Have you ever heard of the Lord’s Resistance Army, also known as the LRA? This is something started by a Ugandan warlord named Joseph Kony. Having grown up Catholic with his family in northern Uganda, and been an altar boy in his local Catholic Church, no one could have imagined what would become of him when he became an adult.
In the mid-1980’s, Uganda was taken over by the National Resistance Army (NRA) representing southern Uganda, under the control of Uganda’s president at the time, Museveni, and once they took power, went after northern Ugandans – over the next several years they perpetrated mass looting of livestock, raping of women and girls, burning of homes, genocide, putting people in camps (refugee or concentration, depending on perspective.. ), and plenty of murder – all by the NRA.
It was in this kind of an environment, along with a syncretic mix of African mysticism and Christianity, that Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army began in the mid-1990’s, as a response to the way that NRA was mistreating northern Ugandans. At that time, Kony envisioned ruling over Uganda using the Ten Commandments from the Bible.
Kony built a reputation for being a spiritual medium and a prophet, and based on that, built a following. He quickly added to his numbers with former soldiers, and the first city he and his followers attacked was Gulu in northern Uganda. After another resistance group fled to Kenya, Kony took advantage of the situation to recruit the remnants of that group that were still in the country, allowing his army to grow even more. In the meantime, Kony’s LRA continued to regularly attack northern cities and towns. Obviously, even at this point, the LRA was not fighting for northern Uganda against their southern Uganda oppressors, but became oppressors in their own right, although they ironically still had a lot of support from northern Ugandans.
Kidnapping Children
Eventually, the LRA was forced to leave Uganda. They’ve wreaked havoc in several other countries, including South Sudan, Central African Republic (CAR), and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). And during most of the time the LRA was around, they would kidnap children. UNICEF has calculated that the LRA has kidnapped at least 25,000 children since conflict began with that group.
Many of these children Kony and his LRA kidnapped, if they were boys, he would train to be soldiers. These young boys would be forced to perpetrate violence and killings on many communities in that part of Africa. They would be forced to kill their own friends, and even their own family members.
Other boys would be forced to be spies, human shields for the adult fighters, or make “magical potions” that supposedly protected the Lord’s Resistance Army fighters from harm. They’ve also been used as cooks, porters, and guards.
Young girls who were kidnapped would be forced into sex slavery and exploitation (rape), or were forcibly married against their will to soldiers in the LRA.
As much as 95 percent of the Acholi population in northern Uganda – where Kony is from and where the LRA was founded – have been displaced from their homes due to the LRA and their rival NRA. And this does not include the multitude of displaced peoples from the neighboring countries who were also victims of the NRA.
For decades, Kony, and the remnants of his Lord’s Resistance Army have evaded capture from international forces that at times define his group as a terrorist group. He is today thought to be hiding out somewhere in South Sudan.
Oppressors Versus Opressed, Who is Who?
If you went through this story with me, you discover that, when it comes to looking at everything through the lens of Critical Theory, there are many aspects of the story – especially when it comes to who the oppressors and oppressed are.
1. So, before Uganda became independent, it was a British-ruled protectorate. That would mean that, in this case, the British were the oppressors and the native Ugandans were the oppressed. There is a counter-argument, of course – if the British provided the natives with a stable social structure in which to do trade and commerce, where people were becoming prosperous, and were at the same time providing the native population with a high level of self-sovereignty, it could be easily argued that the British were not being oppressive from that standpoint, but were helping to enable the Ugandans to have a better life, and in a way they could not have done on their own.
2. Once Uganda acquired its independence, the rivalry between Uganda’s Bantu-speaking south and the Nilotic-speaking Acholi people in Uganda’s north only intensified. Both groups would do oppressive things to the other, and would be victims of oppressive abuse by the other. From this standpoint, both groups could conceivably be considered to be both the oppressors and the oppressed.
3. Uganda’s president, Museveni, and his National Resistance Army (NRA) perpetrated all sorts of atrocities on northern Ugandans beginning in the mid-1980’s. From this vantage point, Museveni is an oppressor, and the northern Ugandans, the Acholi people, are the oppressed. And given the fact that Museveni is still the president of Uganda some three-and-a-half decades later, it would seem to suggest that he really is some sort of dictator who keeps himself in power.
4. The Lord’s Resistance Army originally started out as a means to fight back against the oppression perpetrated by Museveni and his National Resistance Army. Over time, the LRA became an oppressor in their own right, kidnapping children, murdering lots of people, and causing large numbers of people to flee for their lives. From this standpoint, Kony and his LRA have been, at different times, the oppressed and the oppressor.
5. The children, especially the young boys, who were kidnapped from their homes, families, and communities, and then were forced to perpetrate violence themselves, and kill people, including friends and family members, are in a terrible position. They are oppressed, and are simultaneously being the oppressors, all against their wills.
So, all of this begs the question again:
What do you do if the oppressed and the oppressors are the same people? How do you stand against the oppressors, and with the oppressed, when the same people, in many cases, are doing both?
A Warning to Black Lives Matter
If you’re part of the Black Lives Matter movement, or have decided to stand in solidarity with them, then this story of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, and the lessons you can learn from this situation, can be applied to your present situation. With that in mind, I want to give you the following warnings to allow you to practice better discernment when it comes to the BLM movement.
1. You believe yourselves to be the oppressed, and to be fighting for the oppressed against your oppressors. If you’re not careful, you too could very easily go too far, and become the oppressors. Remember, you are trying to stop oppression. Getting to a point where you are causing oppression yourselves will not make you the good guys.
2. If you are part of the BLM movement, and you’re from the United States, then you most likely identify as Democrats. But the Democratic party has been the party that perpetrated all of the evils and injustices against the black community throughout American history, from the late 1820’s and onward. This means that you’re standing in solidarity with your very oppressors.
3. All of the problems that you see in today’s black community, all of the disparities that fit within the label of systemic racism, and the terrible plight of much of today’s black community – all of which are representations of oppression – can be traced back to the deleterious effects the Democratic party’s leftist programs and control have had on the black community over the last half century. Ironically, the BLM movement endorses many of these programs, as well as the Democratic party who pushes them, claiming that they’re all good for the black community, even though all you’re really doing is standing with your oppressors, whose programs continue working to oppress the black community even today.
4. The Republican party has a long history of fighting for black rights, which began when they first formed as a coalition of anti-slavery groups. Their entire history, from this perspective, is really a fight, a struggle, against the Democratic party, which has long fought to subjugate, suppress, and keep down the black community. This means that the Republican party has long been the party that fought against the oppression of black people, working to lift them up. Today’s BLM movement vilifies the Republican party as the oppressors who are working against the black community and their well-being, but this is a lie. By standing against the Republican party, you’re standing with your oppressors, and against those that have long stood in solidarity with you, and have long fought against your oppressors, and against your oppression.
5. If you look at the effects of the Black Lives Matter movement on the black community, you’ll notice something freakishly alarming – something you will miss if you ignore the facts and data – the BLM movement today is MANY TIMES more destructive to the black community than the Ku Klux Klan ever was back in their heyday. It’s basically the KKK on hyperdrive. How does that make BLM pro-black? It may very well be a con, a deception, by your oppressors, meant to trick you into destroying yourselves.
This last point leads us to the next question in this article series:
