The past two years have seen a revolution within the activist movement. And what has changed? The Arab Awakening, Occupy, and UK Uncut are three new movements of varying international significance which prove the proletariat is finally becoming conscious of its oppressions and making changes for themselves.
Contrasted with this is new, internet-based activism, brought into the mainstream by Anonymous and WikiLeaks. But at the beginning of March 2012, a completely new kind of activism, on an even larger scale arose. This is #Kony2012, a viral video which is at the centre of the Stop Kony movement, wanting to make Ugandan war criminal Joseph Kony famous, in order to arrest him.
On the face of it, this is a positive, and generally agreeable aim, which is probably why it has attracted the interest of a-political people, and within a number of hours became one of the largest protest issues in modern times. But as well as the questionable actions of both Invisible Children (the organisation who made video) and the Ugandan Army as well as Joseph Kony's LRA, Kony 2012 has made a much more significant contribution to the activist movement itself.
At a time when Konymania (nice word I made up there, eh?) is at its height, here are two thoughts on what has arisen from which a badly thought out movement:
Military Interventionism:
The most interesting point about Kony 2012 is that it supports military interventionism, which has been opposed by practically all activists since the aftermath of 9/11. It is generally agreed upon that Tony Blair and George W. Bush acted undemocratically (and perhaps illegally), and therefore it seems equally as irrational to approve of intervention into Uganda. This then leads to the question of whether popular support, or what could be called direct democratic interventionism, should be distinguished from the interventionism propagated by elected governments. Indeed, if there is a distinction, this could theoretically make Bush and Blair's actions in the Middle East all the more illegal. Although these are perhaps hasty generalisations (much in the vein of Invisible Children's video) the now age-old argument that the Imperialist West has no right to involve themselves in the affairs of the developing world still rings true. As failed as it is, there is a reason the United Nations was set up. If healthy debate is going to exist between countries, then it should be through international organisations that were set up to evade wars; not through badly thought through right-wing campaigns that regress on the political dialectic that has developed over the past decade or so.
These bourgeois elements are more than hinted at in Invisible Children's actions; indeed, they want obtain the support of a select group of individuals to "help bring awareness to the horrific abuse and killing of children in Africa at the hands of Kony and his leadership". This includes "celebrity culture makers" (popular actors and singers, essentially) as well Western war criminals/right-wing politicians that have "the power to keep U.S. government officials in Africa", such as George Bush and Condoleezza Rice. Because, of course, a U.S. military presence has historically improved the situation in developing countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam: all fabulous!)
Equally, we are posed with the theory that the support for this issue is broadly more with those on the centre and right instead of activism's traditional left-wing base, which, although creates legitimacy for protest as political expression, shows the penetration of Tea Party, barmy neoconservatism into mainstream debate. Why support a movement which exists to perpetuate a system that needs to end?
Single-Issue Activism:
Another point is that Kony 2012 is centered around a single issue. Essentially this has never existed before, especially not in an international form, and even the civil rights movement, the anti-war/nuclear movements, still sparked debate on areas of policy not directly influenced by the issue (especially economics). Kony 2012 is focused on one individual, which the West is out to "get", because we happen to dislike him. This kind of oversimplified, black-and-white ethical approach has not been unused before; and indeed a simplification of complex debates has been supported by thinkers on both the left and the right, in the belief that this will enchant the apolitical, as it allows one figure to be given the blame, unlike Occupy, unlike UK Uncut, which fixates its actions on one class of people which have cheated the proletariat (and are based around the fundamentals of economics). If anything, this makes the apolitical more apathetic, with 1 million people marching against the War in Iraq, with the worldwide growth of Occupy, with the perpetuation of anti-war ideology for centuries. To construct an argument against interventionism is in its nature more complex than constructing an argument for it; but without including an historical materialistic outlook on the World, on the actions of the Imperialist West, on the actions of our leaders, on the aftermath of these wars, we fall into a cycle of slowly dismantling the entire developing world purely because of post-colonialist guilt. Whatever Kony has done, his name is just the next in the long line of despots who the West feel it is in their power to liberate: Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Muammar Gaddafi, whilst embroiling themselves within a war which they will not win.
But amongst all of this, because the actions of Invisible Children are questionable, then they should be questioned. This is no ordinary campaign, and it has the capacity to create more problems than it solved. From an extremely bourgeois academic opinion, it will be more interesting to see how this turns out purely because a single issue movement has never materialised on such a large scale hitherto.