In my critique of Invisible Children’s KONY 2012, I said if we want to help vulnerable populations like those featured in the video, we should tell their story on their terms, not ours. We shouldn’t portray them as voiceless or hopeless. Our job is to stand alongside the poor, to regard them as equals. It’s not to “come to their rescue.”
Yesterday, CNN covered a screening of KONY 2012 in Lira, a city of 100,000 in Northern Uganda. This is the region where Kony used to wreak havoc — raiding villages, kidnapping children, and committing unspeakable acts of violence. This was ground zero for the LRA war.
The screening was hosted by AYINET (African Youth Initiative Network), a Ugandan NGO working to support those affected by the war. Several thousand people showed up.
Many of the children, women, and men in attendance lived through Kony’s reign of terror.
So what did they think of how Invisible Children presented their story to the world?
At the Lira screening, the film produced such outrage, anger and hurt that AYINET decided that in order not to further harm victims or provoke any violent response that it is better to halt any further screenings for now.
According to AYINET, those in attendance share Invisible Children’s desire to see Kony and other LRA commanders brought to justice. But viewers were deeply disturbed by the main goal of KONY 2012: to make Joseph Kony famous.
It was very hurtful for victims and their families to see posters, bracelets and t-shirts, all looking like a slick marketing campaign, promoting the person most responsible for their shattered lives.
After the screening, one viewer was applauded when he stood up and said:
If you care for us the victims, you will respect our feelings and acknowledge how hurting it is for us to see you mobilizing the world to make Kony famous.
According to AYINET:
There was also a strong sense from the audience that the video was insensitive to African and Ugandan audiences, and that it did not accurately portray the conflict or the victims.
It’s time we started listening to those we claim to serve. If KONY 2012 is really about making a difference and not just making us feel better about ourselves, then we should listen long and hard to how the people of Northern Uganda feel about how their story has been told.
They’re the ones who bore the brunt of Kony’s evil. They should be the ones to decide how best to recover and rebuild. And it seems to me they’re saying that KONY 2012 isn’t the way to go.
For more on reaction to KONY 2012 in Northern Uganda, see:
The problem with Invisible Children’s new documentary, KONY 2012, isn’t how it depicts Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony. They hit that nail on the head.
Kony has made a career of kidnapping children, forcing them to kill their own relatives, and conscripting them into his violent (and pointless) crusade. Kony has long since abandoned whatever shred of humanity was left in him and become a monster.
Invisible Children is right to demand Kony’s arrest and trial before the International Criminal Court.
The problem with KONY 2012 isn’t its relentless optimism, either. Far too many people have resigned themselves to the seeming inevitability of injustice. Invisible Children is defiant in its belief that we can do more than observe history; we can shape it. That’s something else they got right.
And the problem isn’t, as some have charged, that Invisible Children spends most of its money on advocacy rather than direct aid. To be sure, I think they gave the wrong impression in KONY 2012 when they characterized their work in Northern Uganda as follows:
We were committed to stop Kony and rebuild what he had destroyed. And because we couldn’t wait for institutions and governments to step in, we did it ourselves with our time, talent, and money. So we rebuilt schools. We created jobs.
That’s unfair to the many humanitarian groups who were active in Northern Uganda long before Invisible Children existed. And yes, Invisible Children should have been clearer up front that direct aid is a relatively small part of their work. Still, there’s nothing wrong with being an advocacy group. We need organizations that provide critical services to the poor, but we also need groups who speak out against the systemic causes of poverty and injustice.
The problem isn’t even that Kony 2012 oversimplifies the story, as its director Jason Russell acknowledged this week. The problem is that it oversimplifies to the point of being misleading. In so doing, it diverts attention from more pressing issues. It might even undermine Invisible Children’s stated goal of seeing Kony brought to justice.
Most of all, KONY 2012 inadvertently perpetuates the stereotype of impoverished Africans as voiceless, hapless victims who need us to come to their rescue.
From watching KONY 2012, you might get the idea that Kony’s fighters, the LRA, are as big a threat today as they were eight years ago, when Invisible Children first started shining a light on Kony’s crimes.
But that just isn’t the case. Kony and his forces left Northern Uganda in 2006. Since then, life has been returning to normal for the region. World Vision, which has rehabilitated more than 14,000 of Kony’s child soldiers since 1995, reports that the number of kids coming through its Children of War Rehabilitation Center has “dropped dramatically.”
