In recent years, major reserves of oil have been discovered at various locations across Africa. If this ‘black gold' represents an opportunity for economic growth, the fear that the windfall may not benefit the local populations - and maybe even become a curse - is shared by Sub-Saharan African citizens and experts alike.

In 2009, Modern Ghana’s Nana Adjoa Hackman suggested a possible solution:

It is common practice for oil and gas producing countries to negotiate local content agreements with interested IOCs [International Oil Companies] in an attempt to secure for the country a higher share of the value from oil and gas projects. This trend has surfaced as a result of the realization of the poor economic performance of many resource rich countries despite their vast wealth.

Tullow oil camp, Uganda. Image by Conservation Concepts on Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

Taking the example of Ghana, he explains:

As part of measures being undertaken to put in place the framework for Ghana's oil and gas production, a Bill entitled the Ghana Petroleum Regulatory Authority (GPRA) Bill was released in October 2008. (…) Sections 100 to 105 inclusive of the Bill deal with the promotion of local content, specifically, the involvement of the state oil company, provision of goods and services by local entrepreneurs, as well as the employment and training of citizens of Ghana.

The adoption of the local content policy framework in Ghana followed in 2010, however it is still pending parliamentary endorsement. The latter is now more urgent than ever, as finding employment is a preoccupation for an increasing number of Ghanaian citizens.

Commenting on an article entitled ‘Youth Angry-Over Elusive Jobs In Oil Industry‘, Christiane Badgley writes:

Oil brings in huge amounts of money, of course, and along with that come expectations of many, well-paid jobs. The problem is that the industry – at least as it exists in Ghana now – doesn’t generate much work. (…) We’ll have to wait for details on how the government intends to increase local content and participation, which is easier said than done. Training, education, quotas, regulation, penalties, taxation, incentives – the government has multiple options for addressing the question.

In Uganda, the same move towards the adoption of a local content policy is being made, as explained on the In2EastAfrica website:

Uganda wants a strong local content in the nascent oil and gas industry for its citizens to gain skilled manpower and a competitive supply edge. This is in an attempt to ensure revenues trickles down, averting the resource curse.

Indeed, avoiding the oil curse is important for Uganda, particularly if it helps to prevent the emergence of other Joseph Kony- like characters. Petroleum was, after all, discovered in the north-west, near the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the epicenter of the 30 year long conflict led by the Lord's Resistance Army chief. A local content policy would hopefully create employment for local populations and distract them from the path of war.

In Kenya case, where oil was found earlier this year, Local Development Network of Africa asks on Twitter:

@ledna: How far have discussion on #Ghana “local content” for the oil and gas sector gone? #Kenya (new found oil) could learn from that

Günther Schulze, professor of economics at the University of Freiburg, Germany, adds another perspective on the World Bank blog:

The biggest -but most important- challenge is to build and maintain good institutions. (…) transparency will be the most powerful lever for accountability. If Kenyans know exactly how much oil is being produced, how much royalties oil companies pay this would already be a major step in the right direction. (…) Kenya’s strong civil society and creative industries, especially in ICT, can play a strong role in monitoring the oil revenue flows and proposing solutions on how to spend the money well. Then the resource curse can be turned into a blessing.

This post and its translations to Spanish, Arabic and French were commissioned by International Security Network (ISN) as part of a partnership to seek out citizen voices on international relations and security issues worldwide.

Visit the ISN blog and see more related stories.

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The report states that almost 5% of Africa's agricultural land has been bought or leased by investors since 2000, and emphasizes the fact that this is not a new issue, yet points out that the number of such land deals has increased tremendously in the past five years.

Many observers are increasingly worried that these land deals usually take place in the world's poorest countries and that they impact its most vulnerable population, the farmers. The benefits seldom go to the general population, partially because of a lack of transparency in the proceedings of the transactions.

An additional report by Global Witness, entitled Dealing with Disclosure, emphasizes the dire need for transparency in the making of land deals.

World's poorest nations targeted 

The Global Witness report lists that 754 land deals have been identified, involving the majority of African countries for about 56.2 million hectares.

Target countries of land deals from the Land Matrix Project

The nations targeted are usually some of the poorest in the world. The countries with the most deals in place are Mozambique (92 deals), Ethiopia (83), Tanzania (58) and Madagascar (39). Some of those deals have made headlines because they were conducted to ensure control over food imports, when the targeted regions faced major food crises.

The NGO GRAIN has already explained in detail the gist of their concerns in an extensive report released in 2008:

Today’s food and financial crises have, in tandem, triggered a new global land grab. On the one hand, “food insecure” governments that rely on imports to feed their people are snatching up vast areas of farmland abroad for their own offshore food production. On the other hand, food corporations and private investors, hungry for profits in the midst of the deepening financial crisis, see investment in foreign farmland as an important new source of revenue. As a result, fertile agricultural land is becoming increasingly privatised and concentrated. If left unchecked, this global land grab could spell the end of small-scale farming, and rural livelihoods, in numerous places around the world.

In Malawi, land deals have grown increasingly prevalent to the detriment of the local farmers. A report from Bangula explains the challenges faced by Malawian farmers, Dorothy Dyton and her family:

Like most smallholder farmers in Malawi, they did not have a title deed for the land Dyton was born on, and in 2009 she and about 2,000 other subsistence farmers from the area were informed by their local chief that the land had been sold and they could no longer cultivate there. […] Since that time, said Dyton, “life has been very hard on us.” With a game reserve on one side of the community and the Shire river and Mozambique border on the other, there is no other available land for them to farm and the family now ekes out a living selling firewood they gather from the nearby forest.

