Opinion: Invisible Children & Joseph Kony

This is an opinion piece unlike my usual blogs, I have simply expressed a whole range of views and posted no links within the text. Thank you.

The numbers are big

Nine days on, the legendary #Kony2012 video has had over 78,000,000 views, 1,329,774 likes, 95,942 dislikes – that statistic alone shows the interest, the passion and impressions conveyed – I expect the numbers to retain this basic ratio.

Now, I will not attempt to rehash the issues here, a simple Google search will reveal opposing arguments for and against the video apart from the attacks that Invisible Children has suffered in the last week.

A striker without a team

In my view Invisible Children must feel like a striker in a home football match that got the ball, dribbled the visiting team until he was left with just the goalkeeper, kicking the ball right into the net scoring a goal.

Meanwhile, his team mates stayed on their side of field, retreating towards their own goal in disgust that the striker had scored, the prospect of winning the game being so repulsive that neither the striker nor the team could celebrate, the referee being on the verge of disallowing the goal for the fact it looked like there were three teams instead of two on the football pitch.

That is a somewhat extreme analogy but it so clearly represents the state of affairs today.

It’s not unusual

Invisible Children is an advocacy group that mainly informs and engages people in the work towards helping communities that have been destroyed by the menacing antics of Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

Their fund-raising activities are not so entirely unique; for decades we have had pop concerts staged for the enjoyment and entertainment of more comfortable parts of the globe to help disadvantaged groups and countries buckling under the weight of all sorts of disasters. Tickets, T-shirts, bracelets, bangles, packs are all means of exchange with the hope that the profits will end up helping the unfortunate.

Another interesting narrative was that of the White Saviour Industrial Complex where the white man comes from afar as Messiah to helpless and hapless ethnic populations. I cannot subscribe to this notion with regards to Invisible Children, the principals could easily have been happy-go-lucky filmmakers travelling around the globe taking snapshots of poverty and suffering but they got involved, got engaged and developed strong relationships in the spirit of compassion and humanity.

It may not have been obvious to some, but the 6-year old son had knowledge though maybe not fully understanding what his father did in Africa, he recognised the people his father had brought to their home and for his little mind had a clear sense of the need for justice.

That White Saviour Crap

A better and extreme example of the White Saviour Industrial Complex is illustrated in the recent game-hunting trip of Donald Trump’s sons to Zimbabwe. Having killed a bull, an elephant and a crocodile they justified their actions by saying they donated the meat of the dead animals to apparently very grateful villagers who could be fed for up to a month.

There is no need to go into the detail of whether the locals were allowed to shoot wildlife that is under threat of extinction in their neighbourhoods but white men could come from afar shoot for thrills and rather than skin the animals for trophies, the meat is given to the hungry savage natives – even one can only be in praise of such uncommon kindness.

Making complex issues simple

Invisible Children gets accused of over-simplification, there probably is just cause in that view but this is a very complex problem and complicated problems do not get solved by relating to the problem as complex or cmplicated but by breaking the problem down into componential parts then resolving each of the simplified tasks until all the simplified tasks of that complex problem are solved, thereby, solving the problem.

In the case of the film, the complex situation had to be simplified for the consumption of a global and varied audience, situations like this will go for the lowest common denominator – simplicity – this simplicity allows for the very basic information to be conveyed and easily assimilated.

It is however incumbent on the viewer to conduct additional research if more detail is required in better understanding the problem.

As in football

Returning to football analogy, more often than not, if one has not had the opportunity to watch a match what the person needs to know is who won. One can then delve into detail as to who scored, when, how the teams played, what strategies were used, the controversies of refereeing, who the substitutes were, the number of fans in the stadium, who the commentators were and where on the league table the teams have ended up.

In other words, football is a complex interaction of commerce and sport, skill and application, conditions and aspirations, 90 minutes or more, goals, personalities, fans, moods, permutations, statistics and whatever else to raucous, volatile armchair analysis – depending on the audience you package the information to suit the ease of consumption.

