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). =