Land construction in Madagascar. Photo by Foko Madagascar, used with the author's authorization

Farmers in Madagascar share similar concerns because they do not own the rights to the land they farm and an effective land reform is yet to be implemented. The Malagasy association Terres Malgaches has been at the forefront of land protection for the local population. They report that [fr]:

 Les familles malgaches ne possèdent pas de document foncier pour sécuriser leurs terres contre les accaparements de toutes sortes. En effet, depuis la colonisation, l’obtention de titres fonciers auprès de l’un des 33 services des domaines d’un pays de 589 000 km2 nécessite 24 étapes, 6 ans en moyenne et jusqu’à 500 dollars US. (..) .  Face aux convoitises et accaparements dont les terres malgaches font l’objet actuellement, seule la possession d’un titre ou d’un certificat foncier, seuls documents juridiques reconnus, permet d’entreprendre des actions en justice en cas de conflit.

The association also reports on the practices of a mining company Sheritt, in Ambatovy, which have created a buzz in the local blogosphere because of environmental concerns for the local population and business malpractices (via MiningWatch Canada):

Sherritt International’s Ambatovy project in eastern Madagascar – costing $5.5 billion to build and scheduled to begin full production this month – will comprise a number of open pit mines (..) it will close in 29 years. There are already many concerns about the mine from the thousands of local people near the facilities. They say that their fields are destroyed ; the water is dirty ; the fish in the river are dead and there have been landslides near their village. During testing of the new plant, there have been at least four separate leaks of sulphur dioxide from the hydro-metallurgical facility which villagers say have killed at least two adults and two babies and sickened at least 50 more people. In January, laid-off construction workers from Ambatovy began a wildcat strike, arguing that the jobs they were promised when construction ended have not materialized. The people in nearby cities like Moramanga say that their daughters are increasingly engaged in prostitution.

Video of a worker's testimony in Ambatovy.

Solutions for the local population? 

The plight of Madagascar's farmers' plight may be slowly changing though. Land reform discussions are in progress, according to this report:

 According to a paper presented at the 2011 International Conference on Global Land Grabbing, about 50 agribusiness projects were announced between 2005 and 2010, about 30 of which are still active, covering a total land area of about 150,000 ha. Projects include plantations to produce sugar cane, cassava and jatropha-based biofuel.
To prevent the negative impacts of land grabbing, (The NGO) EFA has set up social models for investors, with funding from the UN Development Programme (UNDP). The goal is to help investors negotiate with the people in the area where they want to implement projects, as a way to prevent future problems.

Joachim Von Braun, formerly  of the International Food Policy Insitute (IFPRI), wrote the following regarding land deals:

 It is in the long-run interest of investors, host governments, and the local people involved to ensure that these arrangements are properly negotiated, practices are sustainable, and benefits are shared. Because of the transnational nature of such arrangements, no single institutional mechanism will ensure this outcome. Rather, a combination of international law, government policies, and the involvement of civil society, the media, and local communities is needed to minimize the threats and realize the benefits.

The need for transparency in land deals is further emphasized by  Megan MacInnes, Senior Land Campaigner at Global Witness:

Far too many people are being kept in the dark about massive land deals that could destroy their homes and livelihoods. That this needs to change is well understood, but how to change it is not. For the first time, this report (Dealing with Disclosure)  sets out in detail what tools governments, companies and citizens can harness to remove the shroud of secrecy that surrounds land acquisition. It takes lessons from efforts to improve transparency in other sectors and looks at what is likely to work for land. Companies should have to prove they are doing no harm, rather than communities with little information or power having to prove that a land deal is negatively affecting them.

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Two different organizations are focusing on the benefits and advantages of online media and technology to aid refugees and improve their lives. The first, Refugees United, uses online databases that can be accessed through mobile platforms to reunite refugees who have lost track of family members and the next, HKRefugeeInfoChannel provides legal and welfare information to refugees in Hong Kong through YouTube videos.

Refugees United started off as a pilot in Northern Uganda that is now spreading to other African countries and other areas of the world where natural disasters, political unrest and violence have caused massed evacuations and people to get separated from their kin and loved ones. Through an anonymous database, refugees can create a profile where they can share details about their lives that will be recognizable by kin who go online through a computer or using cellphones.

In Lost and Found, four refugees tell their stories of escape and loss, and what it is like for them to go on with their lives not knowing about their loved ones, not even if they are alive or dead. Although different NGOs have done efforts in the past to reunite refugee families, handwritten papers and photographs aren't easily shared by multiple organizations and across international borders. With the ability to have an online repository that different organizations and individuals can join and search through, the possibility to unite families is increased.

In Hong Kong, a multilingual channel has become available through YouTube videos for refugees to get answers to common questions on legal, health and education issues. For example, in a video, Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Hong Kong Kelley Loper explains what are the differences between a refugee and an asylum seeker.

Or this video explains the process a refugee needs to follow if they need to receive medical attention:

A successful reconnection story of refugees is told in the Refugees United Blog: a family separated in South Kivu due to violence and who although they don't have their own phones with internet access or funds to use internet cafes, have been able to use the software through community liaisons to discover the whereabouts of family members and find their kin. You can also follow the progress of Refugees United through their Facebook page.

This post is part of our special coverage on Refugees.

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“Kony 2012: Part II - Beyond Famous” is a follow-up video to the viral campaign video (Kony 2012) calling for the capture of the Ugandan war criminal and leader of Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) Joseph Kony. The first video was criticized by Ugandan netizens and other bloggers for oversimplifying the conflict and misrepresenting facts on the ground.

This is how Invisible Children describes “KONY 2012: Part II - Beyond Famous” on its YouTube channel:

KONY 2012: Part II — Beyond Famous offers a closer look at the LRA and explores the solutions put forward by leaders of the currently-affected areas of CAR, DRC, and South Sudan, where local communities continue to live under the constant threat of LRA violence. This generation has responded to the call to make Joseph Kony famous. Now we need to dig deeper and turn awareness into informed action. That starts with sharing this film and continues with participating in Cover the Night, the advocacy and awareness event taking place worldwide on April 20th.

