Extra Credit: Invisible Children

I attended the "Invisible Children" film showing last week at UH Hilo. The documentary was about African American children being kidnapped by gorilla fighters in Uganda. The civil war in Uganda has been the longest standing war in Africa, hundreds of thousands of people have and are still being displaced. Entire villages have and are still being massacred and young children are kidnapped and trained to fight in the gorilla army. A group of young southern Californian students have documented this war, and they are spreading the message to end the conflict in Uganda by using media and the internet to propose social change to affected regions, as well as educating the American public.

How does this relate to communication and sustainability? When people are affected by war (i.e. being displaced, murdered, forced to live in poor conditions, etc) their ways of sustaining their lives are forcefully changed. They can no longer harvest crops because they are in constant fear of their villages being invaded and destroyed. They live in over populated areas in poor living conditions. These people cannot settle down too long because of constantly moving to "safer" areas. Their idea of sustainability has shifted from living a sustainable life to trying to just sustain their actual lives.

It is important to make this issue known to the larger global community to stop the violence in Uganda and restoring peace. The global community has to do something about this social issue because the Ugandan government has tried to end the violence but the gorilla captain refuses to sign any peace treaties. Unfortunately, this may need to be done forcefully, but it needs to happen soon because the quality of peoples lives is being ruined.

After the film was over, we had a short discussion of how we can help here in Hilo. We were given a website www.invisiblechildren.com to look at, also to give donations and possibly starting up a foundation here in Hilo to help raise money to support education programs that are being built. The people involved in the "Invisible Children" effort are unpaid volunteers, who are willing to make the lives of these children visible to the global community. There were two individuals that had made some radical comments about how these efforts are useless and a waste of time. A lively debate ensued and resolved when they were asked to be respectful and listen to other peoples comments. I even wondered why they attended this event if they didn't believe in it, just to argue with people who want to help make a change. I later concluded that these two individuals were possibly frustrated with the situation, because they just wanted the man responsible for kidnapping children to be killed. Violence will never lead to peace and sustainability but rather keep the viscous cycle of hate and fear in place. Nonviolent communication has proven to be the key in this movement, and I believe in time, that the people in Uganda will be able to live in peace once again.