Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Rwanda, Darfur, and the world.

Today in my AP Government class we finished watching Hotel Rwanda, a riveting, heart-wrenching true story of one man's brave attempt (and success!) to save 100s of Rwandan refugees. These refugees were both Hutu and Tutsi. Paul risked everything for these people.
At the end of the movie the producers stated that once the Tutsi army had successfully pushed back the Hutus, over one million lives had been lost to the genocide.

Where was America when all of this was happening? Watching O.J. Simpson's first trial. And no, I'm really not exaggerating.

There is a line in the movie that is along the lines of "Rwanda is nothing to the world, we don't have anything of importance to give them, nor anything to them worth saving." But what about valuable, irreplaceable, LIVES? I know that many leaders of many countries do think "What does so-and-so country have to give us in return for what we'll be doing for them?" What kind of thinking is this? Why do we not learn from our mistakes?

The same thing is happening in Darfur right now, and the news is as silent on Darfur as it was on Rwanda. Do we not realize that PEOPLE are dying, horrible, unnecessary deaths? What is wrong with the rest of the world? Where are our priorities? Do we hear about the raid that killed 200 people? No, we are forced to listen to the latest Britney Spears update instead. Filling our minds and wasting our time with useless information. All because Americans tune in more to that crap. Perhaps the news world should stop worrying about their ratings and speak the truth for once. Get people riled up so we can make a change NOW instead of regretting ten years later not having done anything.

If you've never seen Hotel Rwanda, I dare you to watch it. It's guaranteed to make you cry if you value human life in any way.

That's my soap box today.

In His Love,
Samantha

4 comments:

CaseyMay said...

wow SamanthaMarie, you got me all fired up! I can hear your voice in my head and my "Amen"s resounding. Girl you are so totally right on! You have God's heart, God knows the worth of human life and so do you, and you my dear, are willing to fight for it. You will not stand around doing nothing,but rather you raise your voice, HIS VOICE, and proclaim the truth. I love that about you, it encourages me so very much and gets me passionate about the things that matter to God (wow that reminds me of ATF!).

I LOVE YOU and thank you so much for everything you have done. Please call me, I have a revelation to tell you about your comment ;)

~standing on His Promise~
Me

retrobellewife said...

Oh, Samantha! I am so sorry. I had no idea about your parents. I can not imagine how hard that must be for you. To be perfectly honest, though, other than my immediate family, little of my extended family knows Christ. My father attempted to minister to his mother on several occasions, but she never seemed to accept the truth until a couple of years before her death, when we were told that she had. She passed away two years ago and as hard as that was, it made it easier to know that she just might have accepted Jesus into her heart.
I will pray for you and your family.
I don't know about "writer-extroadinaire"? I do write alot, and often say more than I mean to. Sorry for everyone who has to listen to me. :)Thank you for your complement, though. Yes, we did have alot of fun making all that stuff, too. Daddy was so sweet about it. We kept showing him everything as it was finished and he kept telling Mommy we were up to something.
No, I've never seen that movie, but I have heard about it. I do agree we hear way too much about celebs and their "wondeful" lifestyles. Sadly, we do not here enough about our soldiers who are fighting in a war right now to protect our rights and try to help save the lives of others. The news never reports the actual good they are doing and have done; just ignoring the lives they are risking and the lives some have given. This country is so great and was built on such faith- faith in God, and yet people are so willing to just throw that away. Huh, I could go on and on, but it's late, late, late and I have work, work, work tomorrow (today?).
So, goodnight, or goodmorning, or even good afternoon! ;)
-Paige

Stephanie said...

I've never actually seen that very movie but I have seen the shake hands with the devil movie, also about the what happened there. I think it was about some guy named Romeo's story. I got a pretty good idea there though.

I don't know what's happening in Darfur at the moment but like you said it's probably because of the lack of coverage.

Either way, lives are being lost which isn't cool. This whole thing made me think of what my physics teacher said today in class about Burma. He said that people are trying to help them but the people in power don't want to risk losing their power by letting people come in. You can bet that lives are being lost there due to selfness and a lack of care! Bummer

Stephanie said...

By the way, I really am a fan of the getting together plan but we'll to save that for years to come because I'm gonna need to get a job to do that. I could have one now just like I could have my license but I'm a slacker at those kinds of things. But, psssh... when you get married invite me! And if you ever come to Canada for any reason give me a call and we can work things out.