Archive for the ‘Guest Bloggers’ Category

Posted on March 9, 2012 - by Kambale Musavuli

KONY 2012 Response from Adam Branch in Uganda

You have probably heard the name Joseph Kony by now. You probably have seen stars such as P Diddy, Nicky Minaj, Russel Simmons, and others tweet #STOPKONY #KONY2012. You probably went on youtube or vimeo to watch the film KONY2012. You also have probably have read the backlash against the video and want to know more about this.

I have yet written a reply to the video. I shall see how I can set some time aside to articulate the issue with the film. As of now, more than 40 million people have watched the film though there are some serious inaccuracies and misleading information in the film. I thought my readers would appreciate a bit of info to guide them

With the ongoing debate about the video called KONY 2012 released by Invisible Children, I thought it will be appropriate to share a response from Professor Adam Branch, a Senior Research Fellow at the Makerere Institute of Social Research, in Kampala, Uganda where is is based for the Spring of 2012. His work has examined the politics of human rights intervention—broadly conceived to include relief aid, peace-building, international law enforcement, and military intervention—into episodes of political violence, with a regional focus on Africa, specifically Uganda. He is the author of “Displacing Human Rights: War and Intervention in Northern Uganda” (Oxford University Press, 2011).

Adam Branch
Senior Research Fellow
Makerere Institute of Social Research
March 8, 2012
Kampala, Uganda

From Kampala, the Kony 2012 hysteria is easy to miss. I’m not on Facebook or Twitter, and I don’t watch YouTube—but over the last twenty-four hours, I have received dozens of emails from friends, colleagues, and students in the US about the video by Invisible Children and the massive on-line response to it.

I have not watched the video. As someone who has worked in and done research on the war in northern Uganda for over a decade, much of it with a local human rights organization based in Gulu, the Invisible Children organization and their videos have infuriated me to no end—I remember one sleepless night after I watched their “Rough Cut” film for the first time with a group of students, after which I tried to explain to the audience what was wrong with the film while on stage with one of the filmmakers.

My frustration with the group has largely reflected the concerns expressed so eloquently by those individuals who have been willing to bring the fury of Invisible Children’s true believers down upon themselves in order to point out what is wrong with this group’s approach: the warmongering, the self-indulgence, the commercialization, the reductive and one-sided story they tell, their portrayal of Africans as helpless children in need of rescue by white Americans, and the fact that civilians in Uganda and central Africa may have to pay a steep price in their own lives so that a lot of young Americans can feel good about themselves, and a few can make good money. This, of course, is sickening, and I think that Kony 2012 is a case of Invisible Children having finally gone too far. They are now facing a backlash from people of conscience who refuse to abandon their capacity to think for themselves.

But, as I said, I wouldn’t have known about Kony 2012 if it hadn’t been for the emails I’ve been receiving from the US. I have heard nothing about Kony 2012 here in Kampala because, in a sense, it just does not matter. So, as a response to the on-line debate that has been going on for the last couple days, I want to explain why, from here, Kony 2012 can be ignored.

First, because Invisible Children is a symptom, not a cause. It is an excuse that the US government has gladly adopted in order to help justify the expansion of their military presence in central Africa. Invisible Children are “useful idiots,” being used by those in the US government who seek to militarize Africa, to send more and more weapons and military aid, and to build the power of military rulers who are US allies. The hunt for Joseph Kony is the perfect excuse for this strategy—how often does the US government find millions of young Americans pleading that they intervene militarily in a place rich in oil and other resources? The US government would be pursuing this militarization with or without Invisible Children—Kony 2012 just makes it a bit easier. Therefore, it is the militarization we need to worry about, not Invisible Children.

Second, because in northern Uganda, people’s lives will be left untouched by this campaign, even if it were to achieve its stated objectives. This is not because things have entirely improved in the years since open fighting ended, but because the very serious problems people face today have little to do with Kony. The most significant problem people face is over land. Land speculators and so-called investors, many foreign, in collaboration with the Ugandan government and military, are trying to grab the land of the Acholi people, land that they were forced off of a decade ago when they were herded into camps. Another prominent problem is nodding disease—a deadly illness that has broken out among thousands of children who grew up in the government’s internment camps, subsisting on relief aid. Indeed, the problems people face today are the legacy of the camps, where over a million Acholi were forced to live, and die, for years by their own government. Today’s problems are the legacy of the government’s counterinsurgency, which received full support from the US government and international aid agencies.

