We are the Folk Song Army
Everyone of us cares.
We all hate poverty, war and injustice,
Unlike the rest of you squares.
(Tom Lehrer, 1965 or earlier)
With all the publicity given to the Kony 2012 social media campaign, this looks like a good time to bring back Tom Lehrer's wonderful Folk Song Army. (Brief, mild, visual grandchild warning at the very beginning.)
Seriously, there is good reason to worry that this popular campaign will do more harm than good. As this Guardian article explains,
There is no question that the LRA has been one of the most horrifying armed forces in the past half century. But while the video urges spreading the word, signing a pledge, buying an action kit of Kony 2012 bracelets and posters, and of course donating to [advocacy group] Invisible Children, it's hard to understand how this will aid the current slow chase of Kony and his forces through some of the most intractable terrain in the world.
US military advisers have been helping the Ugandan army track the LRA since October, and Invisible Children wants to keep pressure on the US to maintain or improve that assistance. But as there has not been a whisper of possibly withdrawing this support, raising it as the reason for urgency seems slightly odd.
...
The arc of the video tells you that before, no one cared but, thanks to technology and Invisible Children, everyone can now take the necessary action to earn Kony the infamy and arrest or death he deserves.
But since Invisible Children as an organisation began with a few north Americans stumbling into a conflict they didn't know existed and then resolving to help the child victims by making a movie, the base level of great white saviourdom is already high. Implying that finally now, by getting the word out about Kony via celebrities, bracelets and social media, can the LRA be ended plays into this narrative of white rescuers coming to help poor Africans and totally ignores the efforts, good and bad, by Ugandans to fight the LRA for 25 years. I belong to a discussion group of hundreds of Ugandan journalists, and so far only one has been willing to stand up and say this campaign is a good thing (and mainly because it might help more people find Uganda on a map). Nearly everyone else finds Kony 2012 self-aggrandising, patronising and oversimplified.
Remember the war against Franco,
That's the kind where each of us belongs.
Though he may have won all the battles,
We had all the good songs!
So join in the Folk Song Army,
Guitars are the weapons we bring
To the fight against poverty, war, and injustice.
Ready, aim, sing!
Invisible Children's response to the Kony 2012 criticism:
http://www.invisiblechildren.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/critiques.html
Thanks, DSTB. I don't know enough about Invisible Children to judge the organization. (Read: I'd never heard of them till a week ago.) My concern is two-fold:
(1) With Americans (especially celebrities) who discover a cause, and both oversimplify it and appear to think that no one has done anything, nor made any progress before, which is very disrespectful to those who have been fighting in the trenches for years, and may result in the destruction of hard-won helpful relationships. I saw that kind of thing first-hand in the homeschooling world in the 1990's.
(2) With the idea that copying and pasting a Facebook status, or an e-mail, or a tweet is actually accomplishing something useful.
Of course, on the latter I stand guilty as charged, as I frequently feel that I've "done my part" to educate the world, when all I've done is write a post that maybe a dozen people will read.
It appears that Uganda has replied, albeit with a far less viral video.
Thanks, Stephan. I hope some of the celebrities he mentions take him up on his invitation.
