the result of doing nothing

I watched "Hotel Rwanda" the other day. It was perhaps one of the most powerful movies I have ever seen. It was gripping, and as a mother and a wife, it was heartbreaking. It was based on a true event - the geonocide of over a million innocent people. It happend in 1994, and I would have been 16 at the time, but I don't remember hearing about it! Here is an event that should have been foremost on the minds of all the outside world, with other countries scrambling to give aid. Not knowing the history, not remembering the event, I watched in horror as hope seemed to arrive; but they were not to stay. They pulled out, and left the people to die very violent deaths. Nothing was done -- no one sent aid, not one country. The UN soldiers that were there, were instucted to work only as peacekeepers; their hands were tied by their incompetent leaders, who forbade them to use any force. They could only stand by helplessly and watch the massecre unfold. One small man, a Rwandan himself, helped save about 1000 people (including his own wife and children) from the massecre. He fought incredible odds - with very little help. How much more could have been done had people with power stepped in?

It could have been stopped. That's what keeps haunting me. It could have been stopped! Where was everyone? What were the leaders of our country, and other countries doing?

Perhaps the most powerful and shaming statement on the movie was that made by a reporter (played by Joquin Pheonix), who said (of the footage he had shot of the people being massecred) to a Rwandan who thought that surely, once the outside world had seen what was going on, help would come:

"People will say, ""Oh, my God, that's horrible,"" and go back to eating their dinners."

History, unfortunately repeats itself. The Holocaust was largely ignored, until after the fact. When it was too late. Countries were slow to render aid to the millions dying, and then it was mostly due to the fact that the Nazis were trying to invade their own countries.

But those in relative safety when on with their lives, not giving it much thought. Some did, obvously, but not enough.

We can blame the leaders of the country at the time. We can. But a leader is only as good as his people. We have to take action. We have to write to our leaders, and demand justice if we want to see justice happen. Perhaps if people had written and called the president and congressmen about what was going on in Rwanda, something would have been done. The voice of the people cannot be ignored. Especially if it the majority voice.

Raise your voice, people. Raise it against injustice -- wherever you see it.