So, the
Joseph Kony Invisible Children video is now up to over 50 million views in less than a week, and it seems to be getting talked about all over the world.
Kony and the depredations of his band of thugs have had a personal significance for me ever since I first learned that they’d kidnapped and nearly killed young
Jimmy Akana, originally the Ugandan penpal of little
Ryan Hreljac of
Ryan’s Well. Quite wonderfully, Jimmy is now the much embraced, college-attending adopted member of Ryan’s family in Ontario, Canada.
Closer, perhaps, to the Kivafriends home is the connection we all tangentially have with Kony and company through KF’s wonderfully accomplished friend, our Florence. Last fall, she was a member of a team of professionals that went to Gulu, a town in Northern Uganda that had been particularly victimized by Kony and his creeps. Florence and the others went there for a youth conference. Turns out she was the one who was in charge of counseling and guidance for the young victims of the LRA whose stories they’d gone there to bear witness to.
She was deeply
deeply moved by the horrors that the young girls, especially, shared with them. I haven’t talked with her about this, yet, but based on past conversations, I believe she’d welcome any light being shone on Kony’s brutality and any possibility at all that might therefore ensue that he could be stopped sooner than later as a result.
There’s controversy and there’s criticism that’s now flying all around the airwaves about the video. However legitimate some of it may or may not be, I, for one, find a whole lot more positives than negatives about the work, and especially, about the intent of these young people who have now made Joseph Kony a household name. For me, the entire story of the video and how it’s caught on has been absolutely fascinating.
Kony 2012: Invisible Children’s viral video sparks criticism that others say is unfounded
'Kony 2012': 'Unprecedented' Viral Video's Message, Backlash Examined (PBS Newshour)
Invisible Children's Kony campaign gets support of ICC prosecutorIn signing off, I want to say that it’s been a source of some great sadness and it’s caused a feeling, actually, of great personal loss in me that interest in Florence, her work and her school seems to have very much faded from the Kiva/Kivafriend universe. Had things been different, I’d have gotten terrific joy out of sharing here the many many pleasures and great learning I’m anticipating from my imminent visit there.
Nonetheless, I know from her constant references to it all that Florence has been, is and I believe will be forever grateful to Kivafriends for the wonderful wonderful support that you’ve given her and Mirembe Community College over the past few years. It’s made a tremendous, almost incalculable difference not only in her life, but especially, in the lives of so many of these young women and their families whose well-being has become her life work.
In closing, I want to say that I, too, am truly grateful for the heart and caring that have been shown here, for the tremendous generosity bestowed by absolute strangers upon these deserving women in Uganda. For me, no question but that it was one of KF’s finest hours.
So, thank you, you guys, and take care,
JillEDIT:
And, for whatever it’s worth, and in the interest of our all learning as much as we can, I just came across this and decided that it’s worth considering, as well.
Anti-Kony video campaign draws criticism in Uganda
Video on Ugandan militia leader Joseph Kony sparks an uproar
(There’s a link to an absolutely hideous if apparently accurate and well-captioned photo story, The Accidental Story, embedded in this article. The last line of that story, written in the last few days by the photographer whose pictures from 2005 are featured, I thought, was pretty telling, “…. I am still waiting for the suffering to end”).
