Invisible Children's "Kony 2012" is an American half-hour documentary from 2012 as the title already says and this one is an example of a film that really only got big thanks to Youtube as it reached over a hundred million views in the 5.5 years since its release. The director and one of the many writers working on this project is Jason Russell and it is by far his most known work. And it may very well be his most personal too, but there the problems start. The way in which he makes his family a vital part of his approach feels awkward to say the least, right at the beginning, but also even more when he asks the boy who the bad guy is and then he pulls out a photo of Kony and has his boy say that he needs to be stopped. This did feel highly scripted to be honest. And scenes like these let me agree with those saying it's propaganda. But that doesn't mean it has to be for the wrong side. I know that it is discussed controversially to which extent Kony is the bad guy or if this film is just trying to justify another war based on assumptions and conclusion-jumping. Anyway, I am not deep enough in the subject to comment on that in detail, so I just rate and elaborate on this documentary in terms of what it presents and how it presents it and the biggest flaw I already mentioned earlier. On the good side, it was nice that attention to the subject of Kony was brought with this film as Russell is basically very correct in saying nobody knows who Joseph Kony is and that needs to be changed and it was through this film, which is among the key reasons why I am not giving it an even lower rating. But that doesn't mean you should believe everything you see in here. A critical approach is always appreciated. I personally give Kony 2012 a thumbs-down and don't recommend checking it out. I'm somewhat glad it only ran for 30 minutes as it was really very cringeworthy at times and clearly aimed at simple minds that it admittedly managed to impress in great numbers.

Having heard about this 30-minute feature going viral across Youtube and various social networking sites, I determined to watch this film championed by mysterious US charity Invisible Children for myself. I found it a very slick and manipulative piece of propaganda aimed at young people and families with children. The film starts with director Jason Russell and his family, and zooms in on his young son from birth on to his preschool years before branching out to the lost children of Uganda, children like Jacob who have lost their families and have been forced to join the Lord's Resistance Army as soldiers (if they're boys) or sex slaves (if they're girls) under the sinister charismatic leadership of one Joseph Kony. Russell dwells for a little time on Jacob and his experiences before delving into a drive for support and donations to help other young people like Jacob, and suggesting ways in which people can bring the issue of child soldiers and finding Kony to be brought to justice to the attention of others.Russell adopts a deliberate personal style to make very subjective appeals to people's emotions. His use of his son as willing collaborator is creepy as well as exploitative, to say the least. The filming methods used are so slick as to raise my hackles: the editing and the images, even the sloganeering and strategies suggested to raise other people's awareness, all look as if they'd been cooked up in an advertising agency that's done work for past TV current affairs programs. The themes pushed by "Kony 2012″ are so familiar as to be banal and devoid of genuine feeling: let's change the world for the better, let's be pro-active, let's protect innocent and vulnerable children from exploitation (speak for yourselves!), let's bond in solidarity with other aware young people and fight this monster Joseph Kony and triumph where older people can't or won't.No historical context is given, which is extremely suspicious: the film never explains who Joseph Kony is, why he is such a bogeyman and who his Lord's Resistance Army is fighting against. What is his background, how and why is he a rebel, what political / social / economic conditions existed in Uganda in the 1990s that enabled him to rise to his current position as Uganda's Public Enemy No 1, and why should we get rid of him now when we could have got rid of him ages ago? Is the Ugandan government under President Yoweri Museveni so helpless that it must appeal to the outside world? Is Kony fighting the Ugandan government? Given that Museveni has just been "elected" to a 4th term and has been in power for 25 years with a blemished record in violating human rights, invading parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo and holding elections that yield suspect results that support his continued rule, perhaps Kony is doing the right thing in resisting the Ugandan government! The film's suggested solutions are pathetic and laughable: let's make Kony famous by plastering posters of him across cities around the world on 20 April 2012! Support celebrities like Angelina Jolie, George Clooney and Bono against Kony! Buy the Action Kit package! Wear the "Kony 2012″ bracelets! Donate money to the cause! The Kony 2012 awareness campaign looks too much like an election campaign to ring true. And why should the public be asked to cough up money when famous Hollywood celebrities and other stars in politics and the commercial music industry have more than enough money among themselves to capture and bring Kony to justice and rehabilitate the child soldiers and sex slaves he has abused? And now that all is said and done, one suspicion remains: the recent announcement of the discovery of at least 2.5 billion and maybe as many as 6 billion barrels of oil in Uganda couldn't have anything to do with the release of the "Kony 2012″ film? How cynical of me to think that a future invasion of Uganda by AFRICOM might need support from young people in the form of a "humanitarian" campaign! In the meantime, hundreds of children in northern Uganda have fallen victim to a mysterious and fatal neurological disease known as Nodding disease spreading across the border from the newly independent Southern Sudan. It is arguable that this problem deserves more immediate attention and help than pursuing a shadowy warlord who may not even be in Uganda now or be alive still.

