DOWN WITH KONY

DOWN WITH KONY

Let’s start with the basics, I bet 90% of the people reading this have no idea who I’m referring to as Kony; Joseph Kony. For starters he is the head of a group called the L.R.A (Lord’s Resistance Army). This group is accused of abduction of little children; forcing them the turn to violence by becoming a part of an unnecessary war that h himself has created. The war he has created in Uganda is not to win its to enforce, maintain and gain more power. It’s a generalized statement to say that “power corrupts”, but what do children have to do with an adults power. Once who were born as a symbol of purity, are now being raped, mutilated, forced to fight and murdered, all at the hands of Joseph Kony.

Authorities in Uganda are trying to find him but unfortunately, they have been unsuccessful. Even organizations such as the “Invisible Children” are taking big steps to end this bereaved situation. They counter the youth to make a change, and there motive is to make Kony famous so he can be arrested as they say in there viral video “KONY 2012” , that “the only way to stop Kony is by letting him know that we are going to arrest him.”. Their main motive is to cause awareness and that is exactly what they are doing but they are also saving African children from the dreaded clutches of this horrid man and saving them from a distraught of a future.hey have gotten celebrities such as George Clooney and etc, to speak up about this , hence catching the media’s attention because what they talk about the population talks about.

When I first watched the video on YouTube I was emotionally taken aback by what I was hearing by how , Joseph Kony who defends what he does by saying that he follows the basics of the 10 commandments but how is he following them when they say that “Thou shall not kill” , and what is he doing , shedding innocent blood.

Though what the Invisible Children are doing is quite philanthropic, but it is not enough, because their finances are not clearly balanced, they are criticized for this and comments claim that they only attack the emotions of people to make them purchase there posters, fliers , and other products, but what they’re doing is benevolent and this positive aspect should over take its negatives. Maybe it is true that they are using the money they give instead of endowing that money to help these  children , but what they have done is tell the world about this once unknown problem, and now that we know we must move ahead and crush its existence and make it a doleful event of history. When a person first brings forth the idea of doing something , the first thing that comes to mind ,is, “we should tackle our own problems before we try to solve others” and my answer is that before being a citizen of a country , a believer of a religion or faith , and a member of a family ,we are human. Is it not true? Do we not live on the same earth, do we not hold the same red blood in us and do we not feel. If the answers to all these questions is “yes” then why ignore this problem, it could have been us.

Invisible children proved to me how being little doesn’t matter because only because of us “young adults” who are displayed useless to some people made this awareness project successful. The reason we are taking a higher amount of action is because we feel, we put ourselves in these children’s shoes and stare down at their despondent plight and try to feel what we may go through if like these children in Kony’s army we were forced to kill our parents or watch our siblings being killed by being cut through the throat , we can imagine but we cant ever feel anything near that sort of pain.

On the 20^th of April , Jason Russell in his video has asked everyone to display Kony publicly at such an extent that he doesn’t remain unknown to anyone anymore, unfortunately  our country ;Pakistan isn’t very involved with this aspect and my question is “why?” .are we not human , we live on this earth ,we are humans and we must care. We must be human with the rest of the world. If our attitude towards the world and its problems doesn’t change then we will be called “illiterate” , meaning “ignorance”. Ignorance towards humans, ignorance towards our own race. To get involved we need to stop thinking as “Pakistanis” and start thinking as “humans”. Think what can we do , they say that this needs to stop in 2012 but what happened to the established fact that its never to late to make a change as long as your trying to make it. Who so ever is reading this , this is my personal request to you to take all the action you can stop these children from suffering so that they may unite with there families once again , so that they may live like us again. Stop being ignorant and start being human for the sake of those who will be tomorrows future and bring Joseph Kony down.

Zainab Sadia Saeed.