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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Kony's Message: A New Koine? The Lord's Resistance Army in Northern Uganda
Authors:Doom, RuddyISNI
Vlassenroot, KoenISNI
Year:1999
Periodical:African Affairs: The Journal of the Royal African Society
Volume:98
Issue:390
Period:January
Pages:5-36
Language:English
Geographic term:Uganda
Subjects:African Independent Churches
political action
Acholi
Military, Defense and Arms
Politics and Government
Ethnic and Race Relations
Religion and Witchcraft
Law, Human Rights and Violence
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/723682
Abstract:This article analyses Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a rebellious movement in northern Uganda, both in historical perspective and in the wider framework of the world system. It demonstrates that Kony's LRA is not a sudden or inexplicable disaster, but the outcome of a long political process in which both the struggle for power and the use of violence became institutionalized. The authors discuss the erosion of traditional Acholi society and the initial phase of the war in northern Uganda. The early resistance campaign fought by the Acholi-dominated Uganda People's Democratic Army (UPDA) still fits into the standard conceptions of political resistance. However, social collapse eventually gave birth to Alice Lakwena's Holy Spirit Movement (1988-1989), and finally to its radical successor, the LRA. Possessed of a charisma bordering on the prophetic, Kony forged a new vision of Acholihood, based on individual salvation and purity. This 'biblical' vision of political redemption makes the movement vulnerable to outward manipulation. It seems that Kony is no longer interested in winning a conflict, but that violence has become both a tool and an end in itself. Ref., sum.
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