KONY 2012 alludes to this fact when the narrator mentions that “the LRA began to move into other countries.” But take a good look at the image that comes onscreen at this point…
Screen capture from Kony 2012
To me (and I think most casual viewers), this looks a lot like a map showing the extent of territory under someone’s control or influence. Which is misleading. Kony doesn’t control any territory. The LRA is a shadow of its former self, something Invisible Children fails to mention in its video. Most experts believe Kony has only a few hundred fighters left.
True, that’s still enough to cause mayhem. (And they have.) But the main narrative of KONY 2012 is about six years out of date.
In Kony’s absence, most of Northern Uganda has focused on rebuilding and reconciliation. So why is Invisible Children stuck in the past? Why aren’t they listening to thoughtful African voices who are warning against the danger of elevating Kony to celebrity status?
Some worry that KONY 2012 will backfire, sending Kony into hiding just as he might otherwise have been tempted to lower his guard. One advisor to the U.S. military command working with the Ugandan government to apprehend Kony said the video “couldn’t have happened at a more unhelpful moment.”
Night commuters in Gulu, 2006 (credit: World Vision)
I wonder if this is the danger of focusing your organization on a single issue. Your whole reason for existence becomes tied up with the continued relevance of that issue. The infamous “night commutes” that put Invisible Children on the map have long since stopped. There is much to be done in Northern Uganda, but the focus on Kony is misplaced. Invisible Children needs to move on.
There’s also the question of working with the Ugandan military, the UPDF, to fight the LRA, something Invisible Children seems to advocate. The UPDF has used child soldiers, just like Kony. They’ve helped Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, maintain an increasingly repressive grip on power. Can they really be trusted to protect the Acholi people of Northern Uganda, whom they’ve targeted for persecution in the past?
Sure, Kony makes a compelling villain. He is unambiguously evil. But there are bigger fish to fry in Uganda, much less other parts of the world. I wonder how much more could be accomplished if people like Jason Russell used their talents (and he has plenty to spare) to mobilize our generation to combat climate change or address some of the deeper structural issues that keep so many people in poverty.
Joseph Kony is an easy target — particularly because he’s so heinous. But because of Invisible Children’s video, he’s drawing attention away from far more deserving causes.
Finally, KONY 2012 inadvertently perpetuates an unfortunate stereotype of impoverished Africans as voiceless. While I think some of the criticism of KONY 2012 goes too far in painting it as yet another example of the “white man’s burden,” the film does appear to be driven by the assumption that Africans need us Westerners to give them a voice.
If you’re showing me as voiceless, as hopeless, you have no place telling my story. You shouldn’t be telling my story if you don’t believe that I also have the power to change what is going on.
It’s not our job to be a voice for the voiceless, because we shouldn’t think of anyone as “voiceless” in the first place. There are times when we can use our voice to amplify the voices of others, but we should always tell their story on their terms, not ours.
There’s more to justice than caring. There’s more to it than even caring about the right things. KONY 2012 makes for a compelling emotional drama, but it falls well short of the hard work, careful thought, and — above all — respect for those we’re all trying to help that ought to characterize advocacy initiatives like this.
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Update: Earlier this week, KONY 2012 was screened in Northern Uganda, before an audience of thousands, many of whom are survivors of Kony’s terror. According to reports, their reaction was overwhelmingly negative — specifically, to the strategy of turning Kony into a celebrity and to the portrayal (or lack thereof) of Ugandans in the film. I believe it’s important to listen to what Ugandans are saying about a film and a movement that is largely supposed to be about them. Read more here.
Several prominent evangelicals released a statement today called The Evangelical Manifesto. Definitely worth reading.
The statement and its signers seek to define evangelicalism in a way that, to many, may sound a lot like someone trying to put new spin on an old idea. But what this manifesto proposes is nothing more (or less) than a return to evangelicalism in its most classical, authentic sense.
Unfortunately, one of the most prominent evangelicals of all, Dr. James Dobson, declined to sign, citing a “myriad of concerns.”
What I love most about this manifesto is its humility. The signers distance themselves from some of the more extreme expressions of evangelicalism in recent history—without becoming strident or self-righteous… or falling into the trap of making little more than a desperate appeal for acceptance.
Here are some of my favorite bits. But really, you should skip this part and download the whole thing…
As followers of “the narrow way,” our concern is not for approval and popular esteem. Nor do we regard it as accurate or faithful to pose as victims, or to protest at discrimination. We certainly do not face persecution like our fellow-believers elsewhere in the world. Too many of the problems we face as Evangelicals in the United States are those of our own making. If we protest, our protest has to begin with ourselves….
