"How can i face such slaughter and be cool? How can I turn from Africa and live?"

This is the the rhetorical cry of Derek Walcott at the end of his poem, "A Far Cry from Africa."

We ought not face such slaughter and be cool. When we look upon tragedy and are not moved to help, we lose some of our humanity. It seems that we have found a simple solution to this problem: we don't face the bad stuff. We ignore it. If we don't know what is going on, we can't feel bad about it.

Today, my local newspaper's homepage featured a story on local high school baseball, an update on the latest news regarding American Idol, and a feature on local craftspeople making 3D quilts.

My local paper failed to address the fact that 6 year-olds are being exploited in Congo to dig up the minerals that make our cell phones work. Or that aid organizations, which are the only thing keeping people alive in Darfur, have been expelled by the Sudanese government resulting in further deaths. This stuff is happening today too, but for some reason the local news won't talk about it. See no evil.

Admittedly, this is unsettling stuff. It's the stuff that haunts your mind and strangles your heart. But it's real. We need to see it, feel bad about it, and do something.

Congo lacrima rerum est.

This week (19-25 October) is "Break the Silence" Congo Week. This was brought to my attention by an article in The Root by a Congolese activist named Kambale Musavuli.
The conflict taking place in the DRC is a complicated one; it is a convoluted civil war with several players from several countries including Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, Uganda, and Rwanda. A brief overview of the conflict can be found here at globalsecurity.org.
The DRC bloodshed has claimed 5.4 million lives in the last decade, making it the most deadly conflict since World War II (see Joe Bavier's Reuters piece here). Despite this stunning death toll and the sadistic intensity of the violence the DRC is almost completely off the United States' radar. sunt lacrimae rerum.
One of the most troubling aspects of the situation in the DRC is the sexual violence used by various militiamen. For articles detailing this horrific features of this largely neglect war see Anderson Cooper's recent piece on these crimes against humanity. A more recent article written by Dayle Haddon of UNICEF and ENOUGH can be found at cnn.com.

Western Sins of Commission in the Rwandan Genocide

Admittedly, this is old news. But it is important nonetheless. The Rwandan government released a report outlining France's participation in the 1994 genocide. Stephen Kinzer's column summarizes the reports findings. If the reports allegations are accurate it provides a rather horrifying example of a modern Western nation facilitating atrocity. There is, however a debate regarding the motives behind the Rwandan Report. France has denounced the report.

It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.

A Look at Rwandan Genocide's Aftermath

Here is an article written by a dear friend of mine from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. She describes parts of her experience working for the tribunal and her reaction to that experience as a person intimately associated with another prominent world conflict.

Somalia After Black Hawk Down

Here is a series of essays from slate.com about the continuing issues in Somalia.

maybe we should give a sh*t, yeah?

start reading- this is the latest New Republic cover story on Darfur.

and read this too - This is Samantha Power's Pulitzer Prize winning article introducing the politics behind the Darfur genocide.