Tom Murphy says Kony 2012: Part II - Beyond Famous is a failure:

I may be a bit hasty in saying this, but the video is a failure. Little of it has to do with the content. It succeeds in terms of providing more information and history about the LRA. IC deserve credit for taking this concern seriously and putting it into a video. I still find disagreement with the way that solutions are presented as coming from outsiders, but that is more of a fundamental disagreement with IC. This time around, they do a much better job of explicitly saying they want to support local solutions, but the overall message of the video and the tone of IC trends towards what can be done to save the people of Central Africa from the LRA.

He argues that the success of the first video contributed to the failure of the second video:

Kony 2012 Part II is failure because of its low reach. The first video has 87 million views on YouTube compared to 1.3 million for the second. Including the views from Vimeo, part 1 views rise to 105 million while part 2 stays at 1.3 million. That means that the second part of Kony 2012 retained 1% of its audience.
—
The failure of Kony 2012: Part II is due in part to the success of the first video which left little room for further learning or engagement. NGO communicators can learn that storytelling is a powerful tool to reach people, but it can shut down discussions and learning as easily as it can open engagement.

Joseph Kony - head of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Photo released by Flickr user Chris Shultz under Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).

The video is a step forward, admits Eric's Wanderings, however it rings false:

The film is a step forward but to me it rings false. It’s full of talking points and damage control, responding to critics without actually naming problems that still exist. Solome Lemma who has been active in speaking around the films, tweeted yesterday:

“The best way to let people know you’ve heard their feedback is to pause, process, seek, listen, learn, reimagine, & to give all of it time.”

Invisible Children is intent on their plan, intent on their way of doing things which is driven by their views of the problem and solutions, and – while obviously acknowledging some of the critiques in this new film – is still driven by their make movies, sell merchandise model which believes that all action is good action. Their timeline is still in place and that’s all that matters, this is a deflection.

In “Beyond Kony: Rebuilding Life in Northern Uganda” Echwalu looks at the work of The Children of the Nile who are trying to rebuild the lives of people affected by war in Northern Uganda:

At about the same time the Invisible Childrens’ Kony2012 video was trending worldwide, another NGO, The Children Of the Nile (TCON)- also run by Americans was in Bungatira Sub-county in Gulu doing an honest job in my opinion helping widows of the two decade war.
While the Kony2012 video depicted Kony to be routed in the jungles of Northern Uganda, abducting men and children, raping women, and slicing off peoples lips, TCON was in those “Jungles” trying to empower widowed mothers because of the war.
Contrary to the picture painted by Kony2012, a bunch of Americans were in Odek, Kony’s village as the video trended, racing towards the 100million tape, from where Craig Nason, TCONs Networking and Communication Director tweeted;
“Sitting right now with the widow of #josephkony older brother. 18 years in IDP camp, finding Kony not her priority, rebuilding life is.”

Tweeps have received the second video with mixed reactions as evidenced by the tweets below:

@AFROGROOV: A slower start for KONY2012: Part II “Beyond Famous”!more in-depth info, is the one-click generation as interested now? http://tinyurl.com/6plb7c8

@PlanAustralia: Thanks @invisible for shining a spotlight on child rights. We're passionate about them too! #kony2012 #beyondfamous

@TimmyHarris: Everyone knows about Kony yet kids are still in the bush, under his control! WE NEED ACTION NOW #beyondfamous

@monica_vigo: As KONY 2012 Part II: #beyondfamous drops, keep up with the #LRA in real time with Invisible Children and Resolve's @CrisisTracker

@TJJanz: If you enjoy wasting 20 mins of your time and learn nothing new that is..RT @VansWarpedTour: If you saw #KONY2012, you need to watch Part II

@Ned_MzH: Kony Part II: Accountability, not awareness http://aje.me/Hy0Fzh #Kony2012 #UgandaSpeaks #Uganda2012 #Kony

@ JonahClifford : Kony2012 Part II: Not bad, but only 1 out of 100 people reached by it. The damage the first movie made hasn't been rectified.

@ ahmedzakiosman: [#Kony2012: Part II] and Invisible Children, should be judged by a different word: accountability http://aje.me/HjDasB #uganda

@lukeyg: #KONY2012, not a man hunt but pursuing a global solution to a very real local problem watch #KONY2012part2 http://blog.invisiblechildren.com/2012/04/05/resources-for-kony-2012-part-ii-beyond-famous/

@ josephpowell : New #Kony2012 film is vast improvement in accuracy, tone etc but 100 million less views. That hard to have put some of Part II into Part I?

The first video “Kony 2012″ received over 100 million views six days after it was posted online.

This post is part of our special coverage Kony 2012.

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Hello World!

Welcome to another edition of the Global Voices podcast.
In this edition we have company in the voice of co-host Yazan Badran, a Global Voices author from Syria based in Japan. The topic this month is global social media campaigns: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Views on Kony 2012 from Africa

In the last month we have seen one of the most controversial social media campaigns light up Twitter, Facebook and other social networks. The “Kony 2012″ campaign by the organisation Invisible Children went viral with a video about war Ugandan war criminal Joseph Kony that was seen by millions of people. But was it the right way to highlight an issue? We've tracked several responses here.

There were many points of criticism when it came to the project, not least from people in Uganda.

Rosebell Kagumire is a journalist, blogger and Global Voices author from Uganda, living in Kampala. She works as an editor for Channel 16, a news site by bloggers about conflict and humanitarian news. When she first saw the Kony 2012 video, Rosebell uploaded a very critical YouTube response that has been viewed more than 500,000 times. She shares her thoughts with us about her initial reactions.

Citizens in many African nations took issue with the Kony campaign.

‘Femi Adesina is a British-born Nigerian web and creative technologist who describes herself as an African in the diaspora. She agrees there are problems with Kony 2012, but thinks it's hard to be too critical when people have the best intentions.

Are social media campaigns always a good thing?

Online campaigning is not new. It can be a good way to crowdsource opinions, attract volunteers and even raise money. Yazan argues that the anti-SOPA blackouts were quite effective. They were informative and educated many people about the dangers of institutional censorship of the web.

