James has given me permission to copy what he wrote to me on Facebook. It deals with this KONY2012 that is HOT right now. PLEASE go back and read previous posts if you're not sure what I'm talking about, or watch the videos. You'll be glad you did.
This Kony thing is still very sensitive on the ground. The documentary failed to do one important thing; to involve local leadership and affected community in making this movie / documentary. Usually for success of any project, it is important to have the local community involved to generate local ownership of the idea / project. If Invisible children did this, it would have been this community now defending / talking for them. They decided to do this thing on their own and of course it took the world by surprise and their project is bound to fail. In Uganda today, you can’t show this movie to the public without seeking police clearance because it has generated two opposing sides; those who support it and those against. In Lira for example, some youth mobilized and blocked showing of the movie in a local event organized by one NGO to show Kony 2012. There has also been resistance to this movie from some women activists. I have also watched many negative local remarks from the people of Uganda about this movie. So many questions are being asked; why now? Is it because of money? Why take advantage of the local situation?
I don’t want to reason cheap and rubbish the contributions of invisible children in Northern Uganda. I think they have tried to do great work and Joseph Kony 2012 forms part of this. I am extremely so happy today that at least over 100 million people know who Joseph Kony is today and what he did in Northern Uganda and now what he is doing in Central Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo and some parts of Sudan. If the goal of invisible children was to make this Joseph Kony popular, surely this has been achieved. I am also sure that at least one of the 100 million people is going to stand out to make a difference in rebuilding Northern Uganda and if this happens, the credit of course goes to Invisible Children for highlighting the problem. I come from Northern Uganda, from the time Kony 2012 went online; I have received a number of inquiries about Joseph Kony from many Americans especially who want make a difference to the community he destroyed. They need to know more about him and what the current situation of this region is.
One important thing I want people to know is that Kony no longer operates in Northern Uganda. His rebel group completely left this region around 2007 and this marked the end of the war. This region is so peaceful today and under recovery and rehabilitation. The effects of this war on our community are enormous. A large part of our community today is battling with trauma / psychological effect, absolute poverty, breakdown in education culture, youth unemployment, illiteracy, orphan crisis, disease outbreak, malnutrition and total collapse of social service delivery. And there are every efforts being done to address the problems.
However, part of the disappointment of the people of Northern Uganda is that they see a large presence of development agencies trying to solve these problems but they don’t see their impact on the ground. I have moved around most villages in Northern Uganda and what you see is hopelessness and desperation. This makes me agree that a majority of donor funding is misused and too much is put into meeting operations costs leaving out the intended beneficiary. Invisible Children was attacked by international press about this however, I am happy they came out strong to defend their position. More needs to be done in Northern Uganda. If invisible children is committed to this, I think I welcome them to be supported than being rubbished. I think they have played some positive role in Northern Uganda.
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