One might think, living in America, that we had become so complacent in our attitudes and values that the only thing we valued in the First Amendment was the Freedom of Speech. This is because when things piss us off we like to say something about it. We like to trash talk or say how awful something is or talk about what people should be doing, etc. The point being that we do a lot of talking, but not a lot of communicating. We don't, for instance, talk about how we can change something because when that sort of talk starts happening we begin to feel as if we should *gasp* be accountable for the things we say *gasp*. When people start listening it becomes more than just talk, it becomes a starting point for change.
This is where things like Kony 2012 become dangerous. The Youtube video for Kony 2012 went viral within a few days of being released and had college students organizing Cover the Night events all around the country without ever stopping to think about the source. I'll admit that when I was first invited (and when I say invited I mean added without my permission to the Invisible Children group) for my university, my heart ached for the cause and yes I shared the video. However, when I stopped to think about the video and what it was actually doing...I had to take a step back to think about what was really happening. The people behind Kony 2012 operated on a foundation of assumptions, stereotypes and privilege that was critiqued pretty heavily. If you want to read more about it just search for Kony 2012 critique or something similar, trust me, there's plenty.
But I'm not writing about Kony again, I'm writing because of the idea behind Kony, the one that sucked idealists in; the idea that conversation, awareness, and knowledge can create a meaningful social change.
Who'd 'a thunk it? Knowledge as a tool for social change. . .
More importantly who would have thought that a group of people can come together, have conversations to create awareness and foster knowledge in a way that becomes a form of activism?
Well, I know of a few people that may have thought about that idea once or twice before. . . those people being protestors. Yes from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street to the Fair Election protests in Russia (protesting about their concerns of rigged voting in the third term election of Vladimir Putin) and many, many other high profile protests around the globe, the Protester has been a force to be reckoned with and one to be recognized. The Protester was so widely influential that Time magazine name them the person of the year. Seriously, who would have thought that after years of just taking it, people would wake up and decide to do something about it, to stand up and say that they have a voice in their government and demand to be heard.
After my last post a good friend commented saying that she is angry, but she also feels helpless and has no idea what to do that will actually make a difference. Honestly, I don't have a clue either. I'm certainly not writing because I have all the answers, I'm writing because I think we need to change how we think about things (which also means that we need to think about things).
Sometimes its not about having all the answers or any answer at all, sometimes its just about gettting people to think about the question.
The apathy of our nation astounds me. We think so highly of ourselves because when things displayed in nice, easy to understand packaging with a “clear solution” of share-this-video-and-you-make-a-difference we get riled up about it. These videos go viral. A few days later there are critics of the so-called movement and a few days after that most people have moved on and forgotten all about “that cause” in “that country”. It would be a different story entirely if one of these movements actually made a damn bit of difference. You know what really makes me mad though? It pisses me off that we get to pick and choose what we fight for. For instance, why are the atrocities going on in Uganda with Kony and these invisible children worth more attention than what’s going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo? Yes, what Kony and his army are doing is atrocious, but is 6 million dead in the DRC not? Is rape as a tactic of war not something we need to fight against, something we need to stop? What does it take to make something worthy of a “viral video”, worthy of our attention? Does “the cause”just need a video? Here you go:
There’s a video. A video that doesn't feature a five year old white child when talking about the thousands of Ugandan children. This is a video where you hear the voices of the women in the Congo, you hear their cries. Do you care now? Are you ready to do something?
Do you want pictures of the victims? Here:
Are these women and children considered victims too? Or is their suffering not our concern? When will the body count be high enough for us to pay attention? Is it not our problem because they're being raped and murdered by their own people? But wait, they're also being raped and murdered by the Interahamwe (the group responsible for the Rwandan genocide) who fled into the DRC.
These are women waiting for surgery to repair their vagina after being raped so violently that they were torn apart. Girls as young as two-years old, women well into their 70’s and 80’s. The only thing needed to make someone a target is a vagina. You know what we call that? Genocide. Not surprising seeing as the prime people responsible for the Rwandan genocide are now in the Congo.
After the Holocaust the United Nations held a convention on the prevention and punishment of genocide.
This is Article 2 of their resolution:
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
Now tell me, is the murdering of 6 million people (almost equal to those killed in the Holocaust) and the systematic raping of women as a tactic of war not genocide? Is using the rape of every woman in a village to destroy that community not genocide? Is the violence inflicted on these women that rips their insides apart not genocide? And where is the U.N? Where are our mobilized forces to stop this? When will these rapists and murderers be put on trial for crimes against humanity? Where is your anger that this is happening?
Do you care now?
What about the people in Syria? Where were the viral videos about the month long military siege by President Bashar Assad and his regime? Oh right, the military wouldn’t allow anyone in or out of Homs, specifically Baba Amr (the neighborhood that served as a sight of hope for anyone seeking freedom from the oppressive regime) including the Red Cross or other aid groups. Human Rights workers have been pleading for weeks to deliver food, water and medication for the civilians inside the neighborhood. The only reason the Red Cross was finally allowed in is because the rebels evacuated the area after getting reports that Assad had issued orders to “cleanse” the area. The U.N. is saying that Assad committed “systematic and widespread” human rights violations against the citizens of Syria.
What about women all over the world that are victims of Sex Trafficking? Millions of women around the world are being forced in Sex Trafficking. Here in the U.S we think of it as a foreign problem. We think about women in Asian countries being told they'll be taken to work in the bigger cities to send money back to their families and instead being sold into brothels. We don't think about it here in our own country, where over 100,000 CHILDREN are being held as sex slaves. And even when we are thinking about it, we don't really know what's going on.
People think these children are the one's that are kidnapped from malls, stolen from cars or found by pimps while playing on the street. In reality, these are only 3% of the victims. 35% of these children are sold by their families into sex trafficking and the remaining 62% are tricked into it (usually by an older boyfriend). But we don't want to look at this.
We don't want to get involved in the Congo because we helped put the Rwandan leader in power who is taking out revenge on the Hutu's for the Genocide no matter what the cost. The cost being the people of the Congo.
We don't want to get involved in Syria because we don't think it's right to arm rebel groups. The rebel groups being the ones that started with peaceful protests back in March of 2011 and were attacked with force by their government...oh wait...ringing any bells *cough* Occupy Oakland *cough*
We don't want to get involved with Human Sex Trafficking because we've realized it's too close to home, because it could be anywhere, even in nice, upper-middle class suburban neighborhoods.
Well guess what...It's time to get involved. It's time to get angry! Get pissed off and stay that way! Do something! Anything!