We threw the question out to the Global Voices community asking for their thoughts on online campaigns. Thanks to Asteris Masouras from Greece, Lova Rakotomalala from Madagascar, Mohamed Ragab from Egypt, Rana Khattab from Palestine based in Saudi Arabia, and Mohammed Adel from Yemen for their views.

Unite for Syria marked the escalation of protests and violence in that country by encouraging people around the world to uploading images to show their support for Syrians. Tarek Amr, an engineer and an author for Global Voices from Cairo, Egypt, told us more about the campaign that also involved global celebrities.

PR for charities and NGOs

As well as grassroots efforts, there are PR companies who work closely with online campaigns for non-profits and activist groups. Boyd Neil is SVP and National Practice Leader for Social Media and Digital Communications at Hill+Knowlton Strategies in Canada. He says getting the social web right is difficult.

It seems from our guests in this edition are divided on what they made of the Kony campaign, but mostly united in the idea that the social web can help to amplify a message in a good way.

Of course, it all depends on how you measure success. Amplifying a message, doesn’t necessarily translate into the desired effect beyond the virtual realm.

Thank you for listening!

We hope you enjoyed this edition of the podcast. A huge thank you to Yazan for being great company and a brilliant co-presenter, as well as to all of our informed and amazing guests.

The Global Voices Podcast, the world is talking, we hope you’ve been listening!

Music Credits
In the podcast you can hear lots of lovely Creative Commons music. Thanks to Mark Cotton  for his fantastic creations and thanks also to all of the wonderful voice over performances and clips that help to glue the podcast together. The Global Voices Podcast, the world is talking, we hope you’re listening!

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The Earth, image by Esparta Palma CCBy on Flickr

Culture

India: The Last Handwritten Newspaper in the World

The earliest forms of newspaper were handwritten and now ‘The Musalman‘ probably is the last handwritten newspaper in the world. This Urdu language newspaper was established in 1927 by Chenab Syed Asmadullah Sahi and has been published daily in the Chennai city of India ever since.

Azerbaijan: Novruz Bayram

Alongside Iran and elsewhere, Azerbaijan once again celebrated Novruz, the Zoroastrian or Persian New Year. Usually celebrated on the day of the vernal equinox, Novruz marks the first day of Spring, and is one of the most important dates in the Azerbaijani calendar.

This next promotional video prepared for Eurovision shows how the holiday is celebrated in Azerbaijan.

Human rights and videos

Ethiopia: Child Abuse Caught on Mobile Phone Camera

Ethiopian Facebook users have reacted to a mobile phone recorded YouTube video which shows a little girl constantly being abused by her mother. Shortly after the upload of the video, netizens on Facebook organized an online campaign for justice by starting a Facebook group called “Ethiopians Against Child Abuse”:

Warning: the video shows situations of child abuse.

This month also saw other reactions in Ethiopia regarding human rights abuses, in the next case, an Ethiopian domestic worker was beaten by her employers in front of the Ethiopian Embassy in Lebanon, and it was captured on video. Sadly, she committed suicide shortly after.

Ethiopia: Outrage Over Abuse of Ethiopian Domestic Worker in Lebanon

Ethiopia Lebanon: Online Outrage Over Death of Domestic Worker Turns into Activism

The graphic nature of the video together with the tragic end of the plot left Ethiopians netizens outraged. Ethiopians have been using Facebook and online petition sites to mourn her death and campaign for justice for domestic workers in the Middle East.

Online activism

Kony 2012 Special Coverage Page

With the Kony 2012 campaign, discussions increased online on the topics of online activism, its efficiency and how media portrays the conflicts and situations lived in different African countries. A Special Coverage page was created to follow the reactions on the polemic video with Ugandans weighing in on the topic:

Uganda: Kony 2012 Video Response from Ugandan Prime Minister

On the YouTube comments for the previous video, Ugacentricity gives credit to the intentions behind the Invisible Children's video, but defends the need for an accurate portrayal:

No doubt, Jason's intentions MAY have been good, but he threw truth and fact out in favour of drama and innuendo. True, he may not have got the 100 million+ viewers, but the end doesn't always justify the means. As a Ugandan who was affected by Kony, I'd rather have had 100 people listening to the truth in my story than 100 million believing the untruths in it.

A series of video responses made by people inspired by the original Kony 2012 video can be found in the post Uganda: Yes We Kony!.

Other examples of online activism:

Online activism continues in the following examples of stories posted during the month of March 2012:

In Puerto Rico, an organization is seeking to raise awareness on the dangers and risks of planning unnecessary C-sections on women expecting babies through a music video.

In Russia, sex and videos were used as a means for political support by Putin supporters and detractors during the Election season, and this article walks us through some different examples.

In Latin America, women who had breast surgery with faulty implants are taking to the web to get their stories out and gather support. Through blogs, online forums, Facebook groups and online videos [es], women are talking about the high incidence of cosmetic breast enhancements, on financial responsibility for the removal of faulty implants and on the legal aspects of dealing with medical procedures that go wrong.

Crowdsourcing

Nicaragua: Film on the Consequences of a Leaked Sex Video Seeks Crowdfunding

An award-winning team of producers and actors is coming together in rural Nicaragua to make a movie based on actual events exploring the consequences of a couple of young people in love who make an intimate video of themselves which then becomes public by mistake, and how they deal with the backlash of their actions. They are looking for extra funding to cover costs on location in Matagalpa, Nicaragua, and all the money raised will be spent locally.

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Uganda’s Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi has taken to YouTube to respond to a viral video campaign launched by Invisible Children to raise support for the arrest of wanted war criminal Joseph Kony. Contrary to what the video says, Mbabazi argues that Joseph Kony is not in Uganda and that the country is not in conflict.

The video by Invisible Children has received criticism from Ugandan netizens.