Just the facts

I do not think Invisible Children is war-mongering by associating with the Ugandan army in the pursuit of Joseph Kony and the splintered remnants of the LRA scattered beyond the borders of Northern Uganda. The fact is if Joseph Kony is to be apprehended Uganda is the only country in that region with the means to go after him.

We must not forget even though there may not be recently recorded LRA atrocities that Joseph Kony is an evil man who needs to be brought to justice for his crimes against children – recruiting boys in an army with the options of death of killing one of their own and girls being co-opted into sexual slavery – there is no authority or length of time that can exculpate this absolutely rotten and despicable man.

For reconciliation

That is not to say the Ugandan regime does not have its faults, it simply calls for a kind of Truth and Reconciliation model that will allow the children who were once abused and are entering adulthood to find their places back in society as able and prosperous members of their communities and worthy ambassadors of their country against these acts. All parties involved should also be made to confess to their complicity in allowing for this untenable situation to fester for so long.

It is a hydra-headed conundrum and Invisible Children has only gone after one of the many heads, I would have hoped the momentum generated despite the other apparent failings would have had others tackle the other heads of the hydra but in ferociously attacking Invisible Children we have ended up within the context of the first football analogy of my blog.

If Invisible Children is guilty of anything, it is at worst naivety; a case of not fully understanding the problem but nevertheless doing something in the context of what they do understand and from the clamour that has ensued it has become evident that they appear to have done a lot more than those who know and understand the problem too well but have failed to act.

Thought Picnic: The warped doctrine of 72 virgins

An attack on people

As the world gathered to watch the greatest spectacle on earth in unity of mind and purpose some to whom any sense of enjoyment or community gathering is anathema wreaked havoc with two bomb blasts in Uganda killing scores.

It is suspected that Al-Shabab, an Islamic fundamentalist group linked to Al-Qaeda is behind this carnage because of the peace-keeping efforts in Somalia by Ugandan contingent of the African Union forces.

It remains a thing of outrage that any human-being would scheme to kill scores of innocent people to make a political or religious point and one wonders about whether the perpetrators have any conscience, a sense of retribution, an awareness of a so-called afterlife or even an element of faith.

A harem of 72 virgins

So warped is their theology that it is amazing that it gains any traction at all in the thinking of an sane being. Suicide bombers have been offered the promise of paradise, paradise painted in the basest elements of sexual lust – a harem of 72 virgins.

One does wonder if the sexually repressed male who has lived an unnecessarily ascetic life with no ambition or goal in life whose existence has been coloured with pain, suffering and a lack of prospect could in anyway be prepared in his naivety for the highly libidinous task of taking away the virginity of 72 damsels.

A virgin obsession

An untested claim, an unverified existence and a pie in the sky that makes one question the whole concept of faith and an afterlife but seems compelling enough for those impressionable men under the control of evil and nasty religious patrons to be persuaded of the joys of copulation to the exclusion of any other purpose to give up their lives for the cause.

In a culture that is so virgin-obsessed that women regardless of status have to be presented as chaste, covered, concealed and chaperoned as virgins even if they have long been dispossessed of their virginity there is need for more anthropological insight.

The sexually obsessed men are the ones who always appear to lack the self-control in managing their urges but they are never the ones caught committing adultery, the burden of guilt lies with the woman who generally is not able to fight off the advances, who is the victim twice for having been abused and then murdered for having “besmirched” family honour.

Only for the men

The paradise seems only to be made for men on earth and beyond, they have no responsibility to be well behaved or honourable but are ready accomplices in seeking heinous retribution against their womenfolk, no provision seems to have been made for women in general and especially those who become suicide bombers, and it is unlikely they would be recreated virgins but there is probably a story of bliss prepared for them too.

A bliss is that very obtainable on earth if the leaders allow for the conditions to exist for a fulfilled life on earth before that so-called paradise is populated with novices, idiots and easily lead fools to their own destruction.