As the universal popularity of such hymns and songs as “Amazing Grace” attests, our great hymn writers stand alongside our great theologians, and often our commitment can be seen better in our giving and our caring than in official statements. What we are about is captured not only in books or declarations, but in our care for the poor, the homeless, and the orphaned; our outreach to those in prison; our compassion for the hungry and the victims of disaster; and our fight for justice for those oppressed by such evils as slavery and human trafficking….
Above all else, [evangelicalism] is a commitment and devotion to the person and work of Jesus Christ, his teaching and way of life, and an enduring dedication to his lordship above all other earthly powers, allegiances and loyalties. As such, it should not be limited to tribal or national boundaries, or be confused with, or reduced to political categories such as “conservative” and “liberal”….
First and foremost we Evangelicals are for Someone and for something rather than against anyone or anything. The Gospel of Jesus is the Good News of welcome, forgiveness, grace, and liberation from law and legalism. It is a colossal YES to life and human aspirations, and an emphatic NO only to what contradicts our true destiny as human beings made in the image of God….
We call for an expansion of our concern beyond single-issue politics, such as abortion and marriage, and a fuller recognition of the comprehensive causes and concerns of the Gospel, and of all the human issues that must be engaged in public life. Although we cannot back away from our biblically rooted commitment to the sanctity of every human life, including those unborn, nor can we deny the holiness of marriage as instituted by God between one man and one woman, we must follow the model of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, engaging the global giants of conflict, racism, corruption, poverty, pandemic diseases, illiteracy, ignorance, and spiritual emptiness, by promoting reconciliation, encouraging ethical servant leadership, assisting the poor, caring for the sick, and educating the next generation. We believe it is our calling to be good stewards of all God has entrusted to our care so that it may be passed on to generations yet to be born….
The other error, made by both the religious left and the religious right in recent decades, is to politicize faith, using faith to express essentially political points that have lost touch with biblical truth. That way faith loses its independence, the church becomes “the regime at prayer,” Christians become “useful idiots” for one political party or another, and the Christian faith becomes an ideology in its purest form. Christian beliefs are used as weapons for political interests. Christians from both sides of the political spectrum, left as well as right, have made the mistake of politicizing faith; and it would be no improvement to respond to a weakening of the religious right with a rejuvenation of the religious left. Whichever side it comes from, a politicized faith is faithless, foolish, and disastrous for the church—and disastrous first and foremost for Christian reasons rather than constitutional reasons….
We Evangelicals trace our heritage, not to Constantine, but to the very different stance of Jesus of Nazareth. While some of us are pacifists and others are advocates of just war, we all believe that Jesus’ Good News of justice for the whole world was promoted, not by a conqueror’s power and sword, but by a suffering servant emptied of power and ready to die for the ends he came to achieve. Unlike some other religious believers, we do not see insults and attacks on our faith as “offensive” and “blasphemous” in a manner to be defended by law, but as part of the cost of our discipleship that we are to bear without complaint or victim-playing….
Michael Gerson is regarded by many as one of the most talented (and controversial) speechwriters today. Having spent five-plus years as the top White House speechwriter, Gerson, a graduate of Wheaton College, is the man responsible for such memorable lines as the poetic “soft bigotry of low expectations” and the infamous “axis of evil.”
Gerson has a new book releasing this month, Heroic Conservatism. I don’t normally write about books I haven’t read yet, but the God’s Politics post got me curious.
According to the Washington Post (where Gerson is now an op-ed columnist), he writes in his book that “traditional conservatism has a piece missing—a piece that is shaped like a conscience.” In his own column, Gerson wrote earlier today that some conservatives are proposing a false choice between big-government liberalism and “freedom, reduced to a single principle of unrestricted economic choice.”
Gerson, an evangelical Christian, believes many of his fellow conservatives are drawing from the well of libertarianism. He proposes that Catholic social thought—which maintains the dignity of every human life, the importance of the family and community, and solidarity with the poor, among other things—would make a better foundation for those whose politics lean toward the right.
(As a side note, one aspect of Catholic social thought that conservatives especially resonate with—the sanctity of life—is also cause for discomfort among some of them. In addition to its opposition to abortion, this tenet of Catholic social thought maintains that war and capital punishment must also be rejected in favor of life.)
Focusing mostly on what Catholic social thought says about the poor, Gerson writes:
The difference between these visions is considerable. Various forms of libertarianism and anti-government conservatism share a belief that justice is defined by the imposition of impartial rules—free markets and the rule of law. If everyone is treated fairly and equally, the state has done its job. But Catholic social thought takes a large step beyond that view. While it affirms the principle of limited government—asserting the existence of a world of families, congregations and community institutions where government should rarely tread—it also asserts that the justice of society is measured by its treatment of the helpless and poor. And this creates a positive obligation to order society in a way that protects and benefits the powerless and suffering.
