KONY 2012

Well... this is interesting.

Invisible Children has launched their newest campaign, and it is to bring Joseph Kony to justice by the end of 2012.

(NOTE: Before you give any of your time or money to Invisible Children, PLEASE, I BEG YOU, check them out at Charity Navigator, an organization that reports on transparency and other aspects of charitable organizations.  From what I've seen both here and on the ground myself... there are far better programs that need your money, ones that do far more effective work on the ground.  Now back to business...)

Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, has been rampaging around East and Central Africa - kidnapping, murdering, terrorizing - for over 25 years.  But we're going to bring him to justice within a year?

I have lived and researched in Northern Uganda, home to Joseph Kony.
I have ridden motorcycles through the bush with former child soldiers.
I have spent time with residents of IDP camps, hearing their stories of suffering.
I have a father with bullet wounds from LRA soldiers and a mother who held a man while he died after an attack.
I want Kony brought to justice as much as anyone out there.

But I'm not sure this is the way to go about it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm elated to see so much attention and enthusiasm directed at a place I call home.  There has been an overwhelming outpouring of support for the people I have come to call family, and it is beautiful.  But as vlogger Hank Green has said, "International relations are not conducted on the time scale of the internet."

This war has been going on for over TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.  What that means is that it is complex, it is difficult (if not impossible) to resolve, and it takes far more than some internet buzz to end.  There are reasons why he hasn't been brought to justice yet, and the history begs for far more detail than Invisible Children often provides.

After the failure of the Juba Peace Talks in 2008, the US attempted to intervene and capture Kony in 2009 in a failed project called Operation Lightning Thunder.  And what did it lead to?  MASS RETALIATION, including abductions, deaths, and thousands of people displaced.  Not exactly the most successful endeavor.

If we want Kony to be stopped, it will take dedication.  It will take careful planning, and not by kids on the internet, but by diplomats and military liaisons and government officials.  Who have already been working on bringing Kony to justice for years, long before you ever heard his name in a YouTube video on your Facebook newsfeed.   

We, as the youth of the world, are incredibly powerful.  We have, however, a tendency towards terribly short attention spans.  This quest for Kony cannot turn into an internet fad that loses steam in a few weeks' time.  I fear that may be what happens here.

So before we all start blowing up Facebook about Kony 2012, let's ask ourselves... are we still going to care in three weeks?  Three months?  Three years?  This is a marathon, not a sprint.  Kony has been at it for longer than I have been on this earth, and international intervention takes far longer than a Facebook update takes to write.

Get active, get excited, and get passionate, but first think hard about what it really takes to affect change.  Read: more than a twitter post.