Foreign Policy In Focus

I grew up in Nashville, TN, right in the middle of the Bible Belt. When I was a sophomore in high school (circa 2005), my World History professor assigned mini-research projects about some atrocity or other. Most of us stuck to Europe, a region we extensively studied in class; however, one girl introduced us to Joseph Kony and the evils of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). I had never heard of them before, but she passed out Invisible Children pamphlets explaining in detail the danger the army posed for Ugandan children.

Even at 15, I felt a certain tug at my heart that I hadn’t experienced before. I participated in every event Invisible Children had to offer. I walked in the “Global Night Commute,” a multi-mile walk intended to symbolize the nightly trek of the Ugandan children to the safety of hospital walls. I was impressed that these kids had to go miles just to sleep. With thousands of other excited kids, I slept on cardboard, wrote letters to my senator, and spread the story of Uganda. The experience was exhilarating; I had never been around so many people my age that cared about....well, anything.  

After my junior year, I was so inspired by the work of Invisible Children that I begged my parents to let me go to Uganda. Although we weren’t allowed into Northern Uganda, the region most impacted by the LRA, I traveled with a small group of six girls to Kampala to distribute aid packages to orphanages. While I only met one kid that came in contact with the LRA during my trip (and that was in 2006), my experience launched me into a college career of International Development, African Studies, and Anthropology.

Now I’ve learned quite a bit. I’ve changed, Invisible Children has changed, Uganda has changed. What hasn’t changed is the drive of young people to be heard and to actively take part in something good.  One thing that KONY 2012 has gotten right is that children possess a moral compass unmarred by greed, politics, etc. Coincidently, they are also the most vulnerable and easily manipulated audience. What is concerning about the Kony 2012 campaign is that it targets youth with a simplified message to be the conduits for a very adult policy that ultimately condones (or promotes) U.S. military intervention. 

With a growing youth movement in support this policy, the United States has all the more reason to feel comfortable tightening its strategic relationship with the oil-rich Uganda. Already, 42 senators and 62 representatives have co-sponsored KONY 2012 resolutions. Significantly, the resolution calls for the US to strengthen foreign military forces’ capabilities to seek out and arrest Joseph Kony, the leader of the LRA, despite the fact that Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN secretary-general's special representative for children and armed conflict, has urged funding to go towards rehabilitation.

Militarism is already insidiously present in the United States’ education system, and KONY 2012 only contributes to the normalization of  military interventionism as the solution to all ills. The picture Invisible children has painted is conveniently black and white: Kony is the bad guy, the military is the good guy. Americans have to help or Africa will fall to pieces.

According to IPS scholar Karen Dolan, “young people have the ability to understand complicated issues. Our challenge is to help them understand the pieces, not to hide them in deceptive over-simplification.” In a surprise visit to an AU panel on the KONY 2012 campaign, a Ugandan embassy representative stated that the first Kony 2012 video was incredibly misleading, and was relieved that the second video offered more factual information about the realities of Uganda and the whereabouts of the LRA; however, KONY 2012 part II, has only received about  2% of the internet traffic of its predecessor. It is worrisome that the truth may still be overshadowed by the hype of Invisible Children’s “Cover the Night” event, in which cities will be plastered with campaign paraphernalia and kids will make a final entreaty to their governments to intervene.

Tell all involved youth that they rock for caring about Africa. “Cover the Night” doesn’t have to be the end of youth activism. Let’s use this opportunity to harness the spirit of justice and re-educate our youth about the continent. Don’t let the pressure get you down! If you don’t march on April 20^th in a red Invisible Children shirt, know that there are many other ways to stand in solidarity with African children. Or, if you must, join in the crowds on the 20^th, but raise a sign that says something more constructive, like “Support Democracy in Uganda,” “Ugandan kids need care!,” Or, if you are feeling more radical, “Send Peace to Africa: Arms that Hug not Arms that Kill!” We, the youth of this nation, have just had our voices recognized by millions of us clicking and sharing a slick video. Now we must use our powerful voice for an agenda that won’t harm nations across the ocean.

Emily Norton is a graduating senior at American University. She is an intern with Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies. 

Considering the recent quake in interest in Joseph Kony among my fellow members of generation Y, last week's unanimous decision by the International Criminal Court to convict Thomas Lubanga Dylio is timely to say the least. Lubanga was the president of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UCP), an ethnically based opposition movement with roots in Ituri in Northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Lubanga also served as the commander in chief of UCP's military branch, the Patriotic Force for the Liberation of Congo (PFLC). Lubanga oversaw systematic rape, ethnic massacres, and torture. Additionally, he was accused of spearheading child abductions and then using these children, mostly under the age of 15, as child soldiers during the height of the Ituri conflict from September 2001 to August 2003. After over 60 witnesses and over 1,000 pieces of evidence were heard during the three-year trial of Mr. Lubanga, Presiding judge Adrian Fulford announced last Wednesday that the prosecution produced evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Lubanga, who was commonly accompanied by child soldier body-guards before his 2005 arrest, played a direct role in the conscription of children during this conflict.

