- published: 08 Mar 2012
- views: 610847
Kony 2012 is a short film created by Invisible Children, Inc. and released on March 5, 2012. The film's purpose is to promote the charity's "Stop Kony" movement to make Ugandan indicted war criminal and International Criminal Court fugitive Joseph Kony globally known in order to have him arrested by December 2012, the time when the campaign expires.
The film spread virally. As of 30 March 2012 (2012 -03-30)[update], the film had over 86 million views on video-sharing website YouTube, and over 16.6 million views on Vimeo, with other viewing emanating from a central "Kony 2012" website operated by Invisible Children. The intense exposure of the video caused the "Kony 2012" website to crash shortly after it began gaining widespread popularity. More than half of young adult Americans heard about Kony 2012 in the days following the video's release, making it one of the most popular movements of all time.
Thus far the campaign has resulted in a resolution by the United States Senate and contributed to the decision to send troops by the African Union. The film also called for an April 20 world wide canvassing campaign, called "Cover the Night".
Joseph Rao Kony (pronounced IPA: [koɲ]; born sometime between July and September of 1961) is the head of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a Ugandan guerrilla group. While initially enjoying strong public support, the LRA allegedly turned on its own supporters, supposedly to "purify" the Acholi people and turn Uganda into a theocracy. Kony proclaims himself the spokesperson of God and a spirit medium, has nurtured a cult of personality, and claims he is visited by a multinational host of 13 spirits, including a Chinese phantom. Ideologically, the group is a syncretic mix of mysticism, Acholi nationalism, Islam, and Christian fundamentalism, and claims to be establishing a theocratic state based on the Ten Commandments and local Acholi tradition.
Kony has been accused by government entities of ordering the abduction of children to become child-sex slaves and child soldiers. An estimated 66,000 children became soldiers and two million people have been internally displaced since 1986. Kony was indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, in 2005 but has evaded capture. The LRA operates in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan.
2012 (MMXII) is a leap year that started on a Sunday and is the current year. In the Gregorian calendar, it is the 2012th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 12th year of the 3rd millennium and of the 21st century, and the 3rd of the 2010s.
There are a variety of popular beliefs about the year 2012. These beliefs range from the spiritually transformative to the apocalyptic, and center upon various contemporary interpretations of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. Scientists have disputed the apocalyptic versions.