March 24, 2012
By Mickey Friedman
If 80 million people had seen a short film I made about Joseph Kony, an African madman/dictator who kidnaps kids and makes them slaves and soldiers, sent me $30 bucks for a bracelet, then expected me to help them catch this maniac in some remote section of Sudan, well I, too, would probably run into the street in my underwear. And end up in the hospital.
The young members of Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army - Photo 2006, AP
To be absolutely clear, I hate African madmen/dictators who enslave kids and turn them into killing machines.
I watched the KONY2012 video at Fuel surrounded by people, so I didn’t openly weep. It’s difficult not to cry when you hear Jacob’s story, what happened to his family, his friends, to Uganda: “We worry the rebels when they arrest us again then they will kill us. My brother tried to escape. Then they killed him using a panga. They cut his neck … I saw.”
Jason Russell, the filmmaker, made Jacob a promise: “We are also going to do everything that we can to stop them … we’re going to stop them.”