Once those 72 virgins are exhausted, one could only imagine whether the tale has any legs, if the virgins would the replenished or paradise would end for that is the only reward beyond which the management of a 72-person harem becomes an eternal hell.

The 72 houri

There are references to 72 houri (could translate to virgins), in the Hadith and this constitutes the minimal reward for people of heaven along with 80,000 servants – which in general terms would a logistical organisational nightmare for people who have been followers only and never had an inkling of leadership.

Surely, servants would want to be gainfully employed in the service of their great master the suicide-bomber who just arrived from earth – no, it just does not compute even from an irrational perspective.

The houri however are described in terms that appeal more to the men and expect the women to conform to some code, which is fair enough for those societies but does the pool of 80,000 servants also get populated by persons who once lived on earth and would this servant-hood have benevolent masters or harsh task masters whose masochism on earth is rewarded with opportunities of sociopathic sadism they once experienced from others before heaven?

Silencing the apostles of hate

As for the apostles of hate and death whose power of persuasion belongs to the primitive and pre-human instinct, none of what they do on earth now can justify any sense of bliss in the afterlife, their existence now is one that calls for them to be hunted down as prey and eradicated as vermin.

The whole purpose of religion should always be in service of humanity, where it harms our humanity it is no more religion, it has become terrorism and worse – justice will only be served when all those whose lack of passion for life are taken out of the circulation of those of us who believe there is more to life and probably something more exciting to the afterlife than the satisfaction of our sexual expression.

It is time for well-meaning and true Islamic scholars and leaders to address this matter with urgency provide the context, the reasoned teaching and the framework that honours the cause of Islam as a religion of peace with possibility of happiness and joy on earth and the hereafter and blow into smithereens the warped doctrine of 72 virgins.

Somehow, strange sexualities excite Africans

Using Homosexuality as a damaging tool

Having dealt with a number of topics on sexuality on NaijaBlog in the last few days, one concerning homophobia and other a lovers’ spat, it is strange that there are still issues around sex that tend to hammer the dark into the continent of Africa.

In Malaysia years ago, the accusation of sodomy was used to depose the vice president and persecute him into incarceration and ill health, but he survived.

The first black president of Zimbabwe had his legacy completely rubbished as the tyrannical Mugabe allowed charges of homosexuality to thrive to the disgrace of Canaan Banana.

Whilst the accusation of homosexuality in Africa can create a level of revulsion, some have concentrated that response by alluding to the acts rather than just the life. Some people’s lives could be affected by being named homosexuals, but definitely destroyed by being called a Sodomite.

Publish and be damned

In the light of this, it is first interesting to read that a newspaper in Uganda has decided to publish the first names and professions of alleged homosexuals; this atrocious act is defended as exposing people who are cheating on their partners.

One wonders when it became the duty of newspapers to publish private infidelities, if that be their goal, why single out those who have cheated on their partners with a deviation into same-sex liaisons? It really cannot be justified.

Harking back to Victorian times when sodomy was criminalized, it was said that Queen Victoria did not believe there was anything like lesbianism, this paper has not published names of lesbians for so many reasons, but one can really be that men are quite titillated by lesbian sex, it cannot be said that women find pleasure in the converse.

The law should rise to protect

When a publication of names happened in Cameroon earlier in the year, the courts came down heavily on the editor that he did prison time where he might have learnt to pick up the soap; I cannot muster any sympathy for such people.

I would surmise that the publication of full names might attract litigation that could really do more damage to the paper and editor than the aggrieved.

One voice of reason in that news write up does say this is the time for the government to protect rather than persecute and prosecute – unfortunately, the railing against homosexuality has a way of congregating people to a mob of bigots but does nothing to address everyday issues of life and wellbeing – it is a useful primitive political smokescreen that gets abused by any unscrupulous politician in the West and anywhere else.