So, I was watching Kony 2012 the other day and I got all emotional. It's a sad 30 minute piece of propaganda that really does get to you. I opened up a new flick in Firefox, ready to buy the 'Action Kit' and support this beautiful thing. But right before I did it, I saw a related video called "KONY 2012 is misleading". It was a random Ugandan girl who talked about the situation in Uganda. I watched it, did some research and changed my opinion about Kony 2012 completely.(I wasn't actually about to buy a 'KONY 2012 Action Kit', just wrote that for dramatic effect) SO, i found out that this company, Invisible Children, has made 10 videos in the past. KONY 2012 is their eleventh, and they hit the jackpot with this one. 70 million viewers after a few days. Let's break it down though.A quick look on Invisible Children's finances show that last year, they spent over 8 million USD, and only 2,8 million USD actually went to 'Direct Services'. I'd say around half of these 2,8 mill' actually went to the children in Africa. The rest of the money went to a bunch of non-charity related things, such as staff salaries, travel and film production. That's right, film production. 78% of the money you donate goes to salaries to the crew, their travel (not just to Africa, but around the world) and more films like Kony 2012.These guys refuse to have an external audit committee. That single fact says more about them than the film does.As if that wasn't enough, the 32% that actually does go to Africa goes to the Ugandan army and the Sudan People's Liberation Army. The Ugandan army has been accused of committing much worse crimes than Joseph Kony (including things such as mass rape and torture) and the SpLA is probably an even worse army to get hold of your money because THEY have been using child soldiers only 10-15 years ago. Some people believe they still do have child soldiers.Invisible Children has a firm goal with this Kony business. They want Kony captured/killed by the end of the year.See any problems here? Almost the entire population of Uganda is convinced Kony is dead, nobody in Uganda considers him a threat. Another problem is the fact that Invisible Children is all about the children (30,000) in Joseph Kony's army, yet Invisible Children STILL wants to take out Kony with force; meaning they'll have to kill his army of kids.Raising awareness does not solve anything. It's a cheap technique to use when you want people to think that they're making a difference. It's like when religious people think they can pray away global warming. It doesn't work.KONY 2012 is nothing but propaganda. Some people out there believe the American government is behind the film. I don't. I think one man realized how much money he could make off of today's pathetic, lazy and dumb generation and took 11 shots at it. The latest one was a hit.Here's a quote from Jedidiah Jenkins, Invisible Children's Director of Ideology"Thirty-seven percent of our budget goes directly to central African-related programs, about 20 percent goes to salaries and overhead, and the remaining 43 percent goes to our awareness programs. […] But aside from that, the truth about Invisible Children is that we are not an aid organization, and we don't intend to be. I think people think we're over there delivering shoes or food. But we are an advocacy and awareness organization." People watch a video they make, then buy an action kit so they can make a new video. For those of you who have been following the KONY 2012 film on Youtube can clearly see how the attitude of the film makers is changing. When it came out and the followers were hyping it like there was no tomorrow in the comments, everything was fine. When people started asking questions they disabled the comment section. I'm going to predict that they'll disable the like/dislike buttons in a few weeks too.Save your money folks, I know I did.

The first part of the video isn't bad. Despite being clearly manipulative, it draws the viewer in, providing some context with the narrator's family and a young African. Then it hits the viewer with the evil Joseph Kony (which ought to be pronounced like Koñ, but is Americanized in the video) -- kidnapper of a child soldier army, and sexual enslaver of children.So far, the video works.Where it goes off the rails is by first admitting that Kony is no longer in Uganda, and then suggesting we help fight Kony -- by supporting the army in Uganda. What? This disconnect is never explained. It's unlikely the Ugandan army will be welcome in foreign countries who have their own military. A last comment about the video is that the language used suggests a world-wide movement, but in fact it's almost entirely focused on the US, with slight mention of Canada. The website also lists Bono and Ban Ki-Moon as the only non-North-American names of note.Now is the part where I ramble about the subject.Have a closer look at the Ugandan army. It too has been reported to use hundreds of child soldiers, despite Uganda being a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which bans this practice. They might not be as hard-core about it as the LRA, but they are not the good guys here. They are the lesser evil. Probably.The Ugandan government is also rotten. For example, they've been trying to pass a bill that would make it a capital offence not to report your own gay brother and his boyfriend to the police (read the bill, if you don't believe me -- it's not just gay people who will die). If passed, this bill could do as much damage to Ugandan teens and young adults and their families as Kony did to younger children and their families, and it will have the power of government behind it.The video repeatedly refers to the LRA, without focusing on the root cause. The LRA is the Lord's Resistance Army, a Christian cult. It was even praised by Rush Limbaugh for this reason. Kony claims to be able to channel the Holy Spirit, and that the Army's purpose is to promote the Ten Commandments. (As with many Christians, they don't believe killing the guilty, nor killing in warfare, are prohibited by the Commandments). This group could not exist without societal support for the idea of Christianity specifically, and other religious nonsense (e.g. channelling) generally. People fear this man not just because he's a murdering fiend, but because he's "magic". He shouldn't have that power. If we treat the symptom but not the illness, it will come back with a new name. Uganda is a place where to this very day, witch-doctors tell adults to mutilate and kill children (their own, or others) to sacrifice their remains to the spirits. And they do it.Yes, stop Kony. Where he actually is. According to the video, that's somewhere in the Central African Republic, South Sudan, or the Democratic Republic of Congo.But this needs to be followed up by a serious education campaign. Uganda is a land of lies and nonsense. A free or nearly-free education in science, logic, and critical thinking is needed to save that country from itself. Something like One Laptop Per Child (not mentioned in the video, and who might not align themselves with my comment) is a good start, but it's going to take a lot more than that.I will point out that the Commonwealth of Nations did not stop Kony in its member state Uganda. What good is it?Utlimately, I give the video a 7 for drawing attention to one serious problem, even if their solution is wrong. It does have people talking.