Six years ago I first heard about Invisible Children. My youth pastor, an enormous man we called Papa Hiers, showed a video late one night at a church lock-in inside what was once a residential house our church had converted into the ultimate highschool hangout. It was a video about what was going on in Africa, in Uganda, and what the troubles in that area were like for the children. I heard Jacob's famous sob for the first time that night.
Jacob is a boy who befriended the young American teens who had traveled to Africa to see for themselves what was happening there. In one scene, he confides with this young group of idealistic Americans that he would rather be dead than continue to live in the every day horror of Ugandan childhood. He had seen his own brother chopped to bits with a machete. When he thinks of dying, and getting to see his brother again, he finally breaks down and is unable to continue speaking. The camera keeps rolling. The next few seconds of that film contain the most heartbreaking sounds I have ever heard. Jacob's grief is so intense, I remember vividly the first time I witnessed it on a flat screen TV sunk into the wall of an old house full of beanbag chairs and teenagers. I sobbed right along with him. That film changed me for life.
I have followed the events of Jacob's world as closely as I can for the past six years. Twice I have written extensive research papers on the topic of the Lord's Resistance Army, headed by the monster Joseph Kony. I have studied their tactics, their philosophy, and their brutality. Every single time I remember what my research revealed to me, I and brought to the verge of tears. Even now, I am having to stop myself from crying.
Kony and his lieutenants are as pure a force for evil as exists in the world today. They regularly attack, kill, maim, rape, cannibalize, and kidnap the people of their own homeland, forcing the daughters to be sex slaves and the sons to wield automatic weapons and machetes to destroy their own families. God help you if you are a homely girl, because those are the ones Kony uses for "murder practice," an act where he forces young boys to kill the girls with machetes to better prepare them for war. His soldiers are forced to ingest narcotics, forced to become addicted, so that they cannot run away without suffering from withdrawal. Every night, thousands upon thousands of children flee the countryside and retreat to the streets of whatever large city is nearby. Here the LRA is not a threat and will not be able to capture them. They huddle together in abandoned houses or public parks, hoping the police will not force them back out of the city where they are in danger of being captured. Teenage boys and girls, maturing for the first times in their lives, confused and scared, sleeping in the same place every night, often begin to experiment with their sexuality in dangerous ways. Contraception is a luxury none of them can afford or even know about. STIs and AIDS run rampant through the young population, as well as dangerous pregnancies that usually end in the death of the child, the mother, or both.
When Kony has used all his resources, he "surrenders" and demands aid. Once that aid has been rendered, in the form of clothing, food, and medical supplies, he sells the goods on the black market and purchases more armaments to keep his child army going. He has done this over, and over, and over again so that there appears to be no end in sight. The governements of Africa have proven ineffective at stopping him either because they lack the resources or because government officials find Kony to be a useful weapon against neighboring, rival governments and so choose to allow him to remain uncaptured. I have seen photos, read eye-witness accounts, and reviewed psychological evaluations that have torn me apart from the inside precisely because I knew that, while I wanted nothing more than to help these children, there was nothing I could feasibly do. All I could manage was to tell people and to share my righteous hate of everything Joseph Kony stands for and everything he is.
I am eternally grateful for the dedication the Invisible Children organization has shown these past six years. Because of them there are US troops in Uganda right now, advising the African military how best to capture Joseph Kony. Because of their use of social media, specifically Facebook, they showed the White House that we would not remain content with a man like Kony still on the loose anywhere in the world. The power of our combined voices was enough for the American government to sanction the deployment of our own soldiers to foreign soil to stop evil, true evil, in its tracks. Kony has been forced to change his tactics. We have him on the run. Invisible Children managed it with a Facebook page and the culmination of thousands of tiny donations from teens and young adults. We can't stop now.
The mission now is to make Joseph Kony famous. We've got to make sure his name is known across the nation so his evil will cause the American people to stand in protest of his very existence. Our government has the ability to stop this monster forever. All the White House needs is the people who give it power to demand that he be stopped. Invisible Children's successes up to this point prove that this is possible.
So for all you nay-sayers out there; I have a message. Your denial of your own power to affect change is merely a self defense mechanism so you don't have to feel bad about not doing anything. I know because I am like that every. Single. Day. But look! See the proof! See what has already been done. See how far we have already come. Stop your incessant pessimism, your pathetic attempts to crush us with poisonous words and derision. Stop fighting against the idea that we all have the power to do something! Embrace the principles that this country was founded on and use the great American weapon: Your voice! Make Joseph Kony famous and stop the madness of the Lord's Resistance Army. Join the movement right now, this instant. You don't have to buy a t-shirt or a bunch of posters and some bracelets. You don't have to make donations. Just believe! Believe that this is possible and spread the knowledge that Kony exists! It is always the right time to be a part of something bigger than yourself.
Make Kony famous in 2012!
Kony 2012 Youtube Video
Kony 2012 Facebook Page
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