By Nicole Unice
NicoleUnice
This week there has been quite a splash in the social media world. With almost thirty-three MILLION YouTube views in three days, the charity Invisible Children has launched a video and print campaign to bring awareness to an international war criminal, Joseph Kony. Trending worldwide on Twitter today are #KONY, #KONY2012, #StopKony, and Uganda.
Joseph Kony is a violent man in power, evil personified. He is a kidnapper of children, turning them into soldiers, forcing them to mutilate and rape. Joseph Kony represents everything that we hate. The loss of innocence. Wild, irrational violence. Egregious violations of everything we hold sacred in America. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness completely obliterated, captured in living color in the blank eyes of a seven-year-old boy hoisting a machine gun.
I did what most everyone did yesterday. I watched part of the short film and then shared it on Facebook. I retweeted two or three times. I talked with my coworker about how terrible this atrocity is and how we haven’t been able to stop him. I thought about ordering some posters.
And then I took my car into the body shop for an estimate, picked my kids up from school, and started figuring out what I could forage out of the freezer for dinner. Kony was not on my mind. Child soldiers were not on my mind.
Later that night, I checked my twitter feed again and discovered the inevitable controversy that accompanies something as complex as assassinating a warlord hidden in an African jungle for the past six years. Invisible Children has been investigated, the tumblr posts and old newspaper articles said. They aren’t fiscally responsible. They advocate violence. Then, the backlash. “Stop critiquing!” said the voices, “Get involved!” I read a few hundred words on a topic that people study for years. And then I went to sleep.
I romanticize activism. I admire people who are working so hard against injustice. I want to support them and I think they are incredible, all that knowledge and passion united against one cause. I have friends who are passionate about the orphan crisis, friends who are passionate on both sides about the women’s ultrasound law HB 462, friends passionate about school choice. About healthy lunches. About sex trafficking. About maternal mortality. Wouldn’t it be great to care so deeply about one thing….?
But honestly, the whole complex debate makes me want to hide under my covers and sing myself a lullaby. I don’t want to try and figure out what laws need to be passed to stop traffickers. I don’t want to know about Joseph Kony and children’s mutilated faces and bodies and hearts. I don’t want to know about fistulas in Africa and distended bellies in Haiti and child prostitutes in India. It makes me sick. It makes me want to cry. It makes me want to take my children and run for the hills and start canning my own food—because I read an article once from a passionate person who said eating tomatoes out of cans is the same as exposing my children to nuclear fallout. Ok, not quite. But they were passionate about why tomatoes in cans are horrible. Some would say they were “activists” against tomatoes in cans.
But for every passionate cause and solution, there are critics. For every blog about tomatoes in cans, there is the FDA and the government and thousands of food scientists who try to make things safe and healthy.
For every Kony ad campaign, there are wise and seasoned military experts and lawmakers who’ve spent years debating the use of force in a land that is not ours to govern. We are a people who are as conflicted as the government. We want peace, but we want less military. We want humanitarian aid, but that often means we want bad guys brought to justice…which means tanks and guns and snipers and soldiers.
We want to raise a peace-loving generation, but secretly hope our neighbor’s son will be the one who enlists. And with loud voices, we will take our “White Savior” complex, a phrase to describe the white majority’s belief that they are the benevolent savior of all—to the ends of the earth.
The writer in me wants to give a nice ending to this article, to tie it up in a bow, to justify my apathy by saying I vote (which I do) and that raising awareness is enough (is it really?) and that I donate to fiscally responsible charities (always hoping they aren’t corrupted while also feeling guilty that I don’t give enough.)
But I don’t have an easy ending. I am ambivalent about raising my voice for issues that I don’t understand enough about. I am busy, but wonder if I’m busy doing the right things. Guilt sets in. Are my priorities out of whack when I cook dinner or enjoy an evening with friends or encourage a volunteer at my church? This is the crux of the problem…the more information I have, the more guilt-laden and joyless I feel. I don’t know what to do.
I am a reluctant activist. Or perhaps actively reluctant?
Hey busy Richmond moms: what’s your take on the Kony situation? And more importantly, how do you act on your passions (or guilty feeling that you should be passionate?)
Some other resources to consider:
The Stop Kony video from Invisible Children
A take on Kony from an American living in Uganda
Resources on the crisis and controversy (if you are an actual activist)
About Nicole Unice
Nicole Unice
Nicole is a fresh voice for the next generation. Part bible teacher, part community organizer, part busy mom–Nicole has the uncanny ability to relate to people in all ages and stages of life with her “keeping it real” approach to ordering a life around God’s word. Nicole’s teaching reaches wide, both as a writer and speaker. Her work has been featured in a wide range of publications, including the Christianity Today publications Kyria and Her.menuetics. Nicole is a contributing editor for Gifted for Leadership and serves in family and student ministry at a Hope Church in Richmond, Virginia.
Nicole is known for making friends in all corners of the world–especially via social media. So connect with her on her website, her Facebook page or via Twitter.
