Anger

I know people don't read this blog (people meaning my 10 loyal readers) to get yelled at... or to listen to me rant. I know my last post was kind of a downer. Sorry. This one is going to be kinda crappy too. Because I am angry. So. Angry. And I don't want to talk about how cute my kids are (though they are beautiful beyond words). And I don't want to talk about how Hani is going to head start screening tomorrow (though my heart aches with pride and anxiety). I don't want to talk about the funny stories Mer has been telling me or how we are seeing more and more of Mal's dimples and of his defiant side. The only thing I really want to talk about is how angry I am.
29,000 children under the age of 5 have died in the Horn of Africa in the last 90 days. 29,000 children like mine... or younger. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Tens of thousands more deaths are coming. And we could stop it! The world has the resources to stop this from happening and we aren't! I don't understand why. I am so angry I want to shake people and scream. Don't they see? Don't they understand? Why don't these children matter?
If 29,000 children died in Texas in the last 90 days, the world wouldn't stand for it. People would come together to donate food and supplies. There would be help coming from the entire world. Why are 29,000 children in Texas any different, more worthy of help, than 29,000 children in Somalia and Ethiopia? Nobody would talk about anything else. Think about how much news coverage was given to a shooting in Norway. It was a tragedy. Absolutely. Those families were torn apart and will forever experience a grief I pray I never understand. But what about the 29,000 families in Ethiopia and Somalia that are experiencing the same loss? How much are we talking about them?

Ever see the movie "Hotel Rwanda?" It takes place during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. In a film full of awful moments, the most awful to me was when a Rwandan named Paul was trying desperately to get media attention. He thought that once the whole world knew what was going on, they would stop the slaughter. Jack, an American, told him it wouldn't matter. Paul replied, "How can they not do anything? Don't they care?" Jack told him "I think that when people turn on their TVs and see this footage, they'll say, 'Oh my God, that's horrible,' and then they'll go back to eating their dinners." He was right, of course. 800,000 people died before anyone tried to do anything.
Isn't that what we're doing? We see the news footage. We think it is awful. Then we go back to our own lives and our stack of bills that need to get paid and our problems at work and at home. And we forget. Because it is easier? More comfortable? Because the problem is so big it is overwhelming? All of those things are true. But it doesn't make us any less awful.

And it doesn't make it less awful that on my MSN news page it has headlines including "15 Mood Busting Ideas for Summer," "7 Homes for $300 K around the World" and "Mystery Woman Revealed in Elvis Photo" and doesn't say anything about the fact that right now, the sun is rising over the Horn of Africa, and today, thousands more children will die... and we could stop it, but we aren't. And I am angry. At all of us... and myself. But that doesn't help the 29,000 children that will die in the next 90 days, does it?

I'm done yelling about it. My next post will be about how much I love my children, because it isn't helping for me to yell and be angry. The only thing that will help is giving as much as I can, so I will know that at least I did something. Even though it won't be enough. And I hope you will, too.