The group is in favour of direct military intervention, and their money supports the Ugandan government’s army and various other military forces. Here’s a photo of the founders of Invisible Children posing with weapons and personnel of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Both the Ugandan army and Sudan People’s Liberation Army are riddled with accusations of rape and looting, but Invisible Children defends them, arguing that the Ugandan army is “better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries”, although Kony is no longer active in Uganda and hasn’t been since 2006 by their own admission. These books each refer to the rape and sexual assault that are perennial issues with the UPDF, the military group Invisible Children is defending.

Having heard so many great things about the film, the crowd’s expectations were high.

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 commercialised their suffering, as the film promotes Kony bracelets and other fundraising merchandise, with the aim of making Kony infamous.

One woman I spoke to made the comparison of selling Osama Bin Laden paraphernalia post 9/11 – likely to be highly offensive to many Americans, however well intentioned the campaign behind it.

The event ended with the angrier members of the audience throwing rocks and shouting abusive criticism, as the rest fled for safety, leaving an abandoned projector, with organisers and the press running for cover

Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty

After watching the vid (at 1.5 speed, thanx):

-Nice branding, nice narrative (for most of the middle-and-upper-class audience, of course), excellent marketing design. Since 'kits' are sold, I think the proper term for this is iActivism.

-Music had a nice thump when it had to, building up expectation. Sounded much like a movie trailer (COMING IN 2012!).

-Didn't show the really ugly stuff except in some flashes (did you even notice there is no blood or injured people in hospitals? The only red you'll see is in their 'Kony' shirts), appeals to the 'awwww' factor when showing the clean white blonde kid. The poor traumatized black kid appears for a bit, but when showing him as a grown man he is 'whitefied' and happy. Yay! No other significant black character is shown in the vid-no need to hear more sad stories, they're probably all the same. Also their personalities. Also, god forbid any of them actually joined the rebels because they agreed with some of their ideals or any of them actually reveal that this is a highly complex conflict, and that their culture is different from ours.

-We know rebel groups are baaaaad and the local army is gooooood (oops, ignore that comment if you are in Syria or were in Lebanon, or if you watched Star Wars, of course). The UN is nice but they can't do squat (because they're sissies anyway like the Europeans, but let's not say it out loud). But Obama is good and he sent the (good!) Ugandan military some advisors. Yay!

-The narrative itself is nice, because it's told from the viewpoint of a white middle-to-higher-class USA young and handsome male who wants to defend his own interests and his son's, not from any of the actual victims I can't relate to.

-Best of all: we get to feel totally guilt-free (and maybe earn some fuel for some moralist random 'freedom fighting' invasion in a country abroad?) for the cost of less than a videogame console. If we really cared about Africa we'd actually have to read some stuff (booooooriiiing) about the current situation and history there instead of just watching a 30' vid, and that's too much; putting some (few) $$$ comes with less of a brain effort and makes us feel like we're saving the world anyway! Yipeee!

iActivism.

The whole explain to a child deal is a very American thing

Purple said, March 15, 2012, 03:20:15 pm

The whole explain to a child deal is a very American thing

Uh... no? It's not?

that's kinda vague