Rape as Terrorism

It would be redundant to say that it is awful and how unconceivable it is to what is happening to woman and young girls during the time of war. Rape is a crime that is committed within and outside of war. The type of rapes and woman sexual violence extends very far. What I am more interested in is not what kinds of rapes there are but rather what the reasons maybe that rape violations increase during war and what could be done to prevent it.

Instantly the only solution I see fit to solve that problem of war rape is to eliminate war, of course that is not an easy task and while trying to eliminate wars (however that might be being done) it is imperative that we as the global community come up with solution to help the survivors. I think the first step is to have a law in the UN that is specifically stating, “In territories of war there be an organization that is only meant to take care of woman and young girls.” It is beyond vital that the very nurtures and care takers of life are given the respect and honor. As a woman, I am in complete shock of how low females are thought of when all they seems to do is bring life and nurturance.  Why are the possessors of life being dehumanized?

Someone say “A right is not a right unless you fight for it.” Who ever gave birth to that saying was foolish. There are and should be inalienable rights that are inherent to a human being which never should be fought for. To say, “A right is not a right unless you fight for it” in a sense gives the act of rape a kind of permission because, according to that saying, the rape victims dignity and body is not “really” hers until she/he fights for it. THAT IS PREPOSTEROUS!

“Calling the Ghosts” the documentary of two war rape survivors from the Bosnia War was in my shame the first time I have ever been exposed to such absurd circumstances or war rape issues. It was always a clear vision that there was of course rape and woman abuse in wars but I have never fathomed how extreme it is.

War rape also has another side that I think is important to investigate. The soldiers that are committing the crimes…what must they be experiencing? From the several New York Times articles and video clips I explored the brutal violence the soldiers commit are literally fathomable. So I wonder what shame, guilt and indignity they must experience to have committed such vandalization on another human being. To me, it seems that to have that on my conscience would drive me to mental illness.

Every time I look at the news on what is happening in the Congo I wonder how little the nation must think of Africa. The world says turning away on such a humanitarian crisis’s is undreamed of, yet when it happens in the heart of Mama Africa those words do not apply. Is the problem of humanity the color-line? If my African people were hit by tsunamis and hurricanes would they get attention? Or is it there tattooed identity that is preventing them such human acknowledgment?

http://www.worldproutassembly.org/iraq-2000.jpg

http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2007/04/haunting_image.html

Live and Become

As I was going into my Simon’s Rock account I saw a peer from my class on the front page. I clicked on the link that was attached with the picture of my peer. I shortly realized it was an advertisement for Simon’s Rock by short stories by some student’s experience. I continued to read this peer’s story and then when it came down to the end and it said, “I have brought with me the prayers of my mother and father. I am not here only for myself. I am also here for my family and for my country.” These are poetic, elegant and powerful. I felt that those words should be given to all the people that come to the Land of Opportunity for a “better life.” I felt that those words should be a belief that everyone followed.

It made me think of how the world would be if all the people that immigrated to the States thought that they had a responsibility that was beyond the goals of bettering their own life. What if every immigrant believed that they had a responsibility to their own country, their people, and their family?

Imagine all the change would be made in the world if every immigrant that came to the United States made an effort to make a change for their country? What if they all thought that the problems of their country would not be solved by evacuating their country?

I myself am an immigrant from one of the most historically rich and poverty stricken countries in Africa. I was raised with a multicultural perspective but always throughout my journey in Ethiopia and in the States I knew it was my duty to help fight child malnutrition. I know it is my responsibility to help my people and activate for the silent ones. And I intend to do that. With this blog I want to examine poverty in African nations. I want to know why there is poverty. I want to study how African nations are able to spend thousands and trillions of dollars on weapons for war while there are children drinking their own urine because the government fails to provide clean water. The intension of my blog is to figure out why there is poverty in Africa and how African nations are able to fund endless wars.

I was assigned to select a United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR) article I and examine how it is being upheld or violated in a specific place in the world today. I selected Article 25 which is:
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

What stood out to me in Article 25 is when it says, “(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food…” this is being violated all over the world. 12.6 percent of the world population does not get to have their share of the food. Why, should be every reader’s next question? Why don’t 12.6 percent of 6.6 billion people have the most basic need in order for life to exist? The answer is not that there are more people than the planet can feed. The answer is not that the 87.4 percent of people that get food do not have enough to share because according to Kate Melville an news reported just the United States alone throws away 50 percent of the food it produces. Does that mean that there must not be any hungry people in the United States since, it throws away half of its agricultural production? No, according to the Census Bureau total of 36.2 million people in the United States live in hunger. Making it to be 12.4 million of the 36.2 million are children meaning 16.9 percent of all children in America are not being feed while 50 percent of the food the U.S produces is feed to landfills.
Food to me is an element that should be accessible to every creature on earth. For the creature to be denied food is to at the same time being denied a life.

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/healy082/architecture/hunger%5B1%5D.JPG

When They Fail

What does it mean to have a set of laws? What happens when the law makers fail to implement the laws themselves? How does one force another that has the most power to take action if they do not care? I just do not understand. This miscomprehension nauseates me.
The Genocide in Rwanda in 1994 is the exact imitation of the holocaust. The world responds to slowly in times in need of help. Like everyone else I believe that the world likes to act and contemplate about justice and humanitarian issues but when in need of action, when in need of character it all fails. For example after the holocaust ended the world responded in saying “never again” would such atrocities happen again. This temporary realization of human injustice and cruelty lead to the founding of the United Nations. And 49 years later when the United Nations “aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security,” was put to a test the United Nations turned its back. It abandoned the very people that it says its aim was to protect.
It makes me wonder, what were the real aims of when the United Nations was founded? Was it merely an organization for countries to prove that they are not that insensitive? The same way that the United States refrained from calling the civil war in Rwanda as “acts of genocide” but not genocide itself because if it was genocide it would be a shame to the public eye that the “most powerful nation” or any of the “civilized nations did nothing to stop the mascaras in Rwanda.
What I noticed while watching the documentary “Ghosts of Rwanda” and reading Samantha Powers article, “Bystanders to Genocide” was that the United States did not see the Rwandan or African’s for that matter as people. To the American’s the Rwandan’s where always the “others.” Something outside of the human race some creatures not yet developed yet. I believe that would be the only way that the rest of the world would have been okay witnessing the massacres of another human being. I find it hard to believe that the politicians saw the Rwandan victims as people. In the simple statement, “[T]the American ambassador, he was concerned primarily for American citizens, who, he feared, could be killed or injured in any outbreak of fighting.” Pointed out by Power’s article shows how much the American’s saw as human. On the same note an astonishing thing I noticed in the film “Ghosts of Rwanda” was that when all the American’s were being evacuated from Rwanda there was this woman who carried her dog onto the plane to take for safety while around her were dozens of children, woman, and men terrified for their life and begging for their life. But no, the dog was to go to America safely with the other white people while the black people were to be slaughtered and sate the earth’s quenching thirst for blood.
As I sit here starring at my computer screen I continue to ask, who is responsible for this. What do I do when I see my leaders, my president, my country, my world, my species fail? What does one do when the law makers and the defenders become cowards?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwyGXg5K6II

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