Over the Edge -Maroh 14

opinion 3

KONY 2012

The medium is the message

NITHA KARANJA
CONTRIBUTOR

Last Monday night I logged onto twitter and
the Invisible Children’s KONY2012 campaign
literally erupted onto my screen. Dissatisfied
with what my smart-phone could offer I hurried-

ly switched to my laptop where I was directed
to facebook and then YouTube and a smorgas-
bord and of blogs and tumblrs to witness one of
the most potent and dynamic social media cam-
paigns likely ever seen.

At first, I was excited. As an East African,
the issue of conflict in Northern Uganda has
menaced the region for as long as I have been
alive. What started out as a legitimate protest
against ill-governance and state-led discrimina-
tion, soon degenerated into a cycle of unthink-
able violence. Victims became perpetrators and
perpetrators morphed into victims. Ceasefire
talks have been held, promises broken and the
binary between peace and justice has come
into question. “What will our generation do
differently?”my friends and I often ask each-
other. We have enjoyed nearly five years of rela-

tive peace, but that does not mean the issue is
resolved. And while the answer may be simple-
bring people to justice, maintain peace, encour-
age economic growth and develop social sup-

port systems - the solution is not simple at all.

And so J eagerly began watching the video.
I felt excited that the conflict was being cast to
the forefront of international concerns and was
humbled that a group of young people from Cal-
ifornia were partners in this effort.

Yet, a few minutes into the video I felt a
growing knot in my stomach. I became confused
about what I was seeing. A beautifully executed
cinematic production for sure, but nothing of
what was unfolding in front of me spoke to the
reality that I knew existed in Uganda. I saw a
group of action-oriented, ingenious and inspir-
ing founders and an incredible response by
millions of young people that has been nothing
short of remarkable. But I didn’t see Uganda, I
barely saw any Ugandans, and I certainly didn’t
see a viable solution.

The mixed emotions had me tossing and turn-

ing all night. Truly. I didn’t sleep. While I-want-——justice and -governance that can_bring about-and ——__—

ed to applaud and support all my friends and
peers who were eagerly engaging and informing
themselves about the conflict, I knew there were
certain aspects of the campaign that were harm-
ful and even dangerous, and so I started to write.

This article and my views are sincerely not
meant to personally attack or undermine the
intentions of the campaign and its many sup-
porters. But I would like to open up dialogue
in our university community about the nature of
#KONY2012 and the larger implications of its
workings. Alongside the accolades opposition to
the campaign is mounting and there is growing
concern about its legitimacy and ethics. To be
fair the campaign is not all bad, but it is def-
initely not all good either. Where it is particu-
larly effective is in motivating young people and
squeezing a large and complex issue into a small
and uncomplicated idea: STOP KONY. Nothing
could be simpler. Unfortunately however, the
world is full of things which are difficult and
multifaceted, and compressing them into ab-
breviated formats does not necessarily lead to
preferred outcomes.

Nearly 50 years ago Marshall McLuhan,
the Canadian media
theorist declared that
the “medium is the
message,” expressing
how the medium con-
duit entrenches itself
into what is communi-
cated to an audience.
The implication is the
medium influences
how the message is
perceived. McLuhan
theorized that a news-
story about a_polit-
ical scandal, was less
about the actual event
and more about how
the public feels about
political scandals. The
story then becomes a
site for the public to
discuss political scan-
dals, and as such, the
public is in fact, the
content, and the news-story is peripheral. I think
his teachings lend themselves very well to the
KONY2012 campaign, where the style of the
campaign and social media have almost over-
taken the content.

Let’s take a step back to understand this bet-
ter.

If statistics are correct, over 70% of people
who started reading this article will not get to
this sentence. This points to a major flaw of our
generation- we are generally unwilling to invest
real time or effort into developing and fully in-
vestigating an idea. The history of the Lord’s
Resistance Army and the conflict in Uganda,
Congo and Burundi cannot be summarized in
140 characters or less (length of tweet), much
less in this article. And similarly the solutions
to those issues cannot be communicated in this
format too.

So what does that mean to us- given that
we have already purchased our smart_phones
and are active on twitter? Should we burn the
devices and go back to town hall meetings and
journaling? Certainly not. Social media-is not
just bad, It democratizes information. It dis-
tributes the power to spread ideas to the people.
However with power comes responsibility, and
now that we have the tools to inform and share
and advocate, we must take the responsibility to
really know what we are spreading.

I argue that while Northern Ugandans can
benefit from the support and solidarity of people

bad. It

Social media
is not just

democratizes
information

across the world, it is only their own systems of

maintain long lasting peace and security.

There is a case to be made for some western
interventions in Africa, but this should not be
the only and complete focus of our efforts and
attention. Unfortunately this is the simplistic
narrative of the Kony2012 campaign.

PhD student Jack McDonald from King’s
College London’s War Studies department ex-
plains, “The idea that popular opinion can be
leveraged with viral marketing to induce foreign
military intervention is really, really dangerous.
It is immoral to try and sell a sanitized vision of
foreign intervention that neglects the fact that
people will die as a result. That goes for polit-
icians as much as for Jason Russell (of STOP-
KONY Campaign).”

By focusing all efforts on foreign military
intervention informed by the will and action of
foreign youth, the campaign essentially mimics
the colonial mentality whereby the western pro-
tagonist determines the best course of action for
the powerless African.

In no uncertain terms, | attest this is neo-
colonialism.

So it is not to celebrities like Lady Gaga
or Rihanna that we
should look to for
solutions to Africa’s
problems, or even
Condoleeza _— Rice
and the other (mostly
U.S) politicians the
Kony2012 campaign
points to. But instead
we should learn from
organisations that
better represent the
current state of af-
fairs, and also give
agency and voice to
local actors rather
than omitting them
from the conversa-
tion altogether.

It is heartbreak-
ing to hear of the
horrors that children
have faced at the
hands of the LRA.
But even when we feel deeply and passionately
we must resist resorting to the thinking that we
know what is best for everyone else, and that we *
are best placed to make decisions for and create
change in the lives of others. As citizens of a de-
veloped country, Canadians have the privilege
to cause change in the world. But not all change
we will engage in, is necessarily the required or
desired action.

Perhaps sending more troops into central Af-
rica is not what local experts would advise. But
how will we know if we don’t listen to them?

Perhaps we will not, because campaigns such
as this, in essence, are really not about Uganda,
or the LRA. They are about us- western youth.
As a friend of mine put it, “Campaigns like
Kony2012 are outlets for people to express eth-
ical impulses, in a world that feels unethical.” at
a time where individuals may feel they lack lo-
cal community, people can feel apart of a larger
global family of sorts. Here, they can then buy
into and self-identify through the purchasing of
products (Kony Tshirts, posters, wristbands etc.)
and reproduction of symbols (facebook posts,
hashtags etc.)

And is this necessarily a bad thing? No. It is
not. But its not the whole story- for that, and in
the words of Marshall McLuhan, we will need a
much larger set of medium(s). =