Last weekend UT students received a rare glimpse of the voiceless from the suffering continent where we originated as a species. On Saturday, March 31 in Reeves Theater and again on Sunday, April 1 in Lecture Hall A, P.E.A.C.E. and UNA-USA showed ‘Invisible Children,’ a look into the plight of young children coming of age in war-torn Uganda.
Created by three men from California with a careful balance of idealism and adventurism, the documentary focuses on the abduction and training of child soldiers by the Lord’s Resistance Army, the subversive guerrilla group that has been engaged in a civil war with the government of Uganda for approximately 20 years.
If the despair and hopelessness that such a life implies unsettles you, that is precisely the intended effect. ‘This is really not what America wants to see,’ one of the creators explains at the beginning, ‘which is good because it helps to get people uncomfortable. If you see that and you’re uncomfortable, ask yourself why.’
The documentary does force viewers to momentarily step out of the seat of privilege and come face to face with the suffering of their fellow human beings. The time spent at a hospital where local children flock to sleep, just to provide themselves with a modicum of safety and avoid abduction, powerfully captures the extent of the war’s effects on an overworked and underfed population.
One Acholi villager hinted at the voice of Uganda when he posed the puzzling question: September 11th set off an international stir, every time a bomb goes off in Tel Aviv it makes international news, yet with 800,000 displaced in the North of Uganda alone, why does nobody want to talk about it? ‘Are we human beings?’ the villager defiantly asked.
Interestingly enough, that is precisely the question that the three creators from California were asking themselves. They ‘wanted to know why so many faces are unseen, and why so many children go invisible.’
Unfortunately, answers to these broad questions will have to be found elsewhere. The documentary lacks a contextual basis that could aid in providing an explanatory character. The viewer leaves with the impression that the LRA abducts and trains children to wage its war against the government.
Little attention is paid to a number of questions that are essential for context and understanding. What is the LRA fighting for anyway? What is the nature of the fighting? Does the government abduct children as well, and if so, how many by comparison? What interest does the world at large, or the Western powers in particular, have in the victory of either side? These are all essential questions that, if addressed, could have provided the documentary with the explanatory power that it lacks.
As it stands, seeing ‘Invisible Children’ is an excellent way for Western students to think beyond their society and contemplate what daily reality is for millions of Ugandans. ‘You can’t compare the two worlds,’ the documentary’s creators remarked noting the contrast from his native California, ‘we want to know why.’
Yet, because the documentary’s creators didn’t provide a larger context, ‘why’ had to remain unknown in the film. Despite this narrow focus, the film should still be seen because it will burst the bubble in which Western students like to shield themselves.
The film’s creators decided to drive the point home in their final scene. ‘The end credits were supposed to start here,’ they said, ‘but the war wages on. And so will we; we hope you will as well.’ After seeing the film, students should be inspired to ‘wage on,’ especially toward developing an understanding of the ‘why’ of the situation. Don’t let the lack of context and explanation deter you from viewing the suffering with your own eyes, just make sure to spend time afterward searching for the explanation, in the hopes that a solution will accompany it.
Click below to see a trailer for “Invisible Children.”
