Stopping Thoughtless and Violent Responses 2012-Part 1:

In the days and weeks following the release of Invisible Children’s Kony 2012 video, many students asked me about the movie and the situation in Uganda.  “What can we do?  Have you seen the movie?  Can we buy an action kit?” 

Several teachers asked a more nuanced question, “What do you think?”  That’s the question we should be helping our students answer.

With the help of members of the Peace and Justice Studies Association, I offer several good resources to help ourselves and our students better analyze the Kony 2012 video and the aims of the organization that produced it.  More importantly, the information and links below propose nonviolent responses that (as history proves) will be much more likely to result in peacebuilding in Uganda. 

We and our students care about local and global injustice and violence.  However, “shoot from the hip” responses, as we too often see, do not yield lasting, peaceful and just outcomes.  Peacebuilder Betty Bigombe explains ongoing negotiations for peace in the video linked below. Project Plowshares advocates for stopping the weapons trade that fuels violent conflict.

After the dust settles, if you and your students are still interested, watch Bigombe’s short video together.  Or, have a class debate the pros and cons of various proposed responses.  Students could even discuss the pros and cons of distributing such a video to raise awareness of an important issue.  I am sure students will be engaged.  Resources include the following:

Project Ploughshares is an NGO that works “to advance policies and actions to prevent war and armed violence and build peace.” The response from Project Plowshares contains clear points and clear action alternatives to the video.  Excerpts are here and link to the full article is below:

1.       “The Kony 2012 video does not make clear that the LRA effectively stopped operating in Uganda in 2006. Kony and the LRA leadership originated in Northern Uganda, but have been roaming the inhospitable border zones of three neighbouring countries since 2008.

2.      Kony 2012 leaves the impression that sustaining the U.S. decision in October 2011 to assign 100 Special Operations military advisors to Uganda’s military is the key to arresting Kony in 2012. In fact, a military-led solution aided by the U.S. may not be the best option for stopping the LRA

3.      Finally, arresting Kony and others in the LRA leadership and handing them over to the International Criminal Court is not a panacea.

So what can we do?
Not mentioned in the video is the key role that the pervasive presence in East Africa of small arms and light weapons makes to sustaining the murderous rampage of the LRA and other marauding groups…..  [Show your] support from the grassroots up for a strong and effective Arms Trade Treaty, which aims to stop atrocities fueled by irresponsible arms transfers. You can help by adding your voice to the Speak Out campaign. And you can follow this link to learn about the World Council of Churches Arms Trade Treaty Campaign....”

Betty Bigombe, is a Ugandan government minister and peace activist who has worked for peace in Uganda for decades.  Watching her 4-minute video will give students a much more hopeful, peace-oriented understanding of the Ugandan situation than Kony 2012 does.  The link for Betty Bigombe’s video is below.   

The Africa Faith and Justice Network issued a statement on non-military solutions in Uganda, including this passage: "While we acknowledge and denounce the terrible destruction brought about by Joseph Kony and his militia, and deplore the heart-breaking suffering imposed on so many ordinary people, we stand opposed to the choice of the Obama administration to send further military assistance to the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, and the Republic of South Sudan as of October 14th 2011. We do not see that further militarization will be in the best interest of the peoples of these countries in the long term; rather we advocate for non-military support to be sent to deal with the complex political issues....”  The link to the website and full statement is below.

Invisible Children, the organization responsible for the video and information campaign, has issued responses to questions raised about the video.  Discussing these responses with students may help them think critically about the aims of Invisible Children.  Many students, for example, think 100% of their dollars spent at the site go directly to helping Ugandan children, women, and men.  They are surprised to learn that only 37% of funds raised by Invisible Children go to humanitarian programs in Uganda, while the rest is used for developing films and other programming.  For other critiques, see journalist Michael Wilkerson’s posting in Foreign Policy, linked below. 

Links to articles and video:

• Project Plowshares article on Uganda and small arms treaty: http://www.ploughshares.ca/content/kony-2012-now-we-have-your-attention
• Betty Bigombe, Building Peace in Uganda: (4-minute video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG7icDkOOHk
• Africa Faith and Justice Network webpage and statement: http://afjn.org/focus-campaigns/militarization-us-africa-policy/133-latest-news/1028-urging-nonviolence-in-dealing-with-the-lords-resistance-army-.html
• Michael Wilkerson in Foreign Policy Blog: http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/03/07/guest_post_joseph_kony_is_not_in_uganda_and_other_complicated_things
• Invisible Children: http://www.invisiblechildren.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/critiques.html
• Peace and Justice Studies Association: http://www.peacejusticestudies.org/

Irwin Abrams on Working for the Unseen Harvest

Recently, an online conversation among members of the Peace and Justice Studies Association began with responses to this quote posted by a member.  Author, poet, and activist Alice Walker was asked, “What good is the antiwar movement if it has failed to stop war?”   

Walker responded, “Sometimes you can’t see tangible results. You cannot see the changes that you’re dreaming about, because they’re internal…. But what we’re doing as we try to stop war externally, what we’re trying to do is to stop it in ourselves. That’s where war has to end. And until we can control our own violence, our own anger, our own hostility, our own meanness, our own greed, it’s going to be so, so, so hard to do anything out there. So I think of any movement for peace and justice as something that is about stabilizing our inner spirit so that we can go on and bring into the world a vision that is much more humane than the one that we have dominant today.” (quoted in Static by Amy Goodman, p. 295)

Her words remind me of Gandhi’s: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” 

A few years ago I asked a similar question about the effectiveness of peace education.  I was doing a program in Yellow Springs, Ohio, with Irwin Abrams, renowned peace education scholar and biographer of Nobel Peace Prize winners.  After our presentation I asked Irwin what I should tell people who complain that peace education is a process that is too slow to be effective.  I really wanted to know what to tell myself.

In his nineties, Irwin did not miss a beat.  He spun around and assured me, “We work for the unseen harvest.  There are consequences” of the work we do.  This promise of the “unseen harvest” has soothed, inspired, and kept me going in the years since. 

I guess it pays to be a historian.  Irwin took the long view, seeing the work of peace educators as having lasting effects, over generations of students, many of whom will take action for peace and justice.  Historian Howard Zinn’s long-term perspective of history also helps me see humans as ultimately good—striving for a better world as best we can, and our work as ultimately effective.  I am also inspired by the events portrayed in the film and book A Force More Powerful.  Thus, I am teaching students whom I feel will be better equipped to think, care, and act to build a peaceful world.  The harvest may be unseen, but our duty is to sow the seeds.