KONY 2012.

Yes. Again.

The Kony 2012 has quickly been criticised on the basis of numerous arguments (If you still don't know what I'm on about, I suggest you get out of your cave).

Once again today I contributed to Rupert Murdoch's fortune by buying The Time in which Daniel Finkelstein wrote a pretty good opinion piece on the campaign. I must say I agree with him.

While it is probably naive to think that the Western World can put an end to the LRA and arrest Kony just like that, because people have seen the Hollywood-like, 30-minute-long film and felt really bad (my eyes teared up, I admit it) because let's face it, Western Governments aren't interested in spending a great deal of resource on arresting a powerful man as Kony, it's all about business and money, what's in it for our governments? Nothing so chances they will act are close to nothing.

People have criticised the fact the documentary is too Hollywood-like and manipulative. I have to say yes, it might be, but if it hadn't, would you have carried on watching it? Or would you have closed the tab thinking "Not another teen movie about african children dying", would you have shared it? Admit it, people don't want to read about old news. So I believe the efficiency of this film is an important part of it.

Critics have also accused the film-makers of simplifying a very complicated issue. Again, if you knew the documentary was going to last an hour and a half and that it was about a crazy Ugandan who plays war with children, would you have watched it? Probably not, so in order to make it short, yes they had to simplify the plot but the essential remains.

And yes they might have found oil in Uganda, but that is also old news.

I still find this campaign admirable and it has my support. As Mr Finkelstein puts it "[Kony] is a comissioner of murder, of rape and of child abduction. Though he lives far away his crimes are still crimes and the people who died because of him are still people. If someone gets 76 million people to hear about it, and try to do something, you won't find me among their opponents."

And as Charlie Chaplin once said: "We think too much and feel too little".

Comments

  1. NuniMarch 15, 2012 2:55 pm

    I didn't watch the film (kinda lazy but it's also the fact that I really enjoy reading articles about that) but I signed the pledge and I think it's a very very very (veeeeeeeeery) important subject.

    ReplyDelete

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