#individual actions taken by each government are undeniably bad. yes.

[vamptastic]

i genuinely don't understand what capitalist countries stand to gain by fighting each other instead of collaborating economically. like why does the us warmonger against china when we would benefit more from trade? ostensibly it's for moral reasons, but regardless of the veracity of any given claim i think the united states has shown itself to prioritize economic success over human rights on a number of occasions especially during the cold war. i suppose i assume most wars are waged on the grounds of economic gain (natural resources, global political power, straight up money in the form of the military-industrial complex) but you could make an equally solid argument that just as many are waged over purely social and political issues- ethnic and religious conflict, blind nationalism, the whims of a dictator. it just confuses me at times, i guess. i have a hard time believing that the united states is bound and determined to wage war against china over human rights abuses, infringing on other countries sovereignty, and neo-colonialism in africa when we've propped up fascist dictators in many a country who've done far worse. is it literally just the association with communism? because surely whatever evil fuckers actually want war know that china is very far from communist right now. is it just nationalism? the idea that we must be on the top of the totem pole, even if our economy would stand to gain from trade? because i suppose i could believe that, but i think if that was true we wouldn't have gotten to where we are today in the first place. blegh. at the end of the day i am also ignoring the fact that many many different groups of people want war against china for reasons ranging from sinophobic jingoist nationalism to a genuine belief that the united states is a global moral watchdog determined to establish ~democracy~ worldwide. but there is a definite slant to media coverage on china right now, genuine attempts at disinformation, and given that the media in the us is so deeply tied to corporate interests it leads me to believe that there has to be some economic motive here, and it frustrates me that i can't figure out what it is.

#this post is long and convoluted and circuitous. sorry. #please do not try to like. publically own me or erupt into moral outrage over this post if you're reading it btw. #suppose i would be interested in hearing others takes on this but im just curious i genuinely don't have answers here #i don't want to argue or be accused of being immoral for not taking a hard stance on an incredibly complex issue. #anyway. i am also not trying to say that either the us or china are ' good ' or ' bad ' #insomuch as any country can be good or bad. particularly a country millenia old or one that changes leadership every four years. #individual actions taken by each government are undeniably bad. yes. #but as a us citizen i find it very difficult to find reliable information about what is happening in other countries. #our media has become so wildly polarized that you can often figure out national issues by looking at both sides #but when the media is unified on portraying one falsehood both left and right? you're fucked. #often media that claims to be neutral could be more accurately described as western #i trust ap and the bbc on us politics - not global politics. #all that being said when it comes to things like the treatment of uighur muslims or the political situation in hong kong and taiwan. #i'm not entirely sure what to believe. #and i also believe that if every single immoral act the us claims china has done is real... we still wouldn't wage war based purely on that #...i do genuinely think the claims that china is colonizing africa by offering loans is horseshit though #even if it was itd be fucking rich for european countries that wrecked africa in the first place #to moralize about the means by which another global power allows them potential economic power #the problem arises from capitalism on a global scale itself i mean #there is no way to build up infrastructure and trade routes for an entire continent without #in some way eventually profiting from it #i do see the comparison to the us and latin america and i think that's kinda apt but #the way ppl talk about it you'd think they were doing what france did to haiti good god

[atimeandplaceforhope-blog]

Where is Invisible Children Now?

In 2006 I watched the documentary, I got motivated to take action, I participated in the movement, and felt fueled by love… but what now?

In 2006 I sat down and watched a documentary called 'Invisible Children, Discover the Unseen'. This film was created by Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey, and Laren Poole, all recent film school graduates, who traveled to Africa in attempts to make a documentary. Once they arrived there they discovered something that they weren't expecting. They discovered the sickening truth behind a long-standing battle between the government of Uganda and a group called the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The LRA is run by a man named Joseph Kony, who used witchcraft and other spiritual factors in order to motivate people to fight with his army (Russell et al., 2006). Over time, people became weary of the civil war at hand, so Kony resorted to abducting children to be a part of his army. He had his soldiers abduct children from the surrounding villages, between the ages of eight and fourteen years old, because they were the most moldable and easiest to brainwash (Russell et al., 2006). These children would be taken into the jungle and trained to kill, some of them being forced to kill their friends and family members in order to desensitize them (Russell et al., 2006). After they were completely brainwashed, feeling nothing while they murdered others and dedicated to Kony and the army, they would go to town to abduct more children. The three filmmakers, who made this documentary, discovered the everyday reality of the children in Uganda who spend their nights commuting to shelters in the city, where they would sleep basically stacked upon each other, in order to not be abducted in their homes. These kids have lost family members, have no source of education, and every night are fleeing for fear of their lives. The documentary makes the appeal, to anybody who is watching, to help the children of Uganda, to help end the war, and to stop Joseph Kony.

As soon as the documentary stopped playing in my DVD player I sat on my couch and thought about the fact that I never had to walk miles and miles just to find somewhere to sleep at night. I didn't live in fear of being in my own home, or thinking that rebels might kidnap me and take me into the jungle. Based on the luck of my birthplace I didn't have to process those types of realities, but the kids in this video did. They existed in uncertainty and in terror while I existed in comfort and assurance. That didn't sit right with me. I wanted to become involved. I started loaning out my DVD to anybody who would watch it, and then following up with them and having conversations about the issue at hand. I checked on the Invisible Children website to see what type of work they were doing after this video. The three gentleman who made the documentary went on the form in nonprofit organization that was founded in 2004 ("Our Story," n.d.). They had ways that you could donate money, campaigns they were putting on, and updates to the war in Uganda. In 2007 they ran a nationwide campaign called ‘Displace Me’. The goal was to get as many people, across the nation, to participate in a single night of experiencing what it would be like to be displaced from their homes like all of the children and Uganda were. I organized a group of high school students from Redmond Washington to go out and participate. We brought cardboard boxes to be our tents, sleeping bags, and minimal food in order to experience the situation as the children are actually living it out every night. The night was filled with interactions with other participants, talking about how they got involved and why they were there, and a couple of special guest speakers shared with us stories and gave motivation for change. It was amazing to sit there and be a part of something so huge, because I knew that in major cities across our country the same thing was going on and a collective voice was being raised in the name of the voiceless children in Uganda.

After that event I continued to stay up-to-date with what was going on in the Invisible Children movement. Over the years they would continue to do massive nationwide campaigns, one of which was a night commute that simulated the walks the children we have to go through every single night and I was able to volunteer for the Seattle location, raise funds in order to build schools, trade programs, and rehabilitation centers, and use grass roots activism to lobby political representatives to raise awareness of the atrocities that the LRA were committing. The largest campaign that Invisible Children would do happened in 2012, which would serve to be a time of great success and great setback.

They launched a campaign called 'Kony 2012'. The goal was to make Joseph Kony, who was still a semi obscure war criminal, famous. They felt that if he was famous then the world would work together to stop him ("Kony 2012," n.d.). They created a 30 minute film, used social media to spread the word, and had 100 million views within the first six days of posting it, followed by 3.7 million citizens making pledges calling for the arrest of Joseph Kony ("Kony 2012," n.d.). This led to governments across the world, including United States of America, signing into action military support to capture Joseph Kony. This is a major success right? Well, like I said, this also was the time of the greatest setback. They received backlash for the video, some accusing them of misleading information, received criticism from some calling them "white savior's trying to save Africa"(Cadwalladr, 2013), and the very public breakdown of one of their founders, Jason Russell, which all happened within 10 days of the launch of their video (Keesey, 2015).  The great success they experienced was marred by their now controversial name which resulted in them losing 81% of their revenue between 2012 and 2013 (Keesey, 2015). Over the next few years they were forced to continually downsize their organization all the way to the point, in December 2014, when they announced that they were shutting down almost all of the organization, reducing the staff to five members, and focusing solely on their advocacy in Washington DC in there partnerships in central Africa (Keesey, 2015).

