A quick note on the internet enthusiasm for the Joseph Kony 2012 movie, a half hour one that is going viral. Especially among youths in America.
Donations are pouring in, the video is being shared across social media at an unprecedented rate, figures like Oprah and Rihanna are supporting and spreading the words, there is talk of Oscar nomination or something of the sort for the video's contribution for bringing awareness of a conflict in Africa, yes, that neglected part of the world--sincere liberal enthusiasm combined with technological edge, the modern form of another representational violence.
Commodification of humanism, now one can feel good about him/herself's relation to the world by just clicking things on the keyboard.
A typical Christian redemptional move, the identification of the evil, a call for intervention, the narrative of the conflict in Africa is framed as one big bad guy bringing in atrocity to the region. What dropped out is the history of European colonialism, the great exploitation, the history of subsequent neocolonial hold of the Western power over Africa after decolonization, their very support of authoritarian government in Africa; what of the stories of IMF and World Bank demand for those poor states to open up the market for further capital penetration and exploitation? I'm pretty darn sure this filmmaker who graduated from University of Southern California whose nickname is University of Spoiled Children (it's a damn expensive private school for the rich, for the rich kids) comes from a family and class which has built its wealth by being on the other side of the world, the still exploitating side of the vulnerability and fragility of peace in Africa--and the filmmaker was ignorant of world history so much (as usual what do American students learn of the rest of the world in any case when the ABC world news often begins with fire in Texas and somehow end with flood in Kansas or something of the sort) that in search for some "story to tell" he unthinkingly walked into a war zone to witness the truck ahead of him get shot by the Lord's Resistance Army---the story which he took as the starting of the film making, so he could tell his story and spread the word through technological prowess of the New Social Media, let the video go viral----I have digressed a bit here, but I am writing this because the social phenomenon of this video going viral and the film company who is appropriating the donation for use for future film just like this disgusts the hell out of me.
Oh but otherwise the story would be left in oblivion, some action is better than no action, one would say.
Do you not know? You are in the side who are materially comfortable enough to go into those "native lands" "at risk" and film some segments with your enthusiastic crew, go home in your comfortable and safe studio in San Diego where the rich retires and the ocean is so blue, you reduce the Africans into material objects, almost like a little construction material to build your story with, you frame it, you edit it, you take out some portion and put back some, begin with the segment celebrating how internet has transformed the world shares news and ideas with one another, you even had the Arab Spring segments mixed in to give it a global tint to it, it is your sense of mission that makes me shiver, that arrogance that you can change the world with your technology which you acquired through your studies. Sincere liberals you are, what in the hell do you know about the world?
