Mediation as Moral Education: Kony 2012—Can Social Tragedies Teach?

Abstract

On March 5, 2012, the US charity, invisible children, released a 30-minute video on YouTube: KONY 2012. The film was an advocacy campaign designed to raise awareness about war crimes committed by the African warlord, Joseph Kony, Commander-in-Chief of the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda, alleged to have abducted up to 30,000 children and turned them into child soldiers and sex slaves over the past 26 years. The film’s “only purpose,” according to its narrator, Jason Russell (2012), was “to stop the rebel group, the LRA, and their leader, Joseph Kony” from incurring further suffering upon innocent African civilians by ensuring that Kony was brought to justice in 2012. On an individual level, this was said to involve a series of actions: signing a pledge, making donations, and intensifying pressure on world leaders to arrest Kony, with the film premised on fears that the American government intended to withdraw advisors deployed to assist East and Central African countries in arresting Kony (a claim subsequently denied by the State Department on March 8, 2012). The message was simple: by raising global awareness and demonstrating that “people care about Kony,” US support would not be withdrawn until Kony was captured or prosecuted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).¹ The film then proceeded to outline how audiences could collectively contribute to Kony’s arrest by taking part in the charity’s “Cover the Night” campaign on April 20, 2012.

For boys a teacher at school is found, but we, the poets, are teachers of men. (Aristophanes, The Frogs)

The very best of us, when we hear Homer or some other of the makers of tragedy … abandon ourselves and accompany the representation with sympathy and eagerness. (Plato, [1935] 2006: 459)