Mbabazi's video has attracted over 100 comments. Below are some interesting comments from YouTube users:

jordsa01 says:

there are so many good organizations in Uganda doing so much good. Basically, the Prime Minister is saying give your money to organizations that actually do something. like Watoto Childrens Villages (watoto.com) that focus on the future of Uganda, rather than emotionally bringing up old problems. thank you for this response!

Some netizens think oil has got to do with 2012 campaign.

Mrfreeworld1000 argues:

Just days after oil was discovered in Uganda Obama suddenly declares he will protect the Ugandans from the LRA, which doesn't even exist. It's quite clear that the US government had a lot to do with the Invisible Children movement suddenly going viral

sebek23b writes:

they found oil recently in Uganda so we need military peace mission to take down bad guy and we need to take “care” of oil in order to ensure that bad guy doesn't profit from it.

However, juansayblue thinks Kony 2012 campaign has nothing to do with oil or even Kony:

Uganda Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi. Photo source: @amamambabazi.

The hole “Kony 2012″ video had nothing to do with oil or Kony. It just had to do with money for invisible children. They knew ppl would donate and that Kony was gone so they made those boxes you had to BUY. All just a big scam for Invisible Children to take your money

So is OddOpinion:

@sebek23b Invisible Children was around way longer than the knowledge of that oil.

Other netizens like soundbeans turned their criticism to Uganda's government:

Mbabazi the problems of Uganda is all caused by corruption in your government.

marksturgeon writes:

Terribly produced attempted propaganda. If the Uganda ministers wanted Kony arrrested, Kony would have been in prison a long time ago. Uganda denies basic human rights and promoted segregation of races and the most violent homophobia in any state. The foreign office advises to “Avoid all travel to part(s) of country”

Ugacentricity notes that Invisible Children's intentions may have been good, but…:

No doubt, Jason's intentions MAY have been good, but he threw truth and fact out in favour of drama and innuendo. True, he may not have got the 100 million+ viewers, but the end doesn't always justify the means. As a Ugandan who was affected by Kony, I'd rather have had 100 people listening to the truth in my story than 100 million believing the untruths in it.

mixmatchofficial observes that Kony 2012 video is not about Uganda:

the Kony 2012 video is NOT about uganda. it is about Kony. the video DOES make a point to say that Uganda is NOT in conflict any more as it demonstrated by showing Jacob and other Ugandan residents being freed and coming to America. the point of the video is to raise money to develop tracking systems and aid the ugandan army to hunt Kony elsewhere in Africa. this is a classic political response to save face on the side of Uganda, but in no way does it diminish the importance of the IC mission

hpnuevo agrees:

@mixmatchofficial
you said it right mate..its not about Uganda to make things clear..Its about a notorious Ugandan national named Joseph Kony.

MrSmhhc8 wonders why no one is calling attention to atrocities taking place in the US:

There is nothing wrong with wanting to help rid the world of evil like Kony, the problem is that many people will blindly trust everything they see in a well made video and not do any further research. There are unspeakable atrocities going on every day south of the U.S. border or for that matter, in our own country, that you don't hear anyone calling to action about.

AlgerianMAZB thinks Kony 2012 campaign is a bit misguided:

I respect what the “invisible children” charity have been trying to achieve but let not forget that things far worse have been happening & are still happening in the world today. Palestine, Syria, Afghanistan etc. This is something that the Uganda government feels they can control so let them control it. The last thing the Uganda people need is US Soldiers flying in to steal their oil. Again i'm not saying that what the charity is doing is wrong. They're just a bit misguided

Some African netizens critical of the video decided to tweet about “what they love about Africa” with the hash tag #WhatILoveAboutAfrica.

This post is part of our special coverage Kony 2012.

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The Australian “rap news agency” has come up with Kony parody titled “Yes We Kony”:

YES WE KONY. It's March, and the Internet delivers 2012's first globe-consuming meme: the unstoppable, Stop-Kony 2012 video, which has highlighted the plight of African child soldiering like never before. But is it really good? Is it really bad? Or is the world really more complex than ‘good guys' and ‘bad guys'? Whatevers; one thing's for sure, this is momentous: never had a 27-minute video devoid of both cats and boobs ever achieved such virality. Is this a demonstration of the internet's ability to instantly inform and engage tens of millions; and a hopeful sign that there is a willingness among those millions, to engage passionately with something more meaningful? Or does Kony2012 just mark the dawn of a rapacious new era of viral humanitarian marketing? Join your charitable host Robert Foster - and our special guest, General Baxter, direct from AFRICOM - as we delve into the dark heart of the matter.

Tony 2012 t-shirt. Image courtesy of http://www.districtlines.com/.

A comedy group called Bath Boys Comedy has initiated a campaign called Tony 2012: Stop The Tiger. Tony the Tiger is the advertising cartoon mascot for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes breakfast cereal, appearing on its packaging and advertising.

Apparently, Adolph Hitler has reacted to Kony 2012 video campaign:

YouTube user StabOfMyVenom has compiled some of the best Joseph Kony 2012 jokes:

The Kony 2012 campaign has been criticized by many Ugandans who argue that the video oversimplifies the conflict in Northern Uganda. In order to counter the negative portrayal of Africa in the video, African netizens are tweeting about “what they love about Africa” with the hash tag #WhatILoveAboutAfrica.

This post is part of our special coverage Kony 2012.

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Anyone following online citizen media closely this month, would inevitably have come across the heated global debate over the Invisible Children viral campaign to stop Ugandan war criminal and rebel army leader Joseph Kony.

While the Kony 2012 campaign certainly received the attention it sought, many Ugandans and Africans felt its message lacked the nuance required by context, and was more focused on raising funds for the organisation's own survival rather than empowering the people affected by the conflict.

Furthermore, many African citizens felt that once again, the narrative of a highly publicized story about Africa centered on a negative story and neglected the upwards trends the continent has been witnessing.