As we wait to learn of his final sentencing, we are left wondering what kind of sentence might be expected for the now infamous Joseph Kony if he gets his day in court. While there is something commendable about Invisible Children spreading awareness of Kony's atrocities, calling for "justice" is terribly vague, especially among millennials. Everyone agrees that Kony's actions have been horrendous, but there has been little consensus on what bringing him to justice would really look like. The focus has been on getting him (through Africom) with little thought of what to do to him next. The very term "getting him" is itself vague with no clue as to if how or in what state he will be retrieved. The difference between recognizing a clear wrong and identifying a just right could not be plainer.

Considering the way the Kony 2012 video was designed, I wouldn't be surprised if many newcomers to the movement hadn't considered this yet. If so, there are several more questions left for them to ponder.

Let us presume that Kony the Barbarian is located. What should happen then? Lubanga's three charges pertaining to using child soldiers added up to a measly sentence range of 11-30 years with many expecting something close to the maximal sentence. If Kony were to be sentenced similarly to Lubanga, would the movement spurred by Invisible Children feel that justice was served? Or is time in prison somehow getting off easy? Would the 11-17 year old girls who made up the largest cohort of viewers of the Kony 2012 video feel vicariously avenged if Kony was sentenced to death after a trial? Is a trial even necessary? How does one dole out justice that can respond to such terrible acts as those performed by the likes of Kony and his lesser known counterpoint, Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni who has also been accused of committing war crimes by the International Court of justice?

In addition to the judicial possibilities, let's take a moment to explore extrajudicial scenarios. What if, akin to Osama Bin Laden, Special Forces swooped in on an LRA encampment and "took out" Kony before he knew what hit him? This would distract from the gravity of the reality of taking justice out of the courts and onto the battlefield, deploying soldiers to serve as both judge and executioner. How convenient would it be if we could all handily avoid focusing on the action itself of killing Kony by instead dwelling on the flashy scenario that would have surrounded the mission? News media would constantly replace the real action of killing, executing, shooting, with more appealing action-movie euphemisms like "taken out" or "neutralized" not to mention a flashy name like "Operation Wolverine." The kids these days love Wolverine, right? Surely the soldiers would be far more revered than any ICC prosecution attorney. Many antimilitarists have criticized Invisible Children for encouraging American intervention in the crisis that may lead to just such an eventuality as well as many other unintended consequences regarding Africom. Do the means justify the ends if Kony is captured or killed by Special Forces using drones? Ultimately, if a case could be made for alternative means that empower local officials, are less violent, and less interventionist such as local police relying on informants in order to apprehend Kony, then I would posit that militarist means cannot be so easily justified.

Research done by the Pew Research Center shows that military intervention and capital punishment are not as popularly supported by the millennial generation as older generations. The report warned that "the relationships among age, generation and attitudes about national security are complex and defy easy generalization" but did go on to point out two surveys from 2009 indicated that this up and coming generation was less hawkish than its elders. The 2009 report showed that only 38% believed that the best way to ensure peace was through military strength and were also less supportive* of an assertive approach to national security.

Alas, the picture is not entirely clear. There is a clear difference between an assertive approach to national security and humanitarian intervention. After all, Save Darfur drew heavily on support from young people, though this demographic was significantly less outspoken on intervention in Libya and has been relatively quiet in regard to ongoing human rights violations in Syria. Despite being far more likely to identify as liberal, another Pew poll taken in November 2011 showed that the majority of young people still support capital punishment for murder. With 59% approval, millennials were only slightly below the national average of 62%. At the same time, millennials opposed the death penalty as a suitable punishment for murder more than any other age related demographic.

Though capital punishment is supported by the majority of Americans as an appropriate penalty for our own citizens, many U.S. citizens have been significantly less cavalier about executions of foreign criminals, especially among the millennial generation. In the wake of the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, what was at first a generally jovial Facebook, news feeds began to see more and more humanistic and religiously inspired quotes about the tragedy of death, violence and killing (many of which were mistakenly attributed to Martin Luther King Jr.).

I was about to start my final semester of my senior year of high school on December 2006 when Saddam Hussein was executed for his crimes committed during his tyrannical rule over Iraq. I attended high school in a conservative rural area in Oregon, a state that had lost a higher than average number of national guardsmen in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of my peers planned on joining the military after high school. And while people were generally satisfied that justice had been served, no one I knew had the stomach to watch the video. My closest friend noted admiringly of rumors that even George Bush turned away and did not watch the full video. What does it say about a punishment if it is so horrendous we can celebrate the sentence but not bear to watch it? To watch it is to own it, to take responsibility for it. To Kony 2012 let me just say that if it is justice you want, you might want to be more specific.

