Desperate Serbwife

How could "we" have let this happen?

This is one of my least favorite phrases uttered by Americans. It is usually used to describe genocide in a foreign country or a horrible injustice done to a human being abroad. It is always used in the past-tense, yet the horrible act for which we are describing was usually being described on the pages of our newspapers as it was going on, but we are always too busy, or the situation too confusing or too far away for us to pay attention to what is going on. We only realize what happened when it is described to us, simply and succinctly, as a movie or a book (usually involving a central character that we can identify with). And as we walk out of the movie, or finish the book, we say to ourselves "How could we have let this happen?"

As an American living abroad, this fact is brought home each and every time I meet a non-American. The third question (after what's your name and where are you from) that I get from foreigners is usually about the Iraq war or some other major action (or lack of action) by the US. The people of the world very often look to the US to do the right thing or help when there is a crisis. And when we fail, the whole world is dissappointed. It is quite a burden that we bear in the world, but I believe it is also an amazing opportunity to help right injustices and invest in a brighter future for all the citizens of planet earth.

Now I know that most readers of this blog are paying attention to what is going on in this world and have read enough to seperate truth from fiction, but I would encourage EVERY reader of the blog to read the international section of your newspaper for just one week in hopes that you might glimpse one more plight going on in the world that we should be paying attention to but are not.

Here is my list of things that I really think more American's should pay attention to in hopes that our collective knowledge of situations in the world will change the way we vote, spend money and discuss politics with our friends:

1. The crisis in Sudan. There is a genocide going on there, equal to the one in Rwanda (now that everyone knows about Rwanda from the movie Hotel Rwanda). The UN, the US and everyone should be doing more to stop the killing and the rapes and the forced evacuations from people's homes. But most American's don't even know about it.

2. The US's inhumane, immoral, and illegal treatment of "enemy combatants" from the Iraq war. I don't care if these prisioners are evil and hate every one of us; the most powerful and "freedom loving" nation on earth should not stoop to their level by denying them their most basic human rights. But most American's turn a blind eye to this and would rather not discuss it.

3. Millions of people are dying from AIDS in Africa every day and yet the official US policy is to promote abstinence over condom use. When are we all going to wake up and realize that we live in reality - people all over the world have sex, and not just those in loving, stable marriages. If you want to protect mothers from their philandering husbands, then it would be better to give the guy a condom than to preach to him about abstinence. If preaching abstinence doesn't work in our own country, why do we think it would work someplace else?

4. The Saudi Arabian government is backward beyond belief and yet the US continues to chose dependance on them for oil than investing in our own green technologies. You have to look no further than the most recent energy bill that passed Congress to realize that billions in tax breaks for the oil industry will not lessen our dependence on those governments .

5. Iraq. We, as Americans, must learn to admit when our government has made a very big mistake. Not only was there no connection between Iraq and 9/11, but there were also no WMD's. Yet thousands of young American's will die fighting this war. And when we finally leave Iraq (whenever that is) that country will continue to fight their own civil war. The people will not remember America as liberators, nor as the country that helped them rebuild. We will be remembered as occupiers that used their oil and made it possible for