I think, in the interest of my own safety and the protection of my Facebook wall from the (somewhat righteous) indignation of Staples’ own Invisible Children club, I should preface my comments. First, Joseph Kony is a monster, and second, the nations ofCentral Africaare, almost unarguably, in bad shape.
That is, however, exactly why I will not be spending a penny on posters that emulate those of a political campaign or trendy t-shirts to make “#Kony2012” famous.
It started one unassuming Tuesday night: I saw a half hour long video about atrocities inAfrica. I watched a little and got bored. A few hours later, I was added to a Facebook group urging me to “Make Kony Famous,” topped by a blood-red banner urging me to stop at nothing. Being a contrarian, and rather skeptical of many of the NGOs operating inCentral Africa, I decided to look further before I decided to get involved.
What I saw, frankly, disturbed me a little. The organization behind this push, Invisible Children, was immediately suspicious. Actual aid work — that is, money spent overseas to help the child soldiers inAfrica— comprised about 32 percent of its budget in 2011. Charity Navigator, a watchdog organization, rated them a two out of four for Accountability and Transparency.
To be clear, I’m not saying Invisible Children is a scam, or anyone has been duped, but merely that this is the wrong way to go about helping. An organization that spends most of its money producing media like that catchy video isn’t directly spending money to help people.
Sometimes its message is oversimplified and, in fact, skewed. “Foreign Affairs” magazine, for example, published an article several months ago alleging that Invisible Children and similar groups had “manipulated facts for strategic purposes.” The groups had exaggerated the wrongdoings — abductions and murders — of Kony’s army, as well as the army’s use of children as soldiers. By contrast, Foreign Affairs said, Invisible Children supports the Ugandan Army opposing Kony (who, notably, is in hiding in the jungles of the DRC and has been since 2007). What members of the group ignore, and those donating to them thusly ignore is crucial. Foreign Affairs says that “they rarely refer to the Ugandan atrocities or those ofSudan’s People’s Liberation Army, such as attacks against civilians or looting of civilian homes and businesses, or the complicated regional politics fueling the conflict.”
The conflicts inCentral Africahave been developing for hundreds of years, have myriad causes, and are difficult to solve. There’s no short answer here, no simplification that can make things black and white. As much as a half hour video may try.
