Dear Dirty America

Credit: Nicki Varkevisser

Fellow writer and DDA contributor Dan Rudy adds further clarification in his assessment of the yuppie-fueled viral video which has sparked a Joseph Kony craze. He adds:

A friend posed a related question on Facebook today (and still is), namely “LRA/KONY Question #1 The civil conflict between the LRA and the Government has displaced 1.9 million people over 20 years. Someone should do something… Will the Invisible Children’s campaign ‘to do something’ help to end the conflict?”

My answer: (which may be a little swifter to the point than [my] essay): “Beyond raising our domestic awareness of this Ugandan plight, I’m afraid Invisible Children will be unable to produce an effective result in the form of the arrest and prosecution of Joseph Kony. And at least so far as the video mentions, it fails to address either disarming the Acholi sectarians or bridging the cultural rift that really lies at the source of the nation’s woes. To blame these crimes on solely one individual (no matter how heinous Kony has shown himself to be) is to ignore the larger dilemma, and thus pursues only a half goal.

While the IC campaign is commendable in its interests, short of an internationally supported military endeavor the nature of this problem lies beyond a purely grassroots solution. On that note, I am glad Africa is getting a bit of attention.”

See Rudy’s original post Kony Beef