Not knowing his name by now seems impossible; Joseph Kony, the man in charge of the guerilla group called the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda that uses children as soldiers, has quickly become household name.
Earlier this month, the non-profit organization Invisible Children introduced a campaign called Kony2012, which included a thirty minute video explaining who Joseph Kony is and why everyone should be aware of him. It went viral and has been seen by millions of people around the world, with mixed results.
Many viewers have adopted the Campaign and are now striving to build more awareness. On April 20, 2012, there will be an awareness event in Champaign called “Cover the Night” where students and participants will put up posters and flyers about Kony2012 during the night so campus will be covered with pictures and information the next morning.
Students are excited about the event—there are 2,103 people attending the Facebook event—but others are not entirely on board with the campaign. Much of the controversy stems from criticism regarding Invisible Children’s methods, finances, and its support of certain military groups.
Jack Dintruff, a sophomore in Computer Science, is an avid supporter of the cause and says he will absolutely be participating in the Cover the Night event in either Champaign or Chicago. “While I haven’t supported Invisible Children financially,” Dintruff said, “I do support the cause that they’re fighting for and I think that they’re going about it in a fantastic way.”
Dintruff first learned about Invisible Children while he was volunteering in Uganda in 2009. He didn’t know it at first, but the orphanages where he volunteered were actually housing victims of the LRA. Dintruff has taken it upon himself to quash opposition to the campaign by educating people on Facebook who speak out against the cause.
“There has been a lot of ill-informed opposition to this group and I’ve spent a lot of time meticulously addressing each and every incorrect fact that people cite on Facebook pages and on people’s Tumblrs by including a reliable source,” Dintruff said.
“Whenever something like this goes viral, there’s a massive proportion of the population that instantly questions the motives of whoever started the movement. A lot of these people are partially informed, and spread their opposition to the movement by publishing their own view of the situation, and much of their information is incorrect,” he said.
Phil Irzyk, a freshman in Agricultural and Biological Engineering, is one of the students opposed to the Kony2012 campaign. “My problem with the recent support for the Invisible Children Organization is that 99% of the supporters simply hopped on the Kony 2012 bandwagon when the opportunity arose,” Irzyl said.
“Joseph Kony has been committing terrible acts for the last 26 years. Then, a viral video that is meant to draw emotion from the audience using absurd gore and shock value is released and suddenly every American with internet access is a global rights activist.”Irzyk is also angered by the video because he thinks it lacks important facts about the LRA.
“If Kony were still a relevant issue today, this video would make sense, the problem is Kony has been pushed out of Uganda, and the LRA (his army) now only consists of only 200-400 soldiers,” he said. “The video leads one to believe that nothing is being done to stop the LRA or Kony, when in fact troops have pushed Kony into hiding in the bush of Africa.”
Irzyk supports stopping leaders who use child soldiers, but he is simply opposed to the Kony2012 campaign and Invisible Children’s tactics.“As I just stated, my only wish is that people would research the subject in depth before following others,” Irzyk said. “In our day and age there is no excuse not to study the subject more.”
To learn more about Invisible Children go to www.kony2012.com and http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.invisiblechildren.com/critiques.html
To watch the Kony2012 video go to http://www.youtube.com/user/invisiblechildreninc?ob=0&feature=results_main