The African Youth Initiative Network (AYINET), a Ugandan activist group, thought it would be a good idea to organize a community tour for the now-infamous "KONY 2012" video, to let the people of northern Uganda see what all the fuss is about.
Joseph Kony's "Lord's Resistance Army" has been more active in southern Uganda, and residents of other parts of the country don't seem to know much about it. Thus the idea was to educate them, and maybe make a few shillings for the African Youth Initiative Network along the way. Good idea, right? Errr, wrong!
The first screening, held this week in the northern town of Lira, provoked such a furious reaction that the tour has been cancelled. Imagine the scene -- the video projected onto a white sheet, held up by crude metal rods, in a dusty town park, with 5,000 Ugandans watching with curiosity, then bafflement, then anger. People began shouting abuse, then throwing stones, forcing the crowd to scatter and the organizers to flee in terror.
Turns out the local people were more than a little PO'd by Jason Russell's call to "make Kony famous" by putting his image on T-shirts and posters. Why should we give celebrity status to a killer, many Ugandans asked. Others said the video brought back painful memories of a war that had ended in Uganda in 2006 when the LRA was chased out of the country.
A Ugandan blogger, Rosebell Kagumire, was amongst those who survived the screening. "There was chaos, we had to run away," she tweeted. Many people were disappointed and angry, she said. "They have had enough of money makers!"
Geoffrey York, the Globe and Mail's man in Africa [following Ugandan events from nearby South Africa? Ed.] writes that after the screening, callers to local radio stations demanded that no T-shirts of Joseph Kony should be allowed into the region.
Victor Ochen, a director of AYINET, says he is worried that the video will waste money that could be better spent on helping the victims of the LRA -- like his brother and his cousin, for instance. According to York, Ochen wrote on his website "Raising potentially false expectations such as arresting Kony in 2012 will not rebuild the lives of the people in northern Uganda. Restoration of communities devastated by Kony is a greater priority than catching or killing him."
Walt has been unable to find this disclaimer on the AYINET website or anywhere else, but agrees with the general sentiment. Just one thing though. If ravaged communities are indeed to be restored, the work should be done and the money raised by the Ugandans themselves. The Lord's Resistance Army was and is a Ugandan thing, not something for which Westerners should feel any guilt or responsibility.
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