Uganda: the source of the Nile River and the infamous Joseph Kony

Uganda and the source of the Nile River , a photo by trudeau on Flickr.

Filmmaker Jason Russell - Invisible Children - has successfully brought global attention to Uganda, home of horrendous war lord Joseph Kony.

Uganda -
One of the continent's most beautiful countries, its people are impoverished mostly because of an ineffective and corrupt government. Says Wikipedia, Uganda is rated among countries perceived as very corrupt by Transparency International.

Uganda is one of the poorest nations in the world, with 37.7 per cent of its population living below the international poverty line of US$1.25 per day in 2009. Among these poor, women are the poorest.

The poor cannot support their children at school and in most cases, girls drop out of school to help out in domestic work or to get married. Other girls engage in sex work. As a result, young women tend to have older and more sexually experienced partners and this puts women at a disproportionate risk of getting affected by HIV, accounting for about 57 per cent of all adults living with HIV.


It is the nation of origin of the great Nile.

Uganda has substantial natural resources, including fertile soils, regular rainfall, and sizable mineral deposits of copper and cobalt. The country has largely untapped reserves of both crude oil and natural gas.[24] While agriculture accounted for 56% of the economy in 1986, with coffee as its main export, it has now been surpassed by the services sector, which accounted for 52% of percent GDP in 2007.

Swahili, a widely used language throughout eastern and central East Africa, was approved as the country's second official national language in 2005. Around forty different languages are regularly and currently in use in the country. English became the official language of Uganda after independence.

Christians make up about 84% of Uganda's population.[47] The Roman Catholic Church has the largest number of adherents (41.9%), followed by the Anglican Church of Uganda (35.9%). Evangelical and Pentecostal churches claim the rest of the Christian population. The next most reported religion of Uganda is Islam, with Muslims representing 12% of the population.


There is a lot to learn from the Kony 2012 film in regards storytelling and persuasion.

You can find numerous techniques of propaganda in the Kony film. We will discuss them in class. The principal way that I think Russell's film is faulty is that to focus solely on Kony is not a good use of US force.

There are many such murderous, child-enslaving war lords at work in Africa, Asia and South America.