Why aren't you angry about THIS?

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:

• (a) Killing members of the group;
• (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
• (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
• (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
• (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

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!