Hipsters make me laugh. The statements they make, the clothes they wear and the things they do-it is all rife with hilarity. I am content in quietly observing these people do what they will. With my tattoos and affinity for slasher films, I’m sure many people feel the same way about me. But I can’t remain silent when it’s clear the hipsters’ new humanitarian kick may lead to actual violence where it shouldn’t exist.
I’m sure most of you have heard by now of the Kony 2012 craze revolving around an emotion-based video produced by Invisible Children. The organization’s goal is to introduce the world to Joseph Kony , a war criminal whose guerilla army consists of child soldiers and whose finances are partially funded by forced child prostitution.
Kony (and his Lord’s Resistance Army minions) undeniably deserve to be eaten by ants.
The executives at Invisible Children, though, are a little too permitting of collateral damage in order to see this happen.
As of March 6, there were 604,000 Google results for a search of Kony’s name; one week later this number increased to nearly 8.5 million. The organization has certainly met its goal in making Kony famous, but at what cost? For the many years of research Invisible Children claims to have completed on the country, it seems they don’t even realize the Ugandan army gained its power through the use of child soldiers as well.
Yet it applauds the Obama administration’s decision to train these brutes who continue to massacre communities and torture civilians for no reason. By sharing the video, you are also sharing the idea it’s acceptable for the U.S . government to sell guns to murderers.
Here is the main point: there isn’t only one bad guy, and the last time we made the mistake of aiding the least of two evils was when the U.S . government trained Osama bin Laden to fight against the Soviet Union. Unintended consequences follow every choice.
You can read my new column, “Invisible Children,” at Taki’s Magazine for further details about the importance of rejecting military intervention in Uganda.
As for the organization itself, there have been many complaints about how these unorganized fools conduct business. For instance, the organization has continually refused to provide finance information to the Better Business Bureau, which performs quality audits on charities. When charities aren’t screwing around with their donations, they welcome these audits. Clear accountability brings wealthier donors to the table.
Even Invisible Children’s concept is sketchy. This focus on Uganda is ridiculous because, as other Africa-based groups understand, the LRA left the country at least six years ago.
One community health director explains, “There has not been a single soul from the LRA here since 2006. Now we have peace, people are back in their homes, they are planting their fields, they are starting their businesses. That is what people should help us with.”
These people aren’t stupid.
If you want to make the case for anti-LRA activism, the conflict requires direct and immediate action on behalf of volunteers, not the transfer of donations into executive bank accounts. Any organization dedicated to planting alert towers in affected areas, constructing schools for communities pillaged by Kony’s men, providing loans to businessmen who hope to prosper one day in freedom-these are noble goals.
But aiding an organization branding itself as peaceful and simultaneously poses for photographs (while yielding automatic weapons nonetheless) in front of employers of child soldiers is not something I ever plan to do.
From one bandwagon to the next, this is where the hipsters jumped. As these training sessions are inevitably followed by drone strikes and long-term occupations, remember Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, as the Obama administration continues giving foreign aid to governments that use child soldiers and rape women, remember this column.
Where, I need to ask, are the outcries of hypocrisy, which were so prevalent within the left wing when the U.S . president had an elephant next to his name?