As a counter measure, many people started posting stories on Twitter about “what they love about Africa” with the hash tag #WhatILoveAboutAfrica.

what I love About Africa trending worlwide by Semhar Araia - @Semhar

The initiative, spearheaded by Semhar Araia, a blogger at the Diaspora African Women Network (DAWNS), started to trend worldwide on Twitter on March 13, 2012.

The other side of the story

While no one argues with the merit of exposing the despicable crimes perpetuated by Kony's Lord's Resistance Army, the following citizen media commentaries explain why this debate is more than just a “meme war” but a struggle to reclaim the international perception and narrative about an entire continent.

When a group of North Ugandans, the main victims of Kony's crimes, were showed the Invisible Children's video in a public screening, they were not particularly pleased with the content of the video as is seen in an Al Jazeera English video below.

“If people in those countries care about us, they will not wear t-shirts with pictures of Joseph Kony for any reason,” says one man interviewed. “That would celebrate our suffering.”

A Ugandan man at another screening says, “There is some kind of people, some NGO, who are trying to mobilize funds using the atrocities committed in Northern Uganda.”

The campaign to show the positive sides of Africa has garnered quite a bit of clout as well in the social media scene. American student and Afrophile Karen Kilberg collected a few of her favorite posts about the meme, and also quotes African blogger Tatenda Muranda on Twitter as to why she wrote the post:

@IamQueenNzinga: It's about time we ushered in the era of afro-optimism through words and action

Kenyan journalist Paula Rogo curated on Storify of the “best and the worst” of the “WhatIloveAboutAfrica” conversation. Here are a few posts from her selection:

@mwanabibi: #WhatILoveAboutAfrica The youth! Hopeful, optimistic and innovative

@Sarenka222: #WhatILoveAboutAfrica resilient, perceptive, courageous, independent press, even in the face of intimidation (cc: @dailymonitor :)

@RiseAfrica: RT @texasinafrica: Innovations like mobile money, crowdsourced crisis mapping. #WhatILoveAboutAfrica

Map of Africa tagged by participants of Barcamp Africa in October 2008, from the Maneno Flickr photostream

The old struggle for the African narrative

Reclaiming the narrative about the African Continent through social media is not a new endeavor. In 2007, a similar campaign brewed throughout the African social media when several prominent bloggers invited fellow bloggers to weigh in on “Why I blog about Africa”.

Ivorian blogger Théophile Kouamouo asked in 2008 [fr]:

Bloguons nous pour la diaspora et le vaste monde, coupé de nos contemporains sur le continent ? Blogue-t-on sur l'Afrique comme on blogue sur l'Europe ou l'Asie ? La blogosphère afro-orientée a-t-elle quelque chose de spécifique à offrir au concert de l'universel version 2.0 ?

The meme was remarkable in that it not only managed to spurt plenty of reactions in the West African region but also spread across the continent to the African Anglophone blogosphere. As a commentary to the meme back then, Rombo of “What an African Woman Thinks” provided an inspiring response to What she loves about Africa:

Africa is under my skin. Africa is the voices in my head. Africa is the itch on my back that I can’t quite reach.
[…] She’s beautiful and she’s strong and she’s got so much to give, she inspires me and I love her truly madly deeply.
She’s battered and bruised and sometimes broken and I love her even more.
She’s always on my mind and in my heart.
It’s not so much, then, that I choose to blog about Africa. It’s that I can’t not.
I really wish the world would see in her all that I see in her.
That’s another reason why I blog about Africa: To make this wish come true.

Sokari of Black Looks added back then:

… she makes me angry and frustrated, lets me down, goes on walkabouts and is influenced by some pretty horrible characters many from distant lands. But I cant help loving her deeply - she is alive, she is real and wise with so many wonderful meaningful stories of humanity and life. She is rich in stature and spirit. I love the way she moves, her facial expressions, the taste of her food and the smell and colours of the earth

The struggle for the narrative is an old story indeed. Binyavanga Wainaina wrote a famous essay about “How to write about Africa” in 2005. This essay was turned into a video called “How Not to Write About Africa” narrated by actor Djimon Hounsou:

In view of the long, drown out struggle to portray the positive side of the continent, one might wonder why it is such a challenge to change the global perspective of the continent and why it matters so much to many people.

An answer to why it is important to highlight the positive side of the continent was offered during the TED Africa conference by Euvin Naidoo, president of the South African Chamber of Commerce. He argues that trust is an important component for investments in Africa, and that a better understanding of all the nuances of the continent is required. He states:

George Kimble said, ‘The only thing dark about Africa is our ignorance of it.' So let's start shedding light on this amazing eclectic continent that has so much to offer [..] The first myth to dispel is that Africa is not a country. It’s made up of 53 different countries. So to say ‘invest in Africa' is a no-go. It's meaningless.

This post is part of our special coverage Kony 2012.

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The 30-minute film has received a combined 20 million views on Vimeo and YouTube in the past two days and has caught the attention of celebrities including Rihanna, Zooey Deschanel, Ryan Seacrest, and Ellen DeGeneres, as well as thousands of others:

@thaRadBrad: I've been on YouTube for a few years now but I've never seen a video go as viral as Kony 2012. Absolutely insane. #stopkony

@WillGorsuch: I'm pretty sure over 5 million people learned who Kony was today #StopKONY

The film, directed and narrated by Invisible Children co-founder Jason Russell, uses popular YouTube videos, clips from Invisible Children's earlier films (partially shot in Uganda), appeals to the power of social media, and footage of Russell's young son to encourage viewers to “make Joseph Kony famous, not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent for international justice.”

Russell directs viewers to “go after” celebrities and policymakers to help spread awareness and encourage the United States government to ensure Kony's arrest in 2012. Viewers are asked to purchase an “action kit” containing bracelets and posters and to “Cover the Night” on April 20 by hanging these posters up in their communities. Russell warns:

In order for Kony to be arrested this year, the Ugandan military has to find him. In order to find him, they need the technology and training to track him in the vast jungle. That's where the American advisors come in. But in order for American advisors to be there, the US government has to deploy them. They've done that, but if the government doesn't believe that the people care about arresting Kony, the mission will be canceled. In order for the people to care, they have to know. And they will only know if Kony's name is everywhere.

