So there is a huge amount of hype surrounding Joseph Kony who has been the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army since 1986. Right away, I will say that I am not for any person killing, abducting, or murdering anyone else for any reason. While many of you know by now that the KONY 2012 video has gone viral and has made some big headlines all over North America—in fact, most of the world by now seeing the scope of facebook—what most are not aware of is the scope that Joseph Kony covers.
A bit of research on the elusive Kony will tell you that he took over as the head of a group known as the “Holy Spirit Movement” and proclaimed himself a prophet for his movement. Later on, that movement changed names to the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and began its slow rise to power. While he was rising to power during the 1990s the world watched hundreds of thousands of people die next door to him in Rwanda.
I mention Rwanda because that nation saw hundreds of thousands of people die due to a radical change in beliefs and at the time no one seemed to have the ability to change what happened there. Rwanda in 1994 saw the same things happen that Uganda has been experiencing for decades. And in many other countries in the world there are people suffering far worse than what we see in Uganda. For the most part it is documented and recorded somewhere in the hopes that one day someone will decide it's a relevant problem and do something about it.
My point is that we see all kinds of evil around us every day and do nothing about it. We tolerate and tolerate until it's right in our faces and hope that someone else will do something to stop this madness. Take your average worker in China; they make next to nothing in wages and live in rooms with upwards of 10 people sleeping, cooking, and getting ready for work, yet we are all right with that because prices are cheap at our local department store.
So what do we do? Should we stand by and do nothing as individuals or groups and hope that the world solves its own problems? I would not ever suggest such a thing. So let's take a look at Joseph Kony again and see what we can do about this problem. Let's keep in mind that at no point can you send an army into another country and take out the leader of a resistance movement for several reasons—one of which would be the infringement on that country’s sovereignty. Not to mention the obvious problems that arise when we imply that the Ugandan people are unable to manage their own problems and that only American troops can save the day.
But, let's walk down that road for a moment and cut off the snake’s head with an army or special forces, or whatever have you. We are proud that we helped to defend democracy and life itself. So what happens to all these men who followed Kony into battle? Are they to simply pick up a job at the local diner washing dishes and move on? If it didn't work for us after WWII, why would it work that way for Uganda? While I commend Jason Russell for making everyone aware of the problem of abductions and murder, I must ask him if he thought that taking out one person would solve the issue?
Joseph Kony is no different than any other dictator the civilized world has ever decided needed to be removed from power. He kills to maintain power, he uses the most ruthless methods to do so, and above all he is using the innocent as weapons to enslave so many more. He is in short an evil man who should be dealt with by the justice system. However, he is only one man and we should not limit our scope to one person ever when dealing with the deaths and mutilations of so many. What the focus should be is on the LRA and stopping them and organizations like them forever. We as the civilized should not be all right with so many evils in the world. We should not sit comfortably back in our chairs and watch it all unfold on the news. A greater awareness of these types of injustices is desperately needed if we are to move forward into the future as a people that call ourselves civilized.
