The bandwagon

on Kony 2012

I watched the video and to be honest, i was tired and fell asleep halfway through, Zane woke me with a sentence that begun with 'It's funny that you're watching this...'

Later on when i had eaten and gathered strength from nutritional foodstuffs after being depleted by a hard day of being an awesome mother, i said okay lets give this another go - and watched the Video again. It was a Facebook post from a friend of Vinnies... i don't watch the news.

I must admit i was skeptical, i thought - this sounds like a Facebook advert at times... and i am a generation trained to be cynical. We know the slight aroma of bias and simplistic views when we smell it...  but that didn't make it's main point any less real. This stuff happens, we know it does. How sticking up posters and stickers and viral videos help... was a bit of a ummm.... yeah could you not use those funds any better? Kinda thought...

But then... i thought - you know what lately i've been saying what's wrong with the world is the lack of accountability and the apathy that accompanies a mindset which says 'What difference will that make?'. I also know that social media, heck any kind of media... is powerful. This is why companies spend millions on campaigns.... of course everyone is trying to pitch something, an idea? A product, a service... whatever it is- marketing is key.

In this case, they sell you a story- a good vs evil - a YOU can join us, influence the ending, be part of the show... yes, it's not the most intellectual dissection of a complex problem... but it serves its purpose.

Now the millions that weren't aware... ARE now (even just a little) more aware.

I hesitate before reposting- because i have been taught to dissect what's put in front of me... and for fear of being labelled a follower of mass media... i question the purpose behind the video... then... i just think no... they are shining a spotlight on an issue people don't usually see, and it does it in exactly the way i would have- used the most powerful resources, sold the most compelling story... tugged at all the right strings.

The masses do sometimes blindly follow the cool - and gosh if pushing for human human rights, advocating equality for ALL children and shedding light on the atrocities of a war torn third world country, is what's cool these days... i like the way its headed!

World issues shouldn't be the domain of an intellectual elite that have offered not much other than 'It's a complex multifaceted problem that has no simple solution...', sometimes - the 'grown ups' don't have all the answers no matter how many experts write papers, maybe as the incitement to action calls to the youth to amass and party hard for a cause- graffiti and littering their little hearts out to achieve the awesomeness of toppling an ultimate bad guy... well maybe sometimes that's what the world needs.

A simplistic answer to the complex problems. I know if i raise my kids well enough, they would be the kind of kids who see a bully picking on someone, and does something to help the victim... not to stand a watch or to ignore.

If there is a boogieman out there, i want the kids of the world to know... that there are millions of them and only one of him. If they stand together, maybe their nightmares end. And maybe there's not one boogieman... but hey One at a time... and if history has shown us anything- its that we've got plenty of time.

So the idea is there, and i know... like everything else - in this day and age- all ideas will have its avid supporters and it's scathing critics... and just like the usual argument i hear of - 'why donate you know half of it goes to admin and only a small percentage goes to the cause... ' Well, if you give nothing... then they don't even get that small percentage do they? A little bit - is that little bit more than nothing.

So either give to those who are helping, or shut up and go over and give those 100% of your funds yourself. Stop criticising, start doing- coz whatever they're not doing enough of- you sitting there refusing to do anything, its even worse.

I don't know how this campaign ends, if by December 31st, anything changes... all i know is... for a while at least, millions of people around the world... will believe they have the power to say 'Hey, what you're doing... it's not right, and you need to stop - Now.'

I've never been a big fan of military interventions - but (here's where idealism comes in) there's a global audience to hold those actions accountable, an audience who will (if successful) in convincing a government or many governments to intervene - will know that together... they CAN make a difference. Who will hold people, And organisations at a higher expectation for their actions, who won't just sit by and let complex issues, become more complex... who will demand action, cause reactions and maybe change the way it all works.

You gotta give people more credit than to say that it's just blind re-posting of the latest "in" thing. Just gotta have a little more faith in the world. What if the majority do combine intelligence and information, with the empowering belief that they can act and achieve what has always been deemed impossibly hard.

Come on, it's better than sitting there knowing so much more about issues than anyone else and sipping your lattes over those big social and political discussions, sighing over how screwed up the world is and doing jack all about it.


I know, the kind of world i want my kids to live in.


At the end of the day, you don't have to advocate the cause, or the people behind it.

Just the idea, whose time has come...

The idea that... change is possible... and you can be part of it - choose to action over apathy, information over ignorance.