The film has met with sharp criticism from netizens in Uganda and further afield, many of whom are skeptical of Invisible Children's understanding of the long-running Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency and the film's focus on arresting Kony as the way to end the fighting. Ugandan journalist and Global Voices author Rosebell Kagumire tweets:

@RosebellK: this simplification of a story of millions of people of N. #Uganda is not acceptable #KONY2012

Rosebell also posted a video of her own, sharing her thoughts about the film:

Ethiopian diaspora blogger and activist Solome Lemma also questions what she sees as the film's “lack of context and nuance”:

[I]n the video, the founder of Invisible Children tells his young son that Kony is a bad guy and he must go. Daddy will work on making sure he is caught. He states, “if we succeed, we change the course of human history.” Such a humble undertaking! Simply, a long socioeconomic and political conflict that has lasted 25+ years and engaged multiple states and actors has been reduced to a story of the good vs bad guy. And if a three-year-old can understand it, so can you. You don’t have to learn anything about the children, Uganda, or Africa. You just have to make calls, put up flyers, sings songs, and you will liberate a poor, forgotten, and invisible people.

Ugandan poet and musician Musa Okwonga points out that the film fails to mention two key actors in the conflict and its possible resolution—Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni and the Ugandan activists already working to address the problem:

Joseph Kony has been doing this for a very, very, very long time. He emerged about a quarter of a century, which is about the same time that Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni came to power. As a result the fates of these two leaders must, I think, be viewed together. Yet, though President Museveni must be integral to any solution to this problem, I didn’t hear him mentioned once in the 30-minute video. I thought that this was a crucial omission. Invisible Children asked viewers to seek the engagement of American policymakers and celebrities, but – and this is a major red flag – it didn’t introduce them to the many Northern Ugandans already doing fantastic work both in their local communities and in the diaspora. It didn’t ask its viewers to seek diplomatic pressure on President Museveni’s administration.

Joseph Kony - head of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Photo released by Flickr user Chris Shultz under Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).

Multiple people familiar with the conflict have pointed out that the film deals almost exclusively with Uganda, despite the fact that the LRA has not been active in the country for several years. Writes Ugandan journalist Angelo Izama:

To call the campaign a misrepresentation is an understatement. While it draws attention to the fact that Kony, indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in 2005, is still on the loose, it’s portrayal of his alleged crimes in Northern Uganda are from a bygone era. At the height of the war between especially 1999 and 2004, large hordes of children took refuge on the streets of Gulu town to escape the horrors of abduction and brutal conscription to the ranks of the LRA. Today most of these children are semi-adults.

Human rights activist and former development worker Siena Antsis points out:

Gulu – and Uganda - has gone through some incredible changes. The economy is booming. The region is re-stabilizing. While Kony’s men continue to kill, rape and slaughter elsewhere, Gulu is not a static, unchanging place. Neither is Uganda, neither is the continent. Portraying a region like Gulu as such, and sending the mass message that the whole continent reflects this, is damaging. It undermines possibilities of investment. It clouds story of entrepreneurship, success and innovation. This goes hand in hand with saying “I work in Africa.” Lumping the continent as one messy area.

Ugandan blogger Julian Mwine tweets:

@Jaymwine: In all fairness #stopkony couldnt have trended when #kony was terrorising #uganda coz there was no twitter then.

Blogger TMS Ruge questions Invisible Children's “fund-raising stunt” and argues that the organization's primary mission is not “selling justice, democracy, or restoration of anyone’s dignity” but rather selfishly ensuring its own survival:

This is a self-aware machine that must continually find a reason to be relevant. They are, in actuality, selling themselves as the issue, as the subject, as the panacea for everything that ails me as the agency-devoid African. All I have to do is show up in my broken English, look pathetic and wanting. You, my dear social media savvy click-activist, will shed a tear, exhaust Facebook’s like button, mobilize your cadre of equally ill-uninformed netizens to throw money at the problem.

TMS Ruge started the #StopIC hashtag on Twitter in response to the film. A growing number of #StopKony skeptics are clustering around the tag:

@tmsruge: Time & time again I have been quiet on this capacity sucking organization that is @Invisible. Stop robbing us of our dignity! #stopIC

@simbamaxxed: If one more person pastes this overdramatic #kony2012 video on my wall…#stopIC

@andykristian: Invisible Children is doing a disservice to #Uganda. Before you support IC, get the facts straight. http://bit.ly/Anf4Sd #StopIC #StopKony

For some Ugandan bloggers, the controversy over the film has also sparked a broader debate about media hype and international awareness of violent conflict. In response to a call I put out on Twitter for Ugandan viewpoints on the film, blogger Ernest Bazanye tweets:

@bazanye: @Opiaiya @rebekahredux @bazanye: …other world events? We could be reading the world just as wrongly as the world is reading us

This post is part of our special coverage Kony 2012.

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Several stories using video this month have focused on human rights violations and the steps being taken to speak out on the abuses and try to protect minorities and disadvantaged communities. Click through to the stories to see more videos and learn more about each case.

The right to life and non-discrimination

Guatemala: Speaking Out on the Genocide of Indigenous Women

Thanks to activists the international courts following the genocide proceedings against Guatemala will be taking into account the violence indigenous women faced for more than 36 years where they were victims because they were women and because they were indigenous.

A documentary and several video testimonials tell their harrowing stories, stories that due to the discrimination the victims faced in their communities and the fear of retribution many kept silent for decades.

Uganda: The Anti-Gay Bill That Won't Go Away

The same bill that was presented in 2009 is showing up again for voting in Uganda:

Uganda has again re-tabled the controversial anti-gay bill. Ugandan member of parliament, David Bahati, who proposed the bill back in 2009 has again considered tabling the draconian bill but with changes. He claims to have dropped the death penalty and jailing of family members who fail to report homosexuals to the authorities.

