You ever have one of those experiences where something, someone, etc seems resurface over and over until you give in to taking notice of it? This has been Rwanda for me lately. I know genocide took place there 14 years ago and that the movie came out a couple years ago now, but for whatever reason it has been on my heart lately.
The sequence of events has been this. I read some specifics of the atrocity in Bill Clinton’s book Giving. Then I read an interesting comment from a friend on facebook last night who roughly suggested that he is hoping that what is happening in Kenya won’t be a repeat of Rwanda. Then tonight, on TBN, I was watching someone recount with locals some of the specific acts of killing that took place. Most striking was that Tutsi children and infants were swung by their legs and dashed against brick walls. Strange how the history of Psalm 137 repeats itself.
Last night I saw the movie Juno. It was fantastic and some of the most gripping scenes were so for me because of my experience of Roy. Of particular note was the scene in which Jennifer Gardner’s character oohs and aahs over her soon to be child in the womb of Juno. All this to say that I thought the scene celebrated the uniqueness and beauty of this one soon to be life well.
Juxtapose this to a piece of history where people killed another group of people numbering close to a million. The majority in brutal, unspeakable ways.
It because of senseless stories like these that I still be believe in concrete, ontological, metaphysical demonic entities though our Western world would have me believe otherwise. I usually don’t take my theological cues from TBN, but I think that the show’s host correctly noted that hell had been opened up upon Rwanda in 2004. I think he is quite literally right. The acts of destruction and death seem personal and might I even say demonically inspired much like a Bach piece seems beautifully inspired.
6 comments:
Hey Josh, I've tagged you again. This one's actually pretty interesting if you have the time. :)
I'm not sure how true it is, but the film "Hotel Rwanda" mentioned that European colonists had arbitrarily divided up Rwandans into Hutu and Tutsi and systematically favored one group. Then, when they pulled out, they declared that the other group would be the ruling class. I know there's different accounts of how two distinct ethnic/cultural groups developed through time, but that one is particularly intriguing. It's as if today's conflicts are the result of some heartless social experiment. As if there were any questions about whether Europeans wreaked havoc on any society they touched....
As deep as ethnic ties run in Rwanda, it's hard for me to imagine that the conflict isn't really about resources (food, shelter, money) and doesn't stem directly from poverty. If the international community did more to alleviate poverty, I'm guessing conflicts like this one would largely take care of themselves.
Alleviate poverty? Yes, but it must be done in a way that teaches dignity and the ethic of hard work. I'm tired of the concept of a free lunch. Who wants a free handout? Also, in order to do this successfully, a MAJOR, MESSY, IMPOSSIBLE task of rooting out corrupt governments must first take place. People are pissed at the US for constantly sticking our nose where it doesn't belong(Iraq) and yet these same people are outraged that we are not running to aid other small countries in Africa. I'm not saying that one life is any more important than another, I'm just befuddled by the paradox of the "enlightened liberal" . What happened in Rwanda is wrong, but it's not the US government's job to fix it. That is up to you.
On a more positive note, check out this Sarah Groves video with link on this blog. Date Sept. 22.
-Noel
oops. Here it is.
-Noel
http://babyethiopia.blogspot.com/
Anonymous:
That's because the "enlightened liberals" wonder why we are intervening and bringing "democracy" and "freedom" to Iraq when we couldn't care less about what's going on in Sudan or Rwanda. The answer, of course, is that Sudan and Rwanda don't have oil (at least not on-shore oil reserves like Iraq). And, the US government is fundamentally concerned with securing rights to purchase oil coming from the middle east at cheap prices. So, "enlightened liberals" want to see the US government provide aid uniformly and according to need, not according to what we can get out of it.
As far as teaching a strong work ethic, I've never seen anything to suggest that folks in African nations don't have a strong work ethic. What they lack, of course, are governments that don't hoard the spoils of the few natural resources they do have. They also lack the amount of arable land and water resources that we have in the U.S. It frustrates me when people assume that poverty is about work ethic or cultural values without taking a hard look at the structure of the economy. In the United States we blame poverty on sloth, but the reality is that if every poor person suddenly earned a GED or college degree and went out to search for work, jobs that pay minimum wage would still pay minimum wage (at 40 hours/week and 52 weeks a year, it falls about $2,500 short of the poverty line). Sure, some people are responsible for their own poverty via bad decisions, but those decisions only sort out who is poor. The more fundamental questions is why we have poverty at all, and that's a structural, economic problem.
Post a Comment