling Osama Bin Laden paraphernalia post 9/11,” which she felt would be offensive to many Americans, irrespective of how “well-intentioned” the fundraising campaign was. How true is that! The portrayal of this campaign as almost like a political campaign is stretching the limits of political correctness and shows a lack of compassion when dealing with these people and the trauma they have gone through. I think the woman hit it spot on, if this was Osama bin Laden stuff post-9/11, people would riot in the streets, and the organization would be forcibly removed from the country. I mean, why would you portray it in that way? I don't get why you have to make it cooler to get more people to buy the stuff. It comes down to a point where the more people you get on your campaign, the less of a charity it is and instead becomes another fad for these people. As the ease of assimilation into a movement increases, the meaningfulness of the movement decreases. And the meaningfulness of the Kony 2012 movement was set low for a reason: To get a larger audience and support network, plain and simple. This isn't for Ugandans, this is for success.