Read my story

Then a defrauded Nigerian railing against cronyism and nepotism that has allowed the criminals to abscond from justice has labelled the Minister of Federal Capital Territory a homosexual; this smokescreen reveals a more compelling catalogue of woes and corrupt practices.

We might just say, if you want your story to gain maximum interest in Nigeria, accuse the principals of homosexuality and see your story become a best seller, however, it does not guarantee you will get justice, especially if the big man decides to accord you the courtesy of suing the big pants off your backside.

The medicine man

I remember that the most feared medicine man in the town when I went to secondary school had a name in Yoruba that translated to Sodomite. If you really did have a problem you wanted sorted out in the animist traditions, you went to see him – he had not other name than that, and it drummed fear into those who as much as whispered his name.

I cannot say if the name was supposed to be literal or figurative, but whatever it meant, people must have thought he drew more magical strength from the seemingly abominable and bizarre practice – anyone who might have been done by him would definitely not dare go to the press.

A dowry for a goat

And so a house owner in Sudan wakes up in the middle of the night to sort out a kafuffle in his compound only to catch that a man in the act of using “a goat as his wife”. The shame and guilt of it all paralyses the culprit that he gets tied up and reported to the elders.

The smart grey heads decide there is no point involving the police in this, but impose a dowry on the culprit who is then allowed to take the goat home for a wife.

It is strange that the act of bestiality can attract so smart a remediation, but one of sodomy is a beheading if Sharia has a peek into that case.

Sex in Africa though common in terms of population growth, horrible in terms of rape and abuse and also paternalistic in terms of the rights of women, is still a very difficult topic of ambivalent values of traditions, religion and simple village wisdom – somehow, those in the village seem to understand the issues better.

It may also be that some even knew that sodomy long before condoms and pills was a form of contraception as long as it is practised between man and woman.

This Ugandan Moses leads to the Demised land

Englishman abroad

Living in the Netherlands has me searching for information that would not tax my translation circuits about ideas, events and people.

I cannot say that I am the best integrated expatriate, whilst, I understand most of the Dutch I hear; I speak Double Dutch when I open my mouth, that the natives think I just dropped in from Mars.

Being European, thankfully, I am not under duress to master the lingo before I am capable of joining the job market and making my mark on society.

Hence, I find that my channel-hopping is really a hopscotch game from CNN through National Geographic, BBC World, BBC One & Two and Discovery.

All imported programmes on the regular Dutch channels are not dubbed-over with amateurish lip-synching as you find on German television, but daintily sub-titled in Dutch – if I do venture on to any of that fare.

Long-serving CEOs bring good returns

Anyway, it transpired that as I was about to bed-in with BBC World on air I heard something about someone failing to understand democracy. But for the fact that my bed has good surface area, I could easily have fallen out.

The results of the Ugandan elections had just come in and the eternal incumbent had taken the spoils after having been in power for 20 years.

As a basic research diversion, I went off in search of CEOs who have been around since year dot and it appears CEOs of over 30 years tenure have brought back annualised returns of over 30% over their tenures. Facilitators and improvers.

Remaining a CEO is a performance-based vocation that can have you voted out once shareholders decide that you are delivering good value for their investment.

These stakeholders are making serious changes to corporate governance and if they cannot remove the CEO, they would cause enough of a rumpus to get things moving their way.

Term limits are for the best

Political CEOs are a completely different crop, they have to go back to the electorate every so often to renew their mandate or be pushed into opposition.

Fixed terms allow for leaders to give their best shot to the job and then move on for others to work at it – the erstwhile leaders move on to other grand schemes of world peace and prosperity, hopefully.

The tactfulness of George W. Bush in bringing his father and the Bill Clinton who denied his father a second term together to work on disaster relief is utterly commendable.

Jimmy Carter who left the presidency in 1980 is still about helping fledgling democracies operate their electioneering processes fairly.

