Kony 2012: For or Against?

So this past week, I was one who was caught up in the viral nature of the documentary video of Invisible Children (IC) titled KONY 2012. If you haven’t seen it, I suggest you take a peek. The film is very inspirational and effective as is show by the many critiques, rejoinders, conversations, and arguments that are flying out there in the media and social media. There are many critiques and rebuttals and I do not want to get bogged down in the slew of information flying out there, so you can decide for yourself. Here are some places you can go: Justice in Conflict blog, Foreign Policy blog, Time Global Spin blog, Invisible Children’s response.

Some of the critique seems valid: that the video is overly emotional without providing enough information, some say the video implies a very “white man is the savior” complex, others say that the methodology that IC is undertaking is entirely flawed, that Kony actually isn’t the worst embodiment of evil and that there are more pressing things to turn our attention and resources to, like the ‘nodding disease‘. I believe all these critiques have merit to an extent, and I have come to agree for the most part that that IC’s efforts could be maybe use better elsewhere (for one, bringing Kim Jong Un, since his dad already died, to justice, I think bring down the leader of North Korea would have more far reaching effects than hunting a criminal who’s a fugitive in the forests). But I do think that the video and especially what the video has created, that is the plethora of conversations, is of some value.

It has value because of what justice is. I don’t mean philosophically, but to the average individual. To the average person who checks Facebook 50 times a day, justice is nothing but an emotional high. I would even say that to all of us who are blogging, writing, responding on the internet in what we think is a constructive or intelligent manner, justice is again merely a thought that gives us good feelings. That’s why the video works so well. It moves people initially. Because justice is always sweet when you bandwagon, and most people do not realize that the rest of the ride is very rarely sweet, that it is hard and sometimes even painful, because most of us jump off that wagon before it starts to hit the rocky road. Then we go back to our computer screens, checking Facebook for the next emotional high that pops up in our news feed. This is why those of us who are not doing any alternate acts of justice cannot be fully critical (of course we can point out errors) against those people who are acting and spending their time and energy, even if it may seem wrongly directed. Because on the individual journey of justice they are ahead of us. They are our teachers.

So I do not think I will be donating to the Kony 2012 Campaign, but I will not be against their campaign. For the average individual, IC is a small part of a life long education process, one nudge, but maybe an important one for that indifferent person to be moved to fight injustice, to actually learn the difficult life of Justice, and not merely feel or rage about it. As Bruce Waltke teaches us the true meaning of justice, “The wise and righteous are those willing to disadvantage themselves in order to advantage others.”

Sex Trafficking on the Web

Nicholas Kristof writes a column titled, “How Pimps Use the Web to Sell Girls“, concerning the greed of the executives of Backpage.com and their refusal to comply with the pleas of attorneys general and the community to prevent trafficking on their site. Technology is not in itself evil, but it is amazing how we humans can taints such things. As I wish all to read the entire column itself, I will not quote from it here.

Another horrible misuse of facebook reported on cbsnews.com.

Fighting against REAL Injustice

While Occupy Wall Street people occupy themselves with a cause that mostly like is not about injustice (for it is when you defend something other than yourself that a true act of justice is performed), there has been a surge of activism in the South Korean peninsula which seems to be more fitting with what one may call a ‘just endeavor’ (btw, an interesting read on Occupy: “Brick by Brick“). The film Dogani (도가니) has raised so much awareness (4.4 million people according to NYT) of unjust laws protecting teachers who commit sex crimes. Here is the trailer of the film:

An article from The Economist points out that in a report given by the education ministry “in September 2010, the punishment for teachers who commit sex crimes is usually nothing more than a salary cut or a short-term suspension. It is typical for other categories of convicted sex criminals to be sentenced either to suspended sentences, fines or probation.”

Other such injustices that point to the weakness or failure of the rule of law are incidents such as the following that a New York Times article points out, the article titled, “Film Underscores Koreans’ Growing Anger Over Sex Crimes“:

Last year, for example, Chey Cheol-won, 41, a trucking company owner and cousin of one of the country’s richest men, was convicted of hitting a 52-year-old former union activist 13 times with an aluminum baseball bat while his executives watched. He then wrote out a 20 million won check on a company account and threw it in the victim’s face. Mr. Chey received a suspended sentence.

The rise in awareness has, in the case of South Korea, moved politicians to slowly change laws and pass bills that strengthen laws that have often been so inept to protect the weak, poor and disabled. Once again, this political stir in the far east guides my attention to the people who think they are the 99% of this world, toward the people who think they are the oppressed. Yes, maybe relatively speaking, they are economically oppressed. Yes, there may be a point in saying that America doesn’t struggle with such issues as the rule of law. Yes, the heart of the Occupy movement may even source itself from a noble cause, but quite frankly, it most likely will not escape the label of a temper tantrum. What the Occupy people need (wait, they don’t even know what they are asking for…) is a dose of realism, to use the English idiom, to understand that there are bigger fish to fry. To get out of that small pond of ethnocentrism, of individualism. To get out into an ocean of bigger perspectives. To learn the world.