2004-02-03
Do you want to know what I find amazing?

Actually, that's a pretty broad question .. let me give you a hint.

In the early 1990's in a far away place called Rwanda, there lived two groups of people: the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority. They shared a common language, common land, and common culture. They only differed in their appearance - Tutsi tended to be tall and slender, whereas Hutu were more short and stout.

I won't bore you with a long complicated political history - but the Tutsi, for a while, were given privilege over the Hutu. And, more often than not, when one group is given privilege over the other, it almost inevitably leads to oppression.

This story is no different.

The Tutsi oppressed the Hutu. And this created resentment.

Whenever you put resentment and power together - nothing good ever comes from it.

But let's fast forward a bit to 1994 when a Hutu president is now in power. He feels his power waning - so, as a purely political move in effort to rally the support of his Hutu majority, he fans the flame of Hutu past resentment against the Tutsi. Through propaganda and lies, he creates this non-existent, urgent threat that demands immediate action to suppress. (Hmmmm ... does this sound a bit familiar, Americans??)

But what happens is a genocide. The Hutu, out of fear and sometimes duress, attack the Tutsi - men, women, and children. In 100 days, an estimated 800,000 Tutsi are slaughtered mercilessly.

All the while, the United States government knew exactly what was happening. In fact, they were even warned it was going to happen ... and did absolutely nothing.

Even in the midst of the killings, the US failed to even call it a genocide - because, if we did, by United Nations regulations we would be compelled to act.

So we did nothing and let thousands of innocent people die.

This ... this horrible massacre that we just sat back and ignored - this doesn't outrage us and DEMAND that we act to save our children and our grandchildren and our great grandchildren from the horrid consequences of such deplorable behavior.

But Janet Jackson's breast being shown in the middle of the Super Bowl half-time show ... now, THAT gets our panties in a knot.

Amazing. Simply amazing.

last - next

archives - newest - email - book - profile - notes - design - diaryland