Quite the contrast
[ by Charles Cameron — the Joseph Kony rumpus, and Robert Fowler on the religious zealotry of AQIM ]
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Above:
In the Glenna Gordon photo above the text is Jason Russell, the film-maker who put together the Joseph Kony 2012 campaign, who says of himself:
I am a rebel soul: dream evangelist. I am obsessed with people. I tell stories by making inspiring movies that move people’s emotions, and then I take those emotions and transform them into action. My middle name is Radical. I married my best friend.
— radical, yeah, and looking “tough” — or as one commentator on the Visible Children tumblr said, “posing”:
Here’s a photo of the founders of Invisible Children posing with weapons and personnel of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Both the Ugandan army and Sudan People’s Liberation Army are riddled with accusations of rape and looting, but Invisible Children defends them, arguing that the Ugandan army is “better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries”, although Kony is no longer active in Uganda and hasn’t been since 2006 by their own admission. These books each refer to the rape and sexual assault that are perennial issues with the UPDF, the military group Invisible Children is defending.
Below:
By way of contrast: the text below the photo is culled from Robert R Fowler‘s searing account of his al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM, but please don’t call it AA-kem) captors. As he also said:
Kidnappings of Westerners have fueled debate among securocrats as to whether our AQIM captors might simply bandits flying an Islamic flag of convenience. I know that to be the wrong answer. Our kidnappers were utterly focused religious zealots who believed absolutely in their cause. They sought to expel Western infidels from Muslim lands and to destroy what they saw as apostate Western-stooge governments who were usurping God’s purposes across the Muslim world. The concepts and ideals we hold most dear were anathema to them: liberty, freedom, justice, democracy, human rights, equality between the sexes — all matters which they considered to be the exclusive province of Allah.
Yes, that contains the popular idea that “they hate us for our freedoms” — but in the context of what I can only call ruthless religious idealism.
Fowler is very clear on that. And no posing.
Sounds like Fowler’s book, A Season in Hell, goes right onto the anti-library lists.
