Making peace with Kony 2012

My initial reaction to Kony 2012 is full of typical criticisms already much analyzed and supported by friends and colleagues:

1.      It’s a neo-colonial, white father approach to Africa that astounds in its ability to arrogantly supplant indigenous solutions.

2.      It’s full of self-serving inaccuracies. (Incidentally the inaccuracy most irksome to Ugandans seems to be the geographical misrepresentation of Uganda in Central Africa. It’s minor in terms of LRA atrocities, but for a prideful Uganda set to lead the East African Community, it is an unforgivable gaffe.)

3.      It’s 30,000ft fluff that evaporates before it reaches people recovering or still suffering from the conflict.

While I cringe at the attention the makers of the video have earned, it is starting to dawn on me that this peaked attention could be directed to the many effective, responsible efforts already in place.

I think of Archbishop Odama, Bishop Ochola and the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative who first brought this to the world when they spent the night in the Gulu bus park. They raised awareness about the night commuter children who slept huddled in bus parks and other places in town up until around 2006, hoping that their concentric circles of little defenseless bodies would somehow protect them from being snatched up in the night by the vicious Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

I think of the Paramount Chief, Betty Bigombe and the other Acholi leaders who schlepped over and over again into various precarious bush settings to coax out the LRA commander, Joseph Kony himself, and his other commanders. They could not give up, because they peered over Kony's shoulder and into the eyes of the hordes of children surrounding this man who had been violently abducted from their people. Although these efforts were blunted in 2008 perhaps forever, they continue to look for ways to talk the LRA into peace.

I think of the opposition political heroes, such as my friends Member of Parliament Betty Achan and Presidential candidate Norbert Mao, who literally risk their lives protesting the continuing marginalization policies of the Government of Uganda.

I think of the incredibly vibrant Ugandan civil society, with inspiring organizations like the Justice and Reconciliation Project , Concerned Parents Association, Christian Counseling Fellowship, UMECS Uganda and many others.

I think of individual heroes of this conflict, like my friends Agnes Ocitti, Charles Komekech, Alice Achan, Mike Otim, George Odoki and so many many others who died or continue to fight for peace and justice regardless of their own painful experiences of conflict.

I think of UN Security Council resolution 1653 and 1663. The great impenetrable UN managed to do the right thing on this conflict with the help of a few friends from Canada, the UK, OCHA, UN DPA and international NGOs like the Quaker UN Office, Oxfam International, Save the Children, Caritas Internationalis and many others.

I think of the powerful and attentive research of Erin Baines, Ledo Cakaj, Marieke Wierda and Ron Atkinson.

I think of the many international efforts on the ground to support the recover from conflict in northern Uganda: Stability Peace and Reconciliation in Northern Uganda (USAID/SPRING), American Refugee Committee, The Uganda Fund, Norwegian Refugee Council to name just the ones for which I have proudly worked.

I think of (and still grumble about) the involvement of the International Criminal Court in indicting the LRA leadership.

I think of the US Government’s LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act (2009), which passed into law due to the back breaking work of Senator Feingold, colleagues and friends at Resolve.

I believe this incredible constellation of action has paved the way for a lasting peace which is taking hold in northern Uganda.

Finally, however, I think of a comment a colleague of mine made a while back, “It would be nice if the infrastructure of recovery in northern Uganda could be transferred to DRC, South Sudan and the Central African Republic.”

I’d like to end on this very last reflection. There is yet much work to be done. But the good news is that behind the blazing, fleeting comet of K2012 is a vast cast of actors, led by those directly affected by this conflict, to end things once and for all. I will continue to be inspired by and follow their lead. I hope those who recently caught the spirit of this long effort to end the conflict will too.