Invisible Children my foot

Uganda, my beloved country has been ‘trending’ on twitter for the best bit of this and last month. Now for a country like us to trend let alone keep trending for so long a while is just strange. If am right this could just be the first time we actually do. It is all down to the recent campaign by a certain fellow called Jason and his ‘Invisible Children’ campaign to “get Joseph Kony famous” to get him “arrested” to “stop Kony”.

So I decided to check out people’s comments on the subject, I specifically searched “#Uganda”. Oh dear me it is just unbelievable the amount of RAW ignorance and stupidity that is floating out there. One particular tweet ticked me off, “for every re-tweet, 0.35 dollars will be donated to Uganda and the ‘Invisible Children Inc’. What are we now? Peasants, paupers? This Jason fella has managed to twist minds into thinking that without him and his organization we are nothing and Joseph Kony will run all over Uganda bringing more plight and misery over an already desperate, incapable people. I hear “make Kony famous”, since when has ignorance been an excuse? Do you even know the last time a child was abducted in Uganda? Do you even mention that the war in NORTHERN Uganda came to an end several years back and that previously disturbed families have been well resettled and the reconstruction program is underway?

No nooooo Jason and you do not find time for clarity in your “27 minutes” of ‘youtube’ video time or your “140” character twitter limit. You ‘Jasons’ just had to place yourselves in the best position possible to come off as Uganda’s saviors, as the fellas without whom Kony wouldn’t have been captured and Uganda’s troubled children saved. In the process you have decided to paint us as a poor, incapable, uncaring people who have been sitting idly by on our hands as the children of our country were abducted, turned into child soldiers and mutilated, stripping us of what little pride and dignity we had left. Whom are you kidding Jason? Do you know how long Uganda’s army has fought the Lord’s Resistance Army? Do you know how many lives have been lost to that cause? Where you get the guts to even call them invisible is simply beyond me, invisible to whom Jason? because if it is to you and your like I shall gladly accept because it shows from the kind of commentary oozing I see from all the social networking sites wherein you posted your campaign. You should also consider that violance cannot be the sole option in this fight after all all that will do is put the lives of the very children taken into the war as child soldiers at risk. The very children whom you speak out for.

We are fed up to the bones of this white savior mentality you got going on. This un-relenting form of neocolonialism that you are clearly using to your own gratification. Gulu is full of hundreds of Non governmental Organizations all fronting for mini causes and sub causes helping just a few people. In my opinion such organizations are doing more harm than good, stalling people’s progress and rendering them dependent on you. Now am not so much against help, in fact I appreciate it, what I will not stand for is using misleading information for your causes, twisting reality to suit yourself. No more shall we take this “savior of Africa” twisted conception you have over us. We are our own people, we feel just like you do and shall move forward alone if we have to. If you are offering help on our way there then do so, but do not take away what makes human.