Kony

It’s hard to know where I stand with the whole ‘Kony 2012’ debate, especially with a lot of the facts still either unknown or unclear. Obviously I’m against Kony, but Invisible Children seems so untrustworthy and unethical in their methods. There’s a whole bunch of reasons why they shouldn’t be trusted, most of which have already been said, so there’s no point repeating them. It’s just such a shame that an amazing concept has been crushed by their shady methods.

One of the worst parts about Kony is that he’s just the tip of the iceberg. If he were to be captured or killed somebody would probably just replace him. There are so many bad people in the world, committing unthinkable crimes everyday. Geography is one of the most depressing subjects to study. Most people think you learn about volcanoes and colour in maps; I wish it was like that. The majority of what we learn is about how rich countries fuck over their own people and poor countries to get richer. The Kony video made me sad, but like I said before, he’s one of many and definitely not the worst. You know it’s a sick world when a guy who has children kidnapped, raped and mutilated isn’t the worst guy around.

One of the reasons I want to work with animals when I’m older is because they’re so simple. There’d either be pure happiness or pure sadness when I’m working with them. The only time there’d be any complications is when people are involved. I guess it’s just tiring having to look at all the horrible things people are doing, knowing just how little I can do about it right now. Raising awareness takes ages and raising money takes even longer. I feel pretty much helpless when I hear stories of the latest teen suicides, corrective rapes or primitive forms of capital punishment. 

I’ve always thought about what I’d be doing if I didn’t want to do zoology and work  with animals. There are loads of things I’d try out, but not many I could see myself doing for the next 50 years. It always comes back to me helping others somehow. I’m just not one of those people who can hear about everything going on in the world and not do anything about it. I’m not saying those who can are selfish, I guess they’re just more hardened to the world. I think it’s kind of emotionally draining though to be exposed to a lot of soul destroying stuff and not be able to do anything about it. I’ll be so glad to finally not have to study geography anymore and be able to be just as oblivious to the harsh nature of the world like everyone else; I guess ignorance really is bliss. 

Having said that I don’t think I would go back to not really knowing in-depth details  of current events. When I hear about something going on and it hasn’t been fully explained then I go and research it until I know everything I need to know to be able to look at it from all perspectives. The only annoying thing about having a fully in-depth opinion is that the lack of bias makes it hard to 100% agree with a side. Nothing’s ever clear cut; usually the “good” side has flaws too. It’s like the story of the guy who stole drugs for his sick wife because the pharmaceutical companies had ridiculously high prices. The companies are wrong for having the high prices, that’s clear. The guy, as much as we want him to be in the right and say that what he did was just, he still stole and that’s not right. It’s dilemmas like this that make being “in-the-know” so painful.

I know this post was supposedly about Kony, but like I said before, he’s just the tip of the iceberg. 

2 months ago  /  0 notes