As much as I understand how Americans require brilliant Hollywood-styled devices like those used by the KONY 2012 campaign to gain partial awareness of the situation in Uganda, that doesn’t stop the campaign from pissing me off.
Sure, Joseph Kony is a rotten human being who deserves a date in front of an ICC judge followed by a lifelong stay in a jail cell shared with a horny guy named Big-D**k Afaf, but Americans are once again getting sucked into a myopic solution that’s dressed up and positioned as a cure-all.
Why are we ignoring Yoweri Museveni, another rotten human being who is destroying Uganda and is serving the second year of his fourth five-year term as President? Why don’t we talk about how Museveni’s security forces shot, beat, arrested and killed protesters concerned about rising food and energy prices? How about the loot Museveni is personally positioned to make from production-sharing agreements with Western oil companies while 37 percent of Ugandans live in poverty? How about Uganda’s huge oil discovery being a significant reason for why many Westerners turn a blind eye to Museveni’s actions? And how about the alleged 2011 election thuggery exhibited by Museveni and his peeps? I could write a book about how Museveni’s forces invaded and occupied the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where he presided over the mass murder of DRC civilians while seizing DRC’s resources. While you’re at it, ask journalists how they feel about their ability to freely report on Uganda’s shizzle. Okay, your turn to tell me how Kony is behind all of this…
Still, the amount of attention KONY 2012 is getting tells me Team Obama can score a major victory with young people in an election year if Kony is captured at the right time. Weird, huh?
song currently stuck in my head: “let me see some id” – malik work & the upstagers
