Regarding the KONY 2012 campaign
I suppose most of you people have seen the KONY 2012 video by now? In case you haven't it's a 30 minute long video basically explaining that Joseph Kony is a man in Central Africa, leader of Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) who conducts children, makes them kill their family, uses the boys as child soldiers and the girls as sex slaves. Well, I'm not going to explain the whole background, if you don't know the story, watch the video, and I can assure you that it'll be the best spend 30 minutes of your week:
So back to the campaign, the organisation (or rather company actually) behind the video is called Invisible Children, which in the past few days since the video was released has recieved a lot of critique, but also support. The video was released three days ago from today, and has alreade had over 52 million views!
The critiques have mostly been about Invisible Children, but some is aimed toward the video itself as well. The main critique and argument is, as I get it, that Invisible Children don't use enough of the donations as it should to the actual promoted purpose, they do call themselves non-profits and should therefore live up to that. Invisible Children do have a reply to this, saying when the first numbers where stated about what they use their money for something went wrong and the percents showed up wrong, but that they today do fulfil their use of the money and that the critique regarding that is incorrect.
Yes, huge parts of it all is about money. There are also speculations about their co-operation with the local military, their condescending toward the locals whom are portrayed as the victims in the video and their legitimacy, are they trustworthy? Should we support them with our time and money?
As far as I concern, the sources of the primary critiques are unknown and unproven, so it makes me wonder whether these people just don't have anything else better to do a rainy day than trying to make people go against campaigns like this and make people in general suspicious toward anyone who claims to have good intentions. Yes, we all should be suspicious, more or less, and always ask ourselves what is the source of this information, why should I believe you and what are your arguments to prove you're right?
But on the other hand, in cases like this my biggest concern is how deeply cynical people actually are. This is not a video with numbers to a bank account asking for a donation, but a plea to the people to forward the video in order to spread the information. YES, they do inform the viewer that there are several ways to support the cause including buying items such as bracelets etc, or donating "a few dollars a month" which I believe is not a huge request, but most of all the ask you to sign the pledge and forward the video which is entirely for free, it doesn't cost you a dime, only a few extra minutes of your time, and people, time isn't literally money.
What they ask for is simply information to be spread, people to be educated and to be given a chance to have their own say about it. The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued on the 27th September 2005 a warrant of arrest for Joseph Kony, and without the KONY 2012 campaign people in general (with access to internet) wouldn't know this, they wouldn't know who he was nor what he have done. Even if Invisible Children used their donations for different causes than they claim to do, I still believed that they have accomplished something extraordinarily and exceptionally good; they have made people conscious.
Yes, most people just watch the video, get emotionally involved for 30 minutes, forward the video through posting it on Facebook, and then forget all about it. But you must not forget that out of all these millions of people, there are surely several who actually do engage and take action. There are those to get involved, take it to a higher ground and to a political level where action CAN be done, and for that we have Invisible Children to thank.
So to all of you who say that all of us who post this video on Facebook and ask our friends to watch it and pass it forward are "stupid and believe all we see and hear" I say find the reliable sources that prove Invisible Children and KONY 2012 being a scam, and I will remove the video from my Facebook. If you can find evidence that Kony does not exist and that these abductions never realy occurred, then I'll stop asking my friends to forward the video.
But until then I will continue to believe in this cause, not based on what Invisible Children do with their donations, but on the fact that people now KNOW what the heck is going on down there, that they are reacting and most of all that they are demanding their governments to do something about it. That is worth more than the exact plan behind it all, because if this can result in making even just one person's life better down there in Africa, we should be proud of ourselves, because one single person's life is worth 52 000 000 000 people's commitment. The more the better, but one is always a great achievement regardless of that one person's gender, color, sexual orientation or country of origin.
Wepages worthy of your time and interest:
International Criminal Court
KONY 2012
Invisible Children
So back to the campaign, the organisation (or rather company actually) behind the video is called Invisible Children, which in the past few days since the video was released has recieved a lot of critique, but also support. The video was released three days ago from today, and has alreade had over 52 million views!
The critiques have mostly been about Invisible Children, but some is aimed toward the video itself as well. The main critique and argument is, as I get it, that Invisible Children don't use enough of the donations as it should to the actual promoted purpose, they do call themselves non-profits and should therefore live up to that. Invisible Children do have a reply to this, saying when the first numbers where stated about what they use their money for something went wrong and the percents showed up wrong, but that they today do fulfil their use of the money and that the critique regarding that is incorrect.
Yes, huge parts of it all is about money. There are also speculations about their co-operation with the local military, their condescending toward the locals whom are portrayed as the victims in the video and their legitimacy, are they trustworthy? Should we support them with our time and money?
As far as I concern, the sources of the primary critiques are unknown and unproven, so it makes me wonder whether these people just don't have anything else better to do a rainy day than trying to make people go against campaigns like this and make people in general suspicious toward anyone who claims to have good intentions. Yes, we all should be suspicious, more or less, and always ask ourselves what is the source of this information, why should I believe you and what are your arguments to prove you're right?
But on the other hand, in cases like this my biggest concern is how deeply cynical people actually are. This is not a video with numbers to a bank account asking for a donation, but a plea to the people to forward the video in order to spread the information. YES, they do inform the viewer that there are several ways to support the cause including buying items such as bracelets etc, or donating "a few dollars a month" which I believe is not a huge request, but most of all the ask you to sign the pledge and forward the video which is entirely for free, it doesn't cost you a dime, only a few extra minutes of your time, and people, time isn't literally money.
What they ask for is simply information to be spread, people to be educated and to be given a chance to have their own say about it. The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued on the 27th September 2005 a warrant of arrest for Joseph Kony, and without the KONY 2012 campaign people in general (with access to internet) wouldn't know this, they wouldn't know who he was nor what he have done. Even if Invisible Children used their donations for different causes than they claim to do, I still believed that they have accomplished something extraordinarily and exceptionally good; they have made people conscious.
Yes, most people just watch the video, get emotionally involved for 30 minutes, forward the video through posting it on Facebook, and then forget all about it. But you must not forget that out of all these millions of people, there are surely several who actually do engage and take action. There are those to get involved, take it to a higher ground and to a political level where action CAN be done, and for that we have Invisible Children to thank.
So to all of you who say that all of us who post this video on Facebook and ask our friends to watch it and pass it forward are "stupid and believe all we see and hear" I say find the reliable sources that prove Invisible Children and KONY 2012 being a scam, and I will remove the video from my Facebook. If you can find evidence that Kony does not exist and that these abductions never realy occurred, then I'll stop asking my friends to forward the video.
But until then I will continue to believe in this cause, not based on what Invisible Children do with their donations, but on the fact that people now KNOW what the heck is going on down there, that they are reacting and most of all that they are demanding their governments to do something about it. That is worth more than the exact plan behind it all, because if this can result in making even just one person's life better down there in Africa, we should be proud of ourselves, because one single person's life is worth 52 000 000 000 people's commitment. The more the better, but one is always a great achievement regardless of that one person's gender, color, sexual orientation or country of origin.
Wepages worthy of your time and interest:
International Criminal Court
KONY 2012
Invisible Children
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