Screaming Bloody Murder

I have never been engrossed before with political conflict in the world, be it in news print or in broadcast milieu. Not that I was not undeniably unaware of what was happening around me nor I cared less enough to the concerns of the world. My fancy for world politics was reignited after watching another movie great entitled “Hotel Rwanda” --- a 1995 Best Picture contender for the Oscars. It was an eye-opener on my part to see the images of that movie hurt my eyes literally. It was a very graphic movie that detailed all that was worst and ruthless about war, well in that case, they called it “ethnic – cleansing.”

Ethnic cleansing is a socio-political euphemism for mass killing within a minor tribe or a heterogeneous group wanting to eliminate this minor group to strengthen homogeneity of the stronger group over a territory. We saw back in past history how the Jews were killed by the Nazis in what they named as weaker race and how the Bosnian Serbs in Yugoslavia tried to eradicate the fate and minorities of Bosnian Muslims over their territorial place in the Former Yugoslavia. Hotel Rwanda movie concentrated fully in the country of Rwanda where divisive two groups are fighting over one’s supremacy. The Hutus versus the Tutsis were trying to out clash each other in order to reign political rule over the state. The lead actor of the movie saved a lot of his racial colleagues who were Tutsis and hid them inside the hotel that he manages. This hotel served as refuge to the Tutsis wanting to save their lives from the Hutus who were infuriated of killing them.

After watching this movie again this week to the provocation of watching a CNN documentary from Anchor-emeritus Christiane Amanpour, I have tried to fully awaken my senses to the plight of people who were troubled by war. Nobody wins in a war as what history taught us but it was hard to fathom that all over the world right now, they still exist and are unstoppably harming the lives of its victims to more casualties. Like the movie, many of those who were killed were innocent children and citizens who were defenseless of what was happening. It bleeds my heart to acknowledge the idea that YES; they are really true up to this time and the world attention to expose this genocide is sometimes callous to the eyes of the media and the rest of the world. Just imagine the suffering of people in Darfur, in Somalia, in Sudan. They are just some of the isolated cases of ethnic cleansing that still plague the lives of innocents and no one knows when the death tolls are going to stop.

After posting a blog entry that dealt with holocaust last time, I did not expect that I am going to post a similar entry that this time talked on genocide. I never really imagined myself writing thoughts on these topics. But great moviemakers like Steven Spielberg and Steven Soderbergh have retold the grief stories of these incidences with a lot of compassion and empathy which have made me broaden my range of awareness to these kind of topics and my sincerity to be involved about the plight of those people who were victims and survivors of these above-mentioned form of wars.

In my own little way, I wish to educate the people on my sphere about the existence and the struggle that people in Darfur are still experiencing. The never ending conflict between the Jews and the Palestinians in the Gulf region is something that I can provoke sentiments amongst my students so they can start to engage in healthy dialogue and exchanges of opinions which will platform peace and mature dialogues in the long run.

I can never resolve all the problems of the world but I hope to be a part of its solutions today. Starting Right Now!