Hotel Rwanda

Last Saturday Jessica and I watched Hotel Rwanda, a movie I had heard a great deal about but never seen. It deals with oppression, repression, racism, artificial racial differences, the results of Colonialism, Imperialism, and, some would argue, the Neo-IMperialism they feel the U.S. is currently engaged in.
It also deals with the pointlessness of the United Nations, an organization I despise with every fiber of my being. The best thing the U.N. has done is provide a model for the uniforms worn by the good guys in the Jean-Claude Van Damme video game epic Street Fighter...and if you remember the tag line for Mortal Combat, that means something.
If you don't...I am your friend. Here it is: "What do Street Fighter, Mario Bros. and .... have in common? They were all great video games but the movies sucked."
(that is not verbatim...but it is pretty close. Personally...I did not hate Street Fighter but it never made a top 100 list either...)
Well, Hotel Rwanda shows devastating scenes of people killing people while the world stood by. As the U.N. commander told Cheadles when he was leaving, the world did not care because the world did not see what was going on and after all...they are "just" 3rd world blacks where fighting is always going on...
Ask yourself why the Final Solution was so evil but the genocide of the war in Rwanda is acceptable? As pointed out in the previous post, why do we still protest and argue about the wrongs done to Blacks and Native Americans here in the United States but say nothing about what is going on in Uganda?
Rape is a horrible, horrible, unconscionable thing that even I don't tell jokes about...http://www.worldpress.org/Africa/1933.cfm
Why is this not on the news night after night after night? Where are the people crying out for justice for these "child mothers" (read sex slave rape victims destined for a disease ridden life of poverty and devastation).
I defy anybody with any heart or conscience to look at this picture http://www.worldpress.org/Africa/1917.cfm and not have their stomach turn.
For 17 years now and counting, the Acoli sub-region of northern Uganda especially has experienced systematic and gross human rights violations. The Ugandan military (UPDF) and the rebel group Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) are both responsible for violations in the Acoli sub-region and other parts of the country. Together, they have killed, tortured, raped, abducted, and displaced thousands of innocent civilians. Since 1986, more than 500,000 civilians have been killed in northern Uganda alone—most of them children. Yet they have not been held accountable. In October 1996, your government violently removed all of the Acoli people from their land and forced them into “protected villages”. Currently, over 800,000 Acholi people are internally displaced and live in concentration camp-like villages where both groups orchestrate systematic sexual abuse, abductions, and other forms of torture with military precision. Your government put the Acholi people in “protected villages” ostensibly to provide better security against LRA incursions, but it refused from the beginning to provide food, water, sanitation, or health care. Almost two thirds of those in the concentration camps are women and children under 5 years of age. Infant mortality is extremely high: for example, in June 2003, an average of 20 children died every single day from curable diseases in Padibe Concentration camp alone. This figure is representative of the high infant mortality rate of every camp in the sub-region.
http://www.petitiononline.com/savacoli/petition.html
That is a greater number of displaced people than even the Arabs displaced from Palestine when Israel created their state today. That is an ongoing problem that certainly needs addressed...WHAT ABOUT THIS SITUATION? When will this be "fixed"? Can it be?
It is very safe and easy and comfortable to sit back, relax and watch the world go by, campaign a little bit for or against the war in Iraq or the nomination of Alito or whether Dean is a genius or a jack-smurf...we can do all sorts of things as long as we don't face up to what the world is really like. And don't think our fair country is that far removed from these sorts of actions. There are so many angers and hatreds building it would not surprise me to see things like this happen in my lifetime. I pray they don't, but would it be a surprise?