Due to multiple variables, American society is sometimes involuntarily ignorant to what is going on in the rest of the world. With our own recent triumphs and achievements to gloat and praise it is inevitable that all though this is a victorious time for the USA and the world on a whole, there are still people in the forgotten parts of the world with much bigger problems to face.
Today, thanks to the power of technology that is BBC World News, I revisited one of those countries, and reiterated a story that has been in my mind for more that half of a decade. Sometime ago I came across an article in one of my fashion magazines about the affects of the ongoing genocide, rebellion, and civil wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Naturally, I was immediately disturbed to learn of victims of race, sexual, mental, verbal, and physical abuse; women, and children, who had there lives turned upside down only to have there spirits brutally murdered and remanding shells so badly dismembered there own families, if ever they were reunited would not even recognize them. The pictures are heartbreaking and the stories to match them only add fuel to the fire. I saw and read stories of little boys forced to join rebel forces and abandon the lives their families worked so hard to establish, before the invasions.
That was over 5 years ago and today not only are people still victims of a civil uprising and lacking government, the land, and the animals who also call the Congo home are in danger as well. It saddens me to know that the country is one of many that is in shambles, on the account of government instability, and so called rebels “with a cause”, destroying there own people and birth land with our a cause or care in the world. In my heart I want to go there right now and offer my services to the woman and children. I could not imagine going through what many of them have been through and what they will face in the future to come. However, my resources, economic status, and informed parents will not promote that idea.
What’s going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo is merely an excerpt of African history as rich as its resources. It’s the sad, honest, and unfortunate truth of mental colonization, and a divided unity. Just as America has chosen to “change”, I have faith in the motherland, and know that in time Africa will change as well. To learn more about Africa and in particular the Congo, please check out world news daily @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7739153.stm
In addition I am looking in to ways to volunteer from a distance, weather it be toys, food, or money for medicine to aid the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Look forward to a follow up article, in the meantime make yourself aware and email on comment if you have any new ideas.
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