Death – the panacea to eternal incumbency

In Africa, we have the second term of the Nigerian president coming to an end and there is all this talk about a third term.

Too many African leaders have been in power for over a generation that the hope of change is the certainty of death somewhere hopefully in the not too distant future.

Nigeria was suddenly liberated from the shackles of tyranny when Sani Abacha kicked the bucket in the middle of aménage a trois allegedly; we all cried rivers of tears – of joy – what do you think?

Many a country would get deliverance from those demigods who live like they have found that elusive elixir of life and immortality – time will tell.

Soldier politicians

So, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda who seized power in a military coup in 1986 and only just discovered through coercion from aid donors a multi-party system accuses someone else of not understanding democracy – the effrontery.

Africa is full of smart people but we have for years been governed by those who could only attain power through the barrel of the gun and then suppress opposition through despotic means and they squander the life-blood of the land.

Understanding democracy includes not abusing your incumbency by allowing equal air-time to all parties during the electioneering process.

Unfortunately, it appears most opposition to these fossilised governments can only come from erstwhile friends and partners of the tyrannical government as differences lead to a Damascene conversion to better things about democracy, freedom, liberty and prosperity.

Breakaway opposition personalities

Such is the case of Dr Kizza Besigye who was once the personal physician of Yoweri Museveni – he probably took a cardiograph and decided Museveni’s heart is not in the right place.

Dr Besigye, never really had a good enough shot at the presidency, no sooner had he returned to Uganda when trumped up charges had Besigye incarcerated and running the gauntlet of the courts as Mr Museveni was free-wheeling on the future of his people.

Twenty years for the roll of dishonour

Twenty years is a long time to be in power, even if you have done a lot to change the fortunes of the country and its people.

However, we read that in 1986 Uganda was probably one of the poorest countries in Africa and we hear of no particular progress till the 90s based of copious amounts of foreign aid.

After 14 years in power, in 2000 Uganda qualified as a Heavily Indebted Poor Country – Hurray! Apart from a handful of those countries, most of them have poor democratic records.

The unrest with the Lord’s Resistance Army still rumbles on having started in 1987 as AIDS has thrived and abated during the regime of a man who has really not moved his country out of the doldrums.

Mr Museveni protests that time is not yet up for him, after 20 years, he believes he still has much to offer and hence the constitutional removal of presidential term limits.

If you have not represented radical change for your people for 20 years, you cannot suddenly come up with great fresh ideas, especially when all executive power is vested in the presidency whilst the legislative and judicial arms of government are literal perpetrators of the tyranny beholden to the President through patronage. It is too unhealthy to countenance.

The George Bush Book of Democracy

This Moses is not leading his people to a promised land; more a demised land.

+        What gives any one man the right to think he is the best his country can offer for the governance of his people?

+        Why does every despot who has plundered the resources of their country believe so much in their unassailability that the most minor dissent is treated like treason?

Now we have to take democracy lessons from Yoweri Museveni – this world has gone crazy.

However, I cannot blame him, he takes a leaf out of George Bush’s book of democracy which is all about people going to vote – suddenly the people (Palestinians) vote for Hamas and democracy mutates to electing only those you are pleased to see in power no matter how corrupt they are.

In the last 4 years Uganda has come 88/91; 93/102; 113/133; 117/159 in the Corruption Perceptions Index – as the sampling has increased so has their position worsened progressively – this does not bode well for anyone, especially for the Ugandans under 21 who have known no other leader than this megalomaniac.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary offers two meanings for megalomania – one can easily award both to President Yoweri Museveni with honours.

1 : a mania for great or grandiose performance

2 : a delusional mental disorder that is marked by infantile feelings of personal omnipotence and grandeur

References

BBC NEWS | World | Africa | Uganda's Museveni attacks rival

BBC NEWS | World | Africa | Profile: Uganda's Yoweri Museveni

EUROPA - Development - Countries - Uganda

CIA - The World Factbook -- Uganda

Uganda - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia