KONY 2012

Joseph Kony and the LRA are indeed a bad thing. There are reasons because he is on the top of the list of the most wanted criminals list. But, although the idea of arresting him and bringing deliverance to the ugandan children is indeed an idea worthy of praise, it seems that we are not learning anything from our own history.

It is very likely that a common citizen doesn’t know anything about Africa other than some vague ideas about South Africa, Lybia and Egypt, due to recent facts and events. Africa is a continent with a serious ammount of troubles, which deal with racism (even inside the same black communities and tribes, due to irreconciliable differences among them), famine, poverty, etc. All those problems can be traced for the pillaging, raping and barbarism imposed by the european colonialists, which profited by slaughtering the african continent from the 15th to the 20th century. That’s 500 years of constant punishment which made the continent what it is today. Joseph Kony is, as it is said, just another hair in the horse’s tail.

But as I’ve said, bringing attention to the ugandan problem is good, because it does something that nobody does, which is caring about Africa. This continent is just another excuse for charity givers to feel good about themselves, throwing one or two crumbs to the dying corpse. Charity does not help at all when the problems of one nation like Uganda, or one continent like Africa, are deeply cemented in its roots. And also it provides a certain idea of double standard, because when Africa really needed help, nobody cared about them. The Kony factor makes things worse, but it’s not a cause of a certain bad, is its consequence. 

Putting Kony in jail will not help to solve anything, although it could stop, at least temporarily, certain bad things that are happening right now in Uganda. But, as I said, Africa’s situation is too undescribably bad that the only effect of Kony’s death would be giving just another dead person to Africa. What happened after Gaddafi’s death, or Bin Laden’s execution? Nothing. Lybia and the Middle East just kept going like the day before their deaths. The real world is not like a videogame, where killing a bad guy eventually fixes the situation. Social, cultural, sexual, economical and religious issues in Africa are an open wound that, sadly, will never heal at all. It’s extremely sad for me to think like this, due to my interest in peace and society, but I think about Africa as a half dead continent. The colonialists are the ones who blame (just like the western world and christianity as a whole in the Middle East situation), it’s them that left Africa like that, they helped to create people like Kony. We can kill him, but Africa will be still in a danger that probably doesn’t have any solution.

My advice is to think, read and learn about Africa. Do it for you and for them. Don’t trust every source that you read, doubt about everything, and be peaceful and respectful to other people.