Let's use Kony2012 to do what we ought

By Ganzi Muhanguzi

I was one of the tens of millions of people that made Kony 2012 famous. I watched it over and over again, captivated in part by the filmmaker’s storyline, but also by the simplicity of the concept with which Jason has successfully got over 80 million people across the globe talking.

And after all the stories and op-eds that have been written about this short film, only two questions linger in my mind.

The first is; what is so wrong about the film as to elicit so much outrage in Uganda? Most people seem to be arguing that the film misrepresents the situation in Northern Uganda, over simplifies the narrative and gets a lot of facts wrong.

I agree for the most part (like my brother pointed out, Uganda is not in Central Africa). But then again, the film was never about the facts.

To claim that Kony 2012 misrepresents the facts is as off the mark as insisting that because Rwenzori is not the highest mountain in the world, it therefore follows that its peak has no glaciers. Part of the statement quotes an irrefutable fact, the other a disconnected and erroneous conclusion. 

Kony 2012 is about causing awareness about Kony and pressurizing the international community to help arrest him by end of year. Now if the film is to be judged against these two goals, I’d say Invisible Children have exceeded its first goal and is well on its way to achieving the second.

But perhaps the greatest success that this film has had over the past two weeks, is in getting people to ask with me the second question: Who is Kony and by extension, LRA?

Professor Mahmood Mamdani, an expert on regional political affairs and a person I would think twice contradicting wrote a few days ago that “the LRA is a raggedy bunch of a few hundred at most, poorly equipped, poorly armed, and poorly trained people.”

He concludes that this means the LRA does not require military intervention and peace can only be achieved through a political approach. Well, I thought twice.

Until 2005 when Kony last attacked parts of Acholi sub-region, no adult or child below the age of 20 in the region had known what it means to live in relative peace.

To date, the majority of people living in the area are either first hand victims, or have had a relative massacred or mutilated by Kony’s army. Now, the debate about whether or not the UPDF participated in these killings may – and should- go on, but it does not somehow vindicate Kony.

To argue against arresting and charging Kony simply because no UPDF soldier has been indicted is to be both irrational and insensitive towards the victims of the war; for while UPDF’s misdeeds are a subject of current debate, Kony’s are not.

Both tactical and strategic commonsense would suggest that in the fight against evil, we begin action on the things we agree about and move towards those we don’t.

Let’s arrest and try Kony and hopefully, more truth will come out during his trial that will build a clearer picture on UPDF’s alleged misdeeds.

So maybe instead of engaging in intellectual debate about the fairness and accuracy of Kony 2012, we should be asking ourselves how long we will let the man who is responsible for a generational civil unrest continue to roam this continent unchallenged, while his victims suffer the consequences of our inaction. We owe it to the next generation to sort out the mess that was caused during ours.

A lawyer friend once told me that in the course of seeking redress, one of the fundamental principles of the law is that justice must not only be served, but it must also be seen to be served.

It is not enough to say Kony will never attack the Acholi sub-region again. Whether he attacks or not, real peace will only be achieved either upon his arrest and trial in the courts of law, or if his victims categorically declare their forgiveness towards him.

And whichever way you look at it, this film; Kony 2012 has forced the international community and even some among us to ask ourselves the hard question; what can I do?

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