LONDON — Unfortunately, superheroes don’t exist. On the upside, real heroes do. They live just as you and I do, but with a twist. Between lunch breaks and long talks with friends and family, they dedicate their time, effort and money to finding solutions to the social, political and economic troubles that plague their lives and others’.
Heroes are the people who defend the helpless, nurture the weak and educate the ignorant — all without being told to do so. They see the flaws of their communities, if not the world, and attempt to correct them without instruction or self-satisfaction.
If you felt compelled to “make Kony famous” after watching a 30-minute YouTube video about the atrocities committed by the Lord’s Resistance Army over the last two decades, you’re not a hero. You’re a sympathetic Facebook user.
Within a day’s passing, the citizens of first-world nations became conscious of the lands and people that exist beyond their comfortable borders and grieved for them. Support for Jason Russell and Invisible Children overflowed through news feeds, profiles and raging comments against the world’s newest enemy, Joseph Kony.
Status updates were changed to “Stop Kony!” and “Make Kony famous” whilst numerous profile pictures were changed to a picture of Kony, with Hitler and Saddam Hussein behind him.
The question remains: What actions were taken after clicking the “like” button or sharing the video? How many of those who cried after watching Jacob recall the death of his brother, or those whose blood boiled after hearing the history of the LRA and its acts against the Ugandan people, did more than just write a status? Who did more than change their profile picture? Hardly anyone.
Out of the hundreds of “friends” I have on Facebook, I only know of one person who went beyond a profile picture change and status update to make Kony famous. After watching the video, this one individual felt compelled to purchase the kit mentioned at the end of Russell’s video, and became an official member of the global effort to stop Kony and the LRA from wreaking the terror that it has for so long.
Those actions suggest heroism. Indeed, it isn’t on the same grand scale as those who help to rescue, feed and clothe the victims of Kony’s terror, but it is a start. Merely liking a video is not enough to suggest that one cares. It’s just enough to prove that you watched the video and approved of it. It doesn’t demonstrate the urgency to contribute to the movement, or suggest the will to dig deeper and do more research.
Heroism isn’t achieved behind our computer screens. It begins when people step outside the realm of virtual comfort and realize that the people with whom they empathize within the real world, physically. Only consciousness can be gained in front of a glaring laptop screen, not real solutions.
In a digital age where the answers to most of our inquiries can be found on Google, many of the people who sobbed over “Kony 2012” should have already been aware of his reign of terror. Indeed, the video was a great means to inform the masses, but a video shouldn’t have to become viral for the world to awaken to the problems of Uganda, or any other country in the world.
We have all the resources available to us. We should use them. By being informed citizens of the world, we can combat the problems that plague us, as well as the ones that will arise in the future. So when another half-hour film goes viral, telling the plight of a group of people and asking for donations and support, we won’t be shocked and appalled. We won’t feel the need to “like” and share it. We won’t feel compelled to be Facebook heroes because we would already be fighting the battle, being heroes in our own right.