Silent War

Who can name to me the wars going on in the world right now? Ready.. set... name. I'm going to guess the first thing you said was the War on Terror, where we in the States are fighting in Afghanistan. You may have mentioned Libya, Somalia, Egypt, the Arab States, Israel, Palestine, or others, if you read the news. If you're on the internet a lot, you may have mentioned the "War on Kony", which currently seems to be a stalemate. And if you are in the know, you'll mention the Korean War, which, despite popular belief, is still going on; it is one of the only places in the world where the Cold War still exists. But how many of you mentioned the Second Congo War, the "Great War of Africa", the deadliest war in the world? I would hope all of you. Sadly, this is not the case. This war, despite the deaths of over six million Congolese since the war began 14 years ago, is not popularized or often reported by the media. Yesterday morning, however, my respect for actor Ryan Gosling grew immensely as he and Enough Project co-founder John Prendergast posted about it on the Huffington Post website (which usually I do not frequent, but had to for this article.)


Their joint-authored article is short but concise, telling their readers to go check out the new "I Am Congo" video on the Raise Hope for Congo website. 


I'm not here to just advertise for them, however. I'd like to tell you my take on the war. It's like the "Kony" thing we heard, except blown up, happening on such a larger scale. This country is wracked with horrors such as rapes, murders, terrors, and basically, pillaging of the entire Democratic Republic of Congo. And nobody reports about it. Nobody. Apparently our current favorite celebrities' outfits on the latest movie premiere's red carpet is more important than the lives of millions of people. Yes, you read right. We read more about celebrity gossip than we do about the deaths of millions of people. Think of the deaths of our superstars. We give them so much more respect than we give to  our servicemen and servicewomen, and we pay so many more times attention to one celebrity life than a million Congolese deaths. If the word ignorant burned it's way to the front of your mind, that's okay, it did to mine too. 


We need to raise awareness about this SILENT WAR going on in the Congo. Nobody is making a "Congo 2012" video. WE are the change we need to see in the world. WE must be the ones to raise awareness, not a 15-minutes-in-the-spotlight video. WE must help the voices of the Congolese be heard. Only we can do it.

Should We Be Making Kony Famous?

Kony 2012. Make Kony Famous. Last week, all our emotions were aroused with a persuasive, pathos-ridden video convincing us to take a war criminal out of the world. Great idea, right?! We should give all our savings to Invisible Children to stop this man with his army of 30,000 innocent children! Well, yes, that would be great, if the things presented in the video were not skewed to confuse us and toy with our emotions. Now, don't get me wrong, I am so glad my generation is finally becoming more aware of the world around us, I just don't think we should be following a movement like lemmings just because we watched a video with inspiring music. I believe we should do our research before we jump headfirst into something. 


First of all, we should be looking into the organization called Invisible Children who put out this video. You can look up charities & see how much money they actually give to their cause, the best are those with a 10% overhead and 90% of their funds go to the cause. With Invisible Children, however, only 30% goes to Uganda. This is partly because they spend a lot on raising awareness & travel to Africa, but a lot also goes to the individuals on the board of Invisible Children. There are better charities for the same (or very similar) cause. Also, we should be looking into the statistics on Kony himself. Yes, Joseph Kony is a horrible, cold-hearted man. He lies to the world, saying he is fighting for a "Christian cause", when, in fact, he is a witch doctor. He kills thousands, also true. But does he have an army of 30,000 innocent children ready to charge and take control of the world? No. That is an estimated total of those children who have been in his army in the last 26 years. It's definitely still horrible, but didn't Invisible Children's video manipulate you to think there were 30,000 in his army right now? They did for me, when I first watched the video. This leads into my tertiary point, which is the manipulation of our emotions by Invisible Children through this video. Truth is, the pathos (emotional pleas) and inspirational music in the video were pointed at our generation because the charity knows how they can manipulate our emotions. Yes, Kony needs to be dealt with. Of course he does. However, Joseph Kony has been in hiding since 2006! The video didn't say anything about this. WE must stop this man, yes, but, for the moment, he has stopped.


My point here is, we should look into things before we allow ourselves to buy into them , At the heart of this movement is a huge gold nugget, despite the truth-twisting in the video. This gold nugget, worth so much to the world, is the new found awareness and good intentions of my generation, which, before this movement, had little to no interest in the problems of the world. Now that a seed of awareness has been planted in their hearts, I have high hopes that my generation will open their eyes to the world around them.

The Internet Can Save The World

The world is messed up, yes. You want to help, yes. But do you have the time or money to do huge advocacy programs or donate a huge amount? If you do, that's great! But most people in the current economy are unable to spare much money, and that's where the internet comes in. Many charitable organizations have websites that can help you with your awareness and advocacy. For example, freerice.com can donate rice meals to people without food with you merely expanding your vocabulary a little. The Action Center of the World Wildlife Fund's website will give you form letters that you can add your information to and you can advocate for things you believe in. These links can help you open your horizons to new things you can do for the world. 

Global Trashing.

I notice that a lot of people talk about global warming this, global warming that. What should be talked about much more than global warming, which is hotly debated, but the issue of what I call "global trashing." Every time a piece of trash is thrown onto the side of the road, it could be ingested by a foraging animal, rain could wash it into our water source and further contaminate our water system, or it could just sit there and make our world look ugly. People say "oh, it's okay, I only litter once in a while", but, surprise, surprise, it is most definitely not okay. Every time you leave a plastic bag around, it makes a roundabout journey, sometimes flying through the air, sometimes floating in a river, into our oceans. Have you heard of the garbage patch? Now, "garbage patch" brings up the mental image of a pseudo-island made of trash. Instead, it is a "gyre", which means it is a place, one in each oceans, where all the currents converge and all the trash gathers in a central location. This resemble a soup, about 3 feet deep, of floating plastic garbage. The largest in width is the Northern Pacific Gyre, which has been described as taking up twice as many square miles as Texas. This is just not okay. I mean think of that, twice as large as Texas, and three feet deep. There is a 6 to 1 ratio of trash to life in these areas. SIX TO ONE. Do you know what that ratio should be? ZERO. There should be no trash in the ocean. This is what is killing our oceans, and we have to stop it. So, stop littering, stop carelessness, and be earth-aware.  

I Am Tiger, Hear Me Roar.

I think everybody knows about the plight of the tiger these days, but if you don't, I'll give you a quick refresher. The tiger is a top-of-the-food-chain animal living in a bottom-of-the-food-chain status.  This once-populous creature, at a couple hundred thousand in the world, now is endangered, with only 3,200 surviving today. I know I have talked about the World Wildlife Fund before, but there's really not enough you can say about it. This wonderful organization is doing all it can to save the tiger, and every other endangered animal there is. With their "Symbolically Adopt" program and their partner website, SaveTigersNow.org, they are fighting the fight to save these beautiful creatures. Support them, and you are supporting the prolonging of the lives of all the tigers everywhere.