Which brings up the question that I am constantly asked in the US: “what can we do?”, where “we” tends to mean American citizens. In response, I have a few proposals. The first, perhaps not surprising from a professor, is to learn. The conflict in northern Uganda and central Africa is complicated, yes—but not impossible to understand. For several years, I have taught an undergraduate class on the conflict, and although it takes some time and effort, the students end up being well informed and able to come to their own opinions about what can be done. I am more than happy to share the syllabus with anyone interested! In terms of activism, I think the first thing we need to do is to re-think the question: instead of asking how the US can intervene in order to solve Africa’s conflicts, we need to ask what we are already doing to cause those conflicts in the first place. How are we, as consumers, contributing to land grabbing and to the wars ravaging this region? How are we, as American citizens, allowing our government to militarize Africa in the name of the War on Terror and securing oil resources? That is what we have to ask ourselves, because we are indeed responsible for the conflict in northern Uganda—however, we are not responsible to end it by sending military force, as Invisible Children tells us, but responsible for helping to cause and prolong it. In our desire to ameliorate suffering, we must not be complicit in making it worse.

Posted on May 16, 2010 - by Patricia Sula

Honestly I Really Don’t Care About Congo

By Patricia Sula

Who cares about Africa? Much less, who cares about the Congo? I have more important things to think about. Like my car that I need to replace. I’ve been eyeing this beautiful white 2008 Saturn that would be perfect. Don’t forget the trip to the Bahamas I’ve been planning for over a year. I can already feel the white sand rubbing between my toes as the sun reflects off the clear blue water. Wait, I almost forgot. How about that fifty-two inch black flat screen I’ve been dreaming about since I saw it at Best Buy. Yeah, that needs to find its way to my living room asap. So you should understand and agree, who cares about the Congo! I care more about my sister’s fabulous wedding this summer, than the hundreds of thousands of women publically and brutally raped in front of their helpless husbands, crying children and defenseless villages.  

Only being twenty-two and living the good life, why should I care about a fourteen year war that has killed six million people? That is more than the whole population of the state of Maryland?  No seriously I have more important responsibilities. I have rent and bills to pay on a budget. Can you believe the Congolese people have the nerve to complain that there are no jobs and are living in severe poverty, while we in the West are in a recession!  OMG!!! Then they have the audacity to make a fuss about starving. While I’m living on Ramon noodles this week since I did steak and shrimp the other night. If anyone is starving, that would be me! I mean I’ve never seen thousands of children die from hunger like those in the Congo, but I’ve lost two pounds on my restricted diet. Frankly, the Congolese scarcity and conflict is not my problem. It stopped being my problem a long time ago.

I’m living in the land of abundance now. I’m no longer Congolese. I am an American.  Let the Congolese people I left years ago help themselves even if forty-five thousand people die a month. Like I’ve said earlier, I have more pressing issues to worry about. Why the Congolese government is so unashamedly corrupt is the Congolese people’s problem. Why its top politicians are multimillionaire despite the fact that eighty percent of the population is living on less than thirty cents a day is a little puzzling, but I make twenty one dollars and thirty cents an hour so that really doesn’t affect me.  It really shouldn’t affect me. I don’t want it to affect me, but it does.

I try to look away from the broken hearted orphans telling their stories of how their parent’s throat was slit in front of them and their childhood taken. I try to ignore the embittered tears that fall from a nine year old boy eyes as he tells of how he wasn’t able to protect his brother from the Mai Mai bullets. I try. I’ve tried. I’ve quit trying.

You see there’s an inner conflict that I can no longer ignore. Actually, I gave up ignoring it a long time ago. I gave up silently turning my eyes to the atrocity occurring in the Congo. An ongoing war that has been more deadly than World War II is difficult to overlook. Especially since my family and I were victims of Congo’s government corruption.  As political refugees my family was miraculously able to come to the United States. Furthermore, it was by the grace of God that my father is still alive. He was imprisoned many times for being outspoken of the inhumane corrupt government. My family and I constantly were on the move. In fear of the secret police we never stayed in one location for too long. My father was so passionate about liberating Congo, that he named his newborn (me) after the man he believed in, the great hero Patrice Lumumba. I was only a baby, but the eternal memories within my family of suffering, extreme hunger, and feelings of helplessness still remain.

That is why I can’t ignore what is happening in my country. Though I have been in the United States for twenty years, the Congo is still my home. No matter how Americanized I become. I used to feel so helpless to hear of a war that has slaughtered more mothers, brothers, and innocent children, than the massacres in Darfur, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Rwanda combined. I no longer feel helpless. I’m taking a stand. The saying goes, “If you stand for nothing you fall for everything.”  I’m no longer going to allow my innocent sisters and brothers to silently fall. Congo is not someone else’s problem but it is mine and yours. It is my duty as a human being to speak for those that have been silenced. So I am now speaking.

So who care about Africa, much less the Congo?

I do!

I care about Congo!