KONY 2012

[Tempus]

Got your answer Tempus. Army sniper, 14.5x114mm, within 2,300m. People are low hanging fruit.

Do you really think blowing Kony's head off will solve the problem? No doubt there are issues in Uganda which led to there being rebels against the government in the first place. You need to address the causes of these problems too before the situation will become stable. Taking out the leader doesn't always work - assuming you can even find him.

This doesn't mean I think making life difficult for Kony and the LRA is a bad idea. Having international support would certainly help making moving around more difficult for his ilk. But again these problems have deeper roots; you don't fix a neighbourhood by jailing all the drug dealers - you address the factors, such as education, employment opportunities, etc that lead them to that lifestyle. And it may very well be that intervention of some form IS necessary to help solve these problems, but getting all gung-ho and rushing in isn't a good idea. There are examples of this tactic being used and failing in Asia, the Middle East and South America.

It's called "slacktivism." People want to help, but don't really want to put out a lot of effort or get their hands dirty, so they think that by buying bracelets and signing petitions they've done their fair share. It's reminiscent of the "put a cartoon character as your avatar to stop child abuse" thing on Facebook a while back. OK, yeah it brings awareness, but doesn't really solve any problems. All it does is give the person who did that a warm fuzzy feeling by thinking they're making a difference, but in reality it didn't do diddly squat. Just like praying.

The 'slacktivist' approach does annoy me, although I suspect some of it is for different reasons. Firstly on a personal level (which I think we agree) I can't stand people who adopt trends like that to make themselves feel good, acting as if they're too poor to help out. We could all actually do something. It would take a lot of effort and there'd be a decline in our standard of living but we could. Every time you eat take out, buy new clothes you don't need or spend money on petrol when you could've walked, etc are all examples of the money we can use to help people - we CAN spare it but we don't. We could sell our many material possessions to pay for an airfare to volunteer in another country or just donate money. To pretend our hands are tied and that we can only notify others is nothing more than a rationalisation.

But secondly and more importantly it disturbs me because we have a large body of people who don't fully understand the issues (and of course the interrelated issues and their root causes) they're supporting / opposing. Of course, of course I'm not suggesting this is all activists - by no means - but the large amount of support these viral campaigns are receiving is simply bandwagoning; not many people actually understand the issues. Good intentions don't always lead to good results.

Lastly though, I want to make it clear I don't oppose this in principal. Raising awareness of people who contribute to human suffering (and the suffering itself) is a goal I can certainly agree with. I remember back in high school researching analogous criminals in other parts of the world and being shocked that no one knew about them; even historical criminals like Mengele or certain Japanese during WW2. Pouring over photo after photo of emaciated people, piles of corpses, torture victims, displaced communities, babies born disfigured from radiation, in addition to the testimonies of things like mass rape and bizarre human experimentation conducted without anaesthesia. The fact that these sorts of things are still happening is just amazing - the immensity of the needless suffering is overwhelming. I want it to stop, but I don't want it to lead to a well-intentioned but hastily cooked up intervention [due to pressure from the public] that causes more trouble.

I would like to see a future where we have mass media and news actually reporting these sorts of things and people discussing these actual issues instead of the new iPhone or whatever. Maybe it'd humble us a little and make us realise just how fucking lucky we are to live where and when we do.