Uganda be kiddin' me*: Kony 2012, Ugandan Oil Boom, and America's Next Bin Laden

A parody pic by a hadtodoittoo posted here.

Kony 2012 has been perceived by many as one of the most effective advocacy strategies in the recent age of viral memes and social networks. Created and launched by the non-government organization Invisible Children, it has a simple objective: to stop and arrest international criminal Josephy Kony of the Lord's Resistance Army in any way possible. It's strategy is simple as well: get as much international support to push the United States (and possibly other states - they are very ambiguous on this) to do its usual thing of saving the world. But an originally all-American movement, the mobilization of support will naturally target the US populace. It's tactic: a year long spectacle of raising awareness, selling campaign paraphernalia, lobbying and leveraging  important personalities, and finally, direct action on April - seemingly riding the fad of creative protest actions sparked by of Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party.

Unfortunately for them, Kony 2012, which gained considerable success in its air war - million hits for its videos, #stopkony trending globally, and sparking a global discourse on Africa and the existence of Christian fundamentalist militias (not unlike that created by the joint US and Philippines forces during the late 1980s, but more on this later) - backfired. Various criticisms had been hurled, from the mild accusation of oversimplification and misplaced attention, to moderate criticism on its failure to highlight and expose Uganda's poor human rights record - in effect condoning or even supporting it, to a vicious assault on Invisible Children itself - exposing the fact that very little actually goes to Uganda and African nations. Then there is also its push for US intervention, which flies in the face of sovereignty issues and the reputation itself of the US military. There are more comprehensive criticisms here, here, and here. (All of these prompted Invisible Children to issue a reply here).

Invisible children graphic. Click image to see it.
Picture from the Guardian.

But, as we know, the issues can can still go deeper. For instance, we can think about how the Kony 2012 phenomenon is placed in the current political milieu. After all, Joseph Kony, the repressive Ugandan state, as well as "US-as-the-policeman-of-the-world" concept didn't emerge in a vacuum. There is always a historical and political context behind any phenomenon.

One of my most insightful friends Primo Morillo had this hypothesis about Kony 2012 and Uganda, a hypothesis I want to share with you. He proposed that Kony 2012's timing is impeccable - in fact, it coincides with the fact that there is recently discovered oil in Uganda. Verifying this assertion, I found out that there are indeed recent interests on a "Ugandan oil boom". This is what prompted me to write this post - which would center on Kony 2012 and the probable US interest on Ugandan oil amid rising oil prices, and its more important implication - that the US establishment is to create pretext for its petro-imperialism, similar to the demonization of Muammar Gaddafi. But I go further and propose that Kony is America's new Osama Bin Laden, meant to justify military intervention in resource-rich Africa.