Betty Okot - Kony 2012

Betty Okot - Kony 2012: Reopening Old Wounds...

14.00-16.00, Friday, 14 June, CBM Seminar Room 4

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This event explores the impact of the online video Kony 2012. The people of Northern Uganda, Southern Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and now the Central African Republic (CAR), have gone through unbearable suffering at the hands of Kony and his forced accomplices for over two decades. The brutality of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to victims and analysts, was the measure of unmentionable human extremes- something never before witnessed in post-independence Great Lakes region of Africa. While the NGO ‘Invisible Children’ is commendable for articulating the plight of the victims of this senseless war, their good intentions quickly became a ‘scratch on the healing wounds’, because it confirmed that much could have been done sooner, had there been the local-global political will to do so in the two decades. The timing and the oversimplification of the conflict into the ‘bad guy’ rhetoric as the Kony 2012 film did became an issue with those who experienced the war. Yet, the mystery of the LRA war is in itself a constant reminder of the suffering and the sense that no amount of compensation, punishment or retribution could possibly match the feeling of loss, victimisation or dehumanization the LRA victims experienced. The film instead ‘reopened old wounds’ as the resettling community continue grappling to answer the question ‘why it happened.’  Mattia Fumanti will act as discussant for this event.

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Organised by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain & Ireland (RAI) since 1985, it is an itinerant festival that moves biennially from one university host to another, in association with local community and cultural organisations.

The festival will be held from Thursday 13 June to Sunday 16 June 2013 in Edinburgh, hosted by National Museums Scotland and the STAR consortium. Scottish Training in Anthropological Research (STAR) is a collaboration between the Universities of Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh and St. Andrews. Over 60 new films will be screened alongside a conference 'New Observations' and a selection of special events and workshop about art & anthropology and the use of archival film.

The RAI Film Festival is held in collaboration with the Center for Visual Anthropology, University of Southern California.

Our Sponsors

The Festival gratefully acknowledges sponsorship from:

UDDA NMS SSGS ED Unversity of Aberdeen StAndrews WILEY