In order to better understand the relevance of the photograph of the three Ugandan boys I have chosen, it is very important to understand the historical and cultural contexts from which it is derived.
To fully understand the significance of the photo, you must understand the history of the location at which it was taken. This photo was taken in 2008 in Uganda. Uganda is a landlocked country in Eastern Africa bordered by Kenya, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, and Rwanda. (Wikipedia) For the last 23 years Uganda has entrenched in a brutal civil war between the Government of Uganda, currently headed by President Yoweri Museveni, and The Lord’s Resistance Army.
The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is a rebel guerrilla army formed in 1987 by Joseph Kony, who is a self-proclaimed “spokesperson” of God and a spirit medium. The LRA, recognized as a terrorist organization by the United States, adheres to a blend of Christianity, Mysticism, witchcraft, and claims to be establishing a theocratic state based on the Ten Commandments. The LRA is accused of widespread human rights violations including abduction, murder, mutilation, and the sexual enslavement of women. Kony and the LRA are possibly most known for abducting children and forcing them to fight in his army. “It is estimated that over 90% of the LRA’s troops were abducted as children” (Invisible Children). The LRA leaders believed that they young children would be easier to terrorize could easily be brainwashed and molded into trained fighters and killers, and that they could less easily escape. In search of safety and protection, approximately 25,000 children, between the ages of 3 and 17, known as night commuters, have been forced to travel up to 12 miles per night from their small vulnerable villages to larger more protected cities. The children sleep in masses at hospitals, empty churches, and bus parks where the Ugandan People’s Defense Forces offer some protection while they sleep.
In an attempt to protect the Ugandan people from the LRA and put an end to the night commuting, the Ugandan government forcibly evicted thousands from their homes and pushed them into overcrowded communities, now called displacement camps. Now, over a decade later, over a million people still live in displacement camps and along with the ever-present threat from the LRA “struggle to survive among the effects of abject poverty, rampant disease, and near-certain starvation” (Invisible Children). The displacement camps have offered few opportunities for cash income, almost no credit available, and very few of the people receive support from relatives living outside the camps. The main means of support for the camps is international humanitarian aid, which is never enough.
In the photograph, we see three boys overlooking hundreds of homes. Understanding the history of the country they are in, the war that is raging around them, that their homes are part of a displacement camp with deplorable conditions, and that they most likely live in constant fear of abduction by a rebel group provides a whole new context from which to view the photo.
Works Cited
"History of the War." Invisible Children. Invisible Children, 2009. Web. 1 Oct.
2009. <http://www.invisiblechildren.com/about/history/>.
"Lord's Resistance Army." Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Oct. 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord's_Resistance_Army
"Uganda." Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Oct. 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda
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