Kony 2012
Social movements emerge out of suppression of certain social necessities of the citizens, which has besieged the nation during need. Some social movements are reformative while some are revolutionary. This depends on the requisites placed by the protestors in the movement.
Reformative movements are those that demand an improvement in the affairs of the government or the ways of the state in running the administrative matters of the nation. Revolutionary movement features certain social and organizational demands put forth by certain sectarian or secular sections of the society which favour their affairs or rights in the protocol of government affairs. KONY 2012 is one such movement that; purely reformative as it would ensure safety for the minor section of a state to run their lives well and safe amongst an aggressive society which pays no attention to the security of their citizens while demanding more rights and allowances.
The movement is by the youth of Central Africa, to promote the presence of US military in its suburbs. The Acholi ethnic group are the ones responsible for the formation of the LRA which was founded in 1987 in Northwest Uganda by Joseph Kony who became the commander of LRA. Historically, these ethnic groups were exploited as forced labourers by the British colonialists and were later on absorbed into the country’s leading minority after independence. The LRA was the armed wing of the resistance faction aiming to overthrow the Ugandan President and staunch military ally, Yoweri Museveni. They even joined the Holy Spirit Movement in this cause
The movement was formed to ban the marginalisation and the dominance by Joseph Kony, who is a self proclaimed messenger of the Christian movement called Holy Spirit. As Mr. Nile Bovey puts it in Intel Hub, an online magazine, - “Kony utilized his messianic persona to lead a synergetic spiritual movement based on Acholi tribal beliefs’ and extremist Christian dogma. It is claimed that LRA seeks to establish a theocratic state based on the Ten Commandments; however its inner ideological mythology is largely unknown. In an effort to mobilize a large scale armed resistance, the LRA routinely recruited child soldiers and forced them to commit heinous acts such as cannibalism and mutilation on others who resisted joining the rebel group during their extensive twenty-five year campaign.”
In 2012, the KONY movement got a video directed by Jason Russell receiving surprisingly enormous viewership of around 20 million on YouTube and Vimeo and also being visited by 4000 member each hour on Facebook. This means that the movement has catalyzed its inspiration worldwide and gone far in inspiring the nation.
The highlight of the feature is Russell himself explaining to his infant son Garvin about the LRA. The video features clips of Russell’s trip to Uganda before 2006 when the LRA was still operating in that region and introduces the viewers to Jacob, a small Ugandan boy who is a former child solider with the LRA. He also shows footages of ethnically diverse groups producing students who are bold enough to raise their fists in the air, wearing KONY t-shirts and celebrate in, response to President Obama signing the S. 1067. The bill saw the banning of the LRA and encouraged the presence of US soldiers in this part of Africa.
As the writer puts it in a nutshell, “KONY 2012 is produced like any other sleek marketing campaign – instead of stimulating elements of self-satisfaction like advertisers would do to promote a product, US military intervention is justified to end an atrocious humanitarian catastrophe.”This movement also shows the theme of White Man’s Burden of rectifying the backward nations is visible in the language of Russell.
The movement shows the desire by young Africans to think towards development and resist riots and backward movements and instead embrace global good and acceptance.
This movement is reformatory and a bit revolutionary as the new generation is bent upon the overall development of the nation as a whole rather than secluding themselves with their own culture and secular inclinations; and also for an overall improvement of the once-backward nation that is now plunging into thoughts different from their predecessors. Africans and African nations are opening their eyes into the deeper sense of freedom. This movement is a call of growth in the continent which submissively agreed that the white man has rights to secure and nurture the world as a whole.
References:-
1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc
2) http://theintelhub.com/2012/03/08/youth-movement-promotes-us-military-presence-in-central-africa/
