Kony 2012 Campaign Goes Viral

No doubt by now you've heard something about the Kony 2012 campaign. I know that I got at least three Facebook invitations to Kony-related events last night alone, and in the past few days the link has been shared on Facebook over 750,000 times, making it one of the fastest trending topics of conversation alongside this crazy weather.

For those not quite on top of it yet, Kony 2012 is a viral campaign spearheaded by the humanitarian group Invisible Children, an ambitious attempt of a group of Americans who have been trying for nigh on a decade to get Western governments to pay attention to the injustices occuring in Uganda.

Joseph Kony is the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, a terrorist rebel group active for 26 years, and wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, including the abduction of over 30,000 African young people to be used as child soldiers or sex slaves. He is the world's most wanted war lord. Unfortunately, while some of the most atrocious crimes against humanity occur in Africa, little is done by Western governments to intervene unless they have a direct foreign policy or financial interest in the country. As a consequence people in the Western world have been largely ignorant of the problems in Uganda until about 48 hours ago.

The Kony 2012 video, made by US director Jason Russell utilising an appealing soundtrack and the emotional heartstring pull of an adorable blonde child, has been viewed more than ten million times in two days. While the group's motives and plan of attack have been criticised because a high proportion of the donations they receive are spent on travel costs and postage expenses, their attempts at raising public awareness in the navel-gazing West is certainly proving effective. A Facebook event has been planned for April 20, where Sydneysiders are set to cover the city in Kony 2012 posters to help raise awareness of the campaign. Hopefully all the awareness will lead to real action in Uganda itself.