This obligation to protect has never, in Jewish and Christian teaching, been purely private. Hebrew law made a special provision for the destitute—requiring that a portion of harvested crops be left in the field to be gathered by the poor. The Hebrew prophets raucously confronted the political and economic exploitation of the weak.
Speaking as one who doesn’t feel at home among the labels or parties at either end of the political spectrum, I think both sides of the aisle (and everyone in between) would benefit from more thinking like Gerson’s.
One of the projects I’ve been working on lately has had me spending lots of time in the beatitudes. And I’ve been struck by other-worldly they aren’t:
For the poor: “Theirs is the kingdom of heaven…”
For the meek: “They will inherit the earth…”
And for the persecuted, again for good measure: “Theirs is the kingdom of heaven…”
Luke is even more down-to-earth in his rendition of the beatitudes. “Blessed are you who are poor,” he writes. Not just those who are poor in spirit. And, “Blessed are you who hunger now.”
According to Jesus, the kingdom of heaven is not just a distant promise for the persecuted and the poor. It’s meant to be a present reality, affecting their lives in the here and now.
According to Jesus, the inheritance of the meek is not a pile of heavenly riches. It’s the earth—this world. In Greek, the word for earth is the same as the word for “ground” or even “dirt.”
All of this begs the question: If Jesus meant for the poor, the meek, the hungry, and the persecuted to experience blessing now, exactly how is this supposed to happen? Who will bring for them the kingdom of heaven, the earth, and satisfaction for body and soul?
Maybe it’s our job. Maybe, when we see to it the needs of the poor are met, we bring a little bit of God’s kingdom to earth. Maybe, when we defend the rights of the meek (read: powerless), we carve out a small piece of earth for them. Maybe, when we give food to the hungry, we bring more than just physical sustenance.
Come to think of it, maybe all of the beatitudes have a present (and not just a future) dimension to them. Maybe those who mourn are comforted and the pure in heart see God whenever we live up to our calling to be the hands and feet of Jesus.
To be sure, Jesus at times speaks of “reward in heaven.” But for ancient Jews who, like Jesus, believed in the afterlife, the line between this life and the next was blurry at best. Eternal life was something that began not the moment you died, but the moment you entered into a relationship with God.
The kingdom of heaven is a blessing that lasts for eternity. But according to Jesus, you don’t have to wait till you die to enjoy this blessing—or to share it with others.
Recently, I saw this ad—one of several from the Acton Institute, a conservative think tank that advocates, among other things, the use of free market economics to help fight poverty:
I respect the Acton Institute. I think they have several good ideas about fighting poverty. Some of their other ads advocate things like microloans for the poor and access to global markets for developing countries so they can trade their goods freely.
But in the case of this particular ad, there’s another perspective worth considering. What if 30 grams of fat is not, in fact, good for the world’s poor? What if the Big Mac represents the kind of consumerism that can hurt the poor by damaging their environment?
Consider this example from Matthew Sleeth’s book Serve God, Save the Planet (which I blogged about last month):
To obtain billions of hamburger patties for a few cents each, America’s fast-food restaurants buy much of their meat from Central and South American farmers. These farmers clear-cut forests, often starting a cattle-raising process that can be sustained for only a few short years. The loss of rain forests in South America means that the clouds they once made no longer blow across the Atlantic to drop their water on Africa. As a result, the Sahara grows by thousands of acres a year. What is the bottom line for Africans? More starvation. And the bottom line for Americans? Cheap burgers and growing waistlines.
South American rain forests generate the clouds that deposit rain on African farmlands. As these life-giving forests disappear, children starve.
Incidentally, those working in places like East Africa confirm that the frequency and severity of droughts has increased significantly. Unfortunately, most of the mainstream media is too obsessed with the latest drunken celebrity incarceration story to cover the plight of the rural African farmer.
Meanwhile, these farmers report more and more difficulty as their climate changes for the worse. The Sahara is pushing southward, and the rains that once fell with some measure of predictability are becoming scarce.
In a world where children starve so I can scarf down a $4.00 value meal (one that will probably shorten my life span as well), can we really argue that unbridled consumerism is good in all its forms? Adam Smith, the father of free market economics, envisioned an invisible hand—the idea that a person who is free to pursue their own economic well-being will unwittingly contribute to the common good.
But what happens when consumerism reaches epic proportions? What happens when our appetite for more stuff—including things which, like the Big Mac, have no redeeming value—grows out of control? What happens when we embrace capitalism without restraint, without accountability, and without responsibility for those who are impacted by the choices we make?