*The Pew Research Center's published research regarding support for assertive national security did not include an enumerated Y radial on their graphic results which made speculation as to the degree of any generation's support for such action unidentifiable in non-relative terms.

Heath Mitchell is an intern at Foreign Policy in Focus.

Cross-posted from the NY Times eXaminer.

As anyone who regularly utilizes the mixed blessing that is social media now knows, an internet campaign to “#stopkony” has exploded in popularity within the last few days. The target in question is the infamous (now more than ever) Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, which haunts East-Central Africa.

Today’s New York Times picked up on the phenomenon in a front page article and in a piece at The Lede blog on the paper’s website titled “How the Kony Video Went Viral.” Both articles note some of the criticism directed at the campaign, included the failure of the organizers, namely those in a neophyte group by the name of Invisible Children, to mention the brutality of the Ugandan military, which the campaign seeks to support as a means to capturing Kony.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this story lies in how it demonstrates that social media can be incorporated, with novel features, into a propaganda model of the traditional media. Let’s return to the Times’ question: how did the video go viral in just a few days? (The post at the Lede has a graph which demonstrates the meteoric rise of the trending topic nicely.)

In answer, the Times notes, “Mr. Russell explains the social media strategy, which includes getting people to enlist celebrities on Twitter.”

When Kim Kardashian, with her 13 million ‘followers,’ joins in, exclaiming “#Kony2012 Wow just watched! What a powerful video! Stop Kony!!!,” we may acknowledge their success at raising awareness. But then, a propaganda poster from World War I also raised awareness – about the fearsome Huns – whether it does more good than harm is another matter.

The Times’ ‘celebrity Twitter’ explanation for the topic’s sudden popularity is fine, so far as it goes. However, why should this story be the one to blow up big? Why the LRA and not lawless drone strikes on a growing number of countries, or any number of other issues? Do the idealists at Invisible Children simply have unusual marketing savvy? To ask the question is to know the answer.

Celebrities, in the main, will only promote social media campaigns which are safe for their image, a desideratum of which is that they cannot conflict with the geopolitical interests of Washington. A “#stopdrones” Tweet will do nothing for Justin Bieber’s career and, if he were to keep it up, could well do it serious damage. Nor will a campaign hashtag for Washington to end its alliance with Meles Zenawi’s regime in Ethiopia likely be ReTweeted by brand Oprah Winfrey. Thus, no exponential rise in ‘awareness’ about the topic will occur – at least not with the help of most Twitter celebrities.

While we’re on the topic, it should be noted that the problem with the ‘stop Kony’ campaign is not really one of oversimplification. As if the limits of messaging ensure inevitable distortions. It is perfectly possible to reduce complexity to some simple messages without doing violence to reality.

The problem is rather with how the initial messaging is simplified, particularly in its target and solutions. The target, much as in the Save Darfur campaign, is poorly chosen because leverage over the situation is remote for Western publics. Unless one resorts to the dangerous fantasy that Western militaries are merely the armed wings of Amnesty International. Instead, how about a call for Washington to stop supporting the Museveni government, target of brave and brilliant democracy protests last year?

If we nonetheless accept the target of Kony, we must still acknowledge the terrible violence unleashed upon civilians as a result of Operation Lightening Thunder, the previous U.S.-Ugandan military alliance, which must surely be judged a failure if the purpose was truly to chase down the LRA. That’s right – the military route has been tried before. The barest respect for recent history forces us to reject the solution proffered by Invisible Children. Rather, why not support and amplify the goals of those activists and civil society campaigners in the region who have established strategies for obtaining peace?

Returning to the Times coverage, both pieces fail to observe the Invisible Children campaign’s neat parallel with Washington’s military adventures in the area. To little publicity, in the last few months the Obama administration has deployed Special Forces to Uganda, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo in a “shadowy” mission ostensibly designed primarily for the purpose of catching Kony. Just over two weeks ago, on Feb. 23^rd, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Africa briefed reporters at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. The timing of the ‘stop Kony’ trend in social media is certainly convenient.

The Times’ front page print article merely limits itself to commenting that, “The surge of awareness [about Kony] is even more remarkable considering that President Obama, under pressure from Congress, announced in October that he had authorized the deployment of about 100 American military advisers to help African nations working toward ‘the removal of Joseph Kony from the battlefield,’ a major step in American foreign policy in Africa.” Surely, ‘remarkable’ is not the first adjective that comes to mind when promotional campaigns happen to track military expeditions. ‘Predictable’ might be a better word choice.

Already, observers have warned of the likelihood that this campaign could reinforce the U.S. military presence in the region.