I remember feeling stunned and confused about this once great nonprofit falling apart at the seams. To me the mission was so clear, the objective a necessity, but at the same time it was also beyond my scope of individual action. In order to engage in the social injustice that was/is the LRA I needed the Invisible Children organization. This sentiment was also expressed by many of my other friends were engaged in the nonprofit at the time. Over the months to come the online noise about the organization would die down, and so did my level of engagement in the issue. Now, in the year 2017, I find myself in a social justice class while I pursue my masters at Seattle University. Engaging in the program, and being challenged by the readings of this quarter, I have spent some time thinking about the current state of Invisible Children. This once great and proud organization that I had been somewhat in tune with. A sort of 'Where are they now?' form of inquiry. So I decided to do some research into the organization, and what I found came with good and bad news. The good news is that they are still working hard to fight for justice for the children have Uganda. They have limited their scope of projects in order to be more effective with the actions they take, seeing as how their staff and other resources have been drastically reduced. Currently they have projects such as building community resilience committees to combat displacement, poverty, and insecurity, the LRA crisis tracker which is a web platform that broadcasts the attacks and activities by the LRA, trauma healing and re-integration support which provides a toolkit to promote resilience and more, an early warning radio network  that helps disrupt patterns of violence, a 'come home' LRA defection messaging system which encourages members of the army to defect, and grassroots advocacy projects which work to organize political leaders to be engaged in the crisis in Africa ("Our Work," n.d.). The organization has grown with more staff members, more than the five they were left with, but still is nowhere near its size prior to the Kony 2012 campaign. Now for the bad news that I mentioned: Just this April the U.S. and Uganda have called off their search for Joseph Kony stating that his power has dwindled to the point where he is seen as no longer a threat (Domonoske, 2017). The fact that his power has dwindled can be seen as a good thing, but I take this is bad news because without the military support in Uganda to stifle him, there is a possibility that Joseph Kony could begin to build his army again, and the likelihood of him using children like he has in the past is undeniable. This really speaks to the necessity of the Invisible Children organization. Their efforts to seek justice for all are still justified and relevant in our current times. Do they need to get to the same celebrity that they had prior to 2012? Probably not, but do they need people like you and I still engaging in the issue? Most definitely. On their website, invisiblechildren.com, you can find ways to either make a onetime donation, or become a monthly donor, to their separate forms of action that they are currently taking, sign-up to stay up-to-date through their newsletters, and view transformation stories from their work in Uganda. You can even get on Twitter and follow their LRA Crisis Tracker to get current information on the actions of the LRA. Yes, they aren't doing large, nationwide, city to city campaigns anymore, but that doesn't mean that their work isn't still happening. Kony is still out there, and so is Invisible Children, trying to bring him to justice.

Citations - 

Cadwalladr, C. (2013). Jason Russell: Kony2012 and the fight for truth. The Observer, 3.

 Domonoske, C. (2017, April 21). U.S., Uganda Call Off Search For Infamous Warlord Joseph Kony. [Web]. NPR: The Two Way. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/04/21/525073251/u-s-uganda-call-off-search-for-infamous-warlord-joseph-kony

 Invisible Children. (n.d.). Kony 2012. Retrieved from https://invisiblechildren.com/kony-2012/

 Invisible Children. (n.d.). Our Story. Retrieved from https://invisiblechildren.com/our-story/

 Invisible Children. (n.d.). Our Work. Retrieved from https://invisiblechildren.com/our-work/

 Keesey, B. (2015, December 17). Working myself out of a job: lessons from leading Invisible Children. [Web].The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/dec/17/working-myself-out-of-a-job-lessons-from-leading-invisible-children.

 Russell, J., Bailey, B., & Poole, L. Invisible Children: Discover the Unseen. 2006.