However, under further scrutiny it has been noted that no changes have been made in the bill, and it is still exactly the same one presented back in 2009. The following video explains the impact this bill will have on the LGBT community as well as their families and friends:

Hong Kong: Videos Against Homophobic Bullying in Schools

In Hong Kong, students in schools admit that homosexual students are bullied and discriminated, so an organization has spearheaded a campaign to raise awareness on this issue, focusing on producing online videos of interviews with sexually diverse students and experts on the topic.

The right for an education

Spain: Police Violence Against Students in Valencia

and

Spain: Crackdown Against Students Continues in Valencia

In Valencia, school children decided to protest budget cuts that affected their schools, forcing them to carry blankets with them due to lack of heating, in what has been a particularly cold winter in Europe. Police reacted to the protests violently with students injured and detained; many videos have been made showing the abuses against minors, females and the elderly.

Just a few days after the brutal police crackdown at the Luis Vives Institute of Secondary Education in Valencia [es], students have again been the target of beatings, pushing and violence from the police at a pacific protest in which they were, precisely, demonstrating against police violence. This time,the crackdown started on the afternoon with unexpected force.

The right to a home

Brazil: Quilombo Community in Bahia About to Be Evicted

One of the oldest slave descendent communities in Brazil, Quilombo Rio dos Macacos, where around 50 families live, has a date for eviction: March 4, 2012. The claim for the land comes from the Navy of Brazil, that intends to broaden a condo for its officers in that territory, in the border area between Salvador and Simões Filho, state of Bahia…

Descendants of original peoples from Africa who, during colonialism, were taken from their land to become slaves in Brazil, the Quilombolas now see themselves under threat of losing their homes again, despite their right to the land they inhabit enshrined in the constitution.

This short documentary [pt] shows the situation the Quilombolas are facing: afraid to leave their houses, unable to move freely and fearing for their well-being, their families and their homes.

Colombia: Citizen Journalist Threatened Over Viral Video

A video [es] made of the violent response the government had to peaceful protesters standing up against the rerouting of a river in their community for a dam construction has caused the citizen journalist to receive death threats.

Brazil: The Deficient Prison Systems of the Americas

Recent events in Latin American prisons that cost the life of hundreds of inmates have people looking into the living situation and overcrowding faced in many penitentiary centers, and analyzing if they are tragedies waiting to happen. People who are being deprived of their liberty as punishment for their crimes should be guaranteed minimum living conditions, and sometimes these aren't met, as shown in the documentary of life in Brazilian prisons, which also provides possible solutions for this difficult situation.

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Sean Jacobs writes about the origin of the idea:

At the end of 2011 we contemplated asking you, dear reader, who you think was the most influential African thinker alive. We abandoned the idea for a while because of our thing against lists (except our end of year lists, of course). I got the initial idea from the British blog, Left Foot Forward, which had run a contest to determine “the most influential leftwing thinker of the year 2010/11.”

He explains how they came up with the list of candidates:

So here we are. To start things of, we came up with a list of candidates we canvassed internally. Not everyone will be happy with the list, but we tried thinking of a range of intellectuals representing different parts of the continent, not just from one country. As South African writer Zakes Mda recently tweeted: “Zimbabwe compares only with Nigeria in the per capita production of African intellectuals (scholars, writers, scientists, economists etc.)” In fact, an earlier draft of the List was heavily South African and Egyptian. (That draft was not supposed to be up and one reader responded in kind. It’s been corrected.)

We confess this list is subjective and that is why we have a second round where your suggestions will make up the choices.

Others wanted to know why we’re not including people on twitter: Our response is that we are not sure 140 characters make you “an intellectual.” A lot of stuff on twitter, including our own tweets, is half-baked and amounts to what Americans call “carnival barking” (in the service of traffic or attracting followers), so it is better to leave that alone.

African thinkers. Image courtesy of http://africasacountry.com/.

The polls will be open until 5 March, 2012:

Once polls close, we will arrive at a shortlist of five. Then it gets interesting: We will have a second, separate round of voting based on your recommendations. That is while you vote in round one, we’ll compile a list of ten names from your suggestions in the comment section, on our facebook page and on Twitter. Candidates who are already on the first list, won’t be included on the second. A second vote/poll will proceed and we’ll announce the result. We will then combine the top five vote takers from the second list with the top five vote takers from the first list. There will then be a third and final round of voting based on the new combined list that will take one week. After that we will announce the overall winner.

The candidates are: Samir Amin, academic, activist (Senegal/Egypt), Jean and John Comaroff, academics (South Africa/United States), Chinua Achebe, writer (Nigeria), Mahmood Mamdani, academic (Uganda), Mamdouh Habashi, academic, politician (Egypt), Kwame Anthony Appiah, academic, philosopher (Ghana/United States), Achille Mbembe, academic (Cameroon/South Africa), J M Coetzee, writer (South Africa/Australia), Issa Shivji, academic (Tanzania), Nawal el Saadawi, writer and activist (Egypt), Wole Soyinka, writer, activist (Nigeria) and Virginie Toure, activist (Cote d'Ivoire).

Africa is a Country is a group blog:

The media blog that is not about famine, Bono, or Barack Obama. For that, go to Newsweek. Frequent contributors are media expert Brett Davidson; academics Sean Jacobs (he started AIAC), Neelika Jayawardane, Kathryn Mathers, Marissa Moorman, Lily Saint, Melissa Levin and Dan Moshenberg; writer and health advocate Caitlin L. Chandler; filmmaker Dylan Valley; writer and academic Abdourahman Waberi; and graduate students Boima Tucker, Anni Lyngskaer, Sophia Azeb, Tom Devriendt, Loren Lynch, curator and filmmaker Basia Lewandowska Cummings, writer and journalist Elliot Ross, writer Orlando Reade; Hinda Talhaoui; and Mikko Kapanen.

Go here to vote for the most influential African alive.

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