Is it possible that we’ve bound the invisible hand? That the connection between self-interest and the common good has been broken by our unrestrained (and unrecognized) greed?
Is it possible that our choice of what and where to eat is really a choice of whether or not we will love our neighbors (including those who live on the other side of the planet)?
It may be that fast food is not only hazardous to our health. It may be that our addiction to fast food is hazardous to Africa’s health.
More than once, I’ve heard it said that we Americans are a good and generous people. A few years ago, former Secretary of State Colin Powell described the US as “the most generous nation in the world.” Our president has frequently remarked that we are a “generous, kindhearted nation.”
The question is… are we?
Well, yes and no.
According to a recent CNN story, Americans forked over nearly $300 billion to charitable causes last year, including gifts to churches, universities, libraries, etc. That’s $13 billion more than the year before. And it’s more than twice the amount given by the next most generous country.
And that’s just private giving. For every man, woman, and child in this country, the US government provides nearly $24 in aid to developing countries every year. And thanks in no small part to the president’s promise to send an additional $30 billion to Africa over next five years to help fight AIDS, the total amount we give is on its way up.
That’s the good news. And make no mistake, it is good news. It’s good news for the 1.1 million Africans now receiving life-saving treatment for HIV. (Three years ago, only 50,000 Africans had access to such treatment.) It’s good news for the 16 million people who were given malaria nets last year. It’s good news for several hundred thousand families who got microloans to start small businesses to begin lifting themselves out of poverty.
But like almost every story, there is another side…
With per capita income at nearly $38,000, we’re one of the wealthiest countries on the planet. Yet when you measure foreign aid to developing countries as a percent of our wealth, we rank dead last among the rich countries of the world.
True, that’s just government aid, which means it doesn’t take into account the nearly $300 billion Americans gave out of their own pockets last year.
But here’s the thing. As big as $300 billion may sound, it’s barely more than 2 percent of our total wealth. (In a country where something like three-quarters of people identify themselves as Christians, why aren’t more of us giving closer to 10 percent?)
What’s more, for all our charitable giving, only around 2 percent of it goes to the world’s poor. (Which is the about same percent the average Protestant church sets aside for global outreach.)
And when you compare the rate of giving to the increase in our collective wealth, the amount we gave as a percent of income actually decreased slightly last year. From 2005 to 2006, our wealth increased by 6 percent. Meanwhile, our generosity lagged behind, increasing at just 4 percent.
We’re a country that gives 2 percent of our wealth to help others… 2 percent of which goes to the people who need it most. Two percent of two percent. In other words, for every $100 we earn, we give just four cents to help our poorest neighbors around the world.
How does that measure up to the Torah, which commanded the Israelites to set aside a tenth of their harvest every three years for priests, foreigners, orphans, and widows?
How do we reconcile our rate of giving with our allegiance to a messiah who once told a wealthy young man that the path to righteousness required him to sell his possessions and give to the poor?
How will God—who measures generosity according to what we have and not just the amount we give—judge us?
Jesus once sat and watched as people put their offerings into the temple treasury. Of all the offerings he saw that day, the one that caught his attention was that of a poor widow who gave just two small coins.
They were the only coins she had.
In God’s economy, it’s about sacrifice, not size.
May all of us remember this truth before we become too satisfied with the extent of our generosity. We in America have been entrusted with much—which means that much will be demanded of us.
Basically, new infections are happening faster than people can get treatment in Africa—even though the number of Africans taking antiretrovirals (ARVs) has increased 1300% since 2004.
According to the UN, for every South African who gained access to ARVs last year, five more contracted HIV.
Make no mistake, the increasing accessibility (and decreasing cost) of ARVs is making a difference. It’s saving lives every day.
Yet the Post says that millions more are being infected because there hasn’t been enough of a corresponding investment in changing behaviors like having multiple sexual partners.
Some might argue that behavioral change is unrealistic—even an arrogant expectation.
Try telling that to the people of Uganda, who’ve seen their country’s HIV prevalence decline from 15% to less than 7% over the last 15 years or so. Experts disagree, but many believe that the Uganda’s decrease in multiple sexual partnerships was one of the most important factors in the successful reduction of its HIV rate.
So what does it say about our faith in the people of Africa if we write off behavioral change as an unrealistic or unattainable goal? It may be that failing to promote positive behavioral change is not only shortsighted; it may be an insult to the very people we mean to help.
Let’s give the people of Africa the best chance of beating AIDS; let’s invest in both increased access to life-saving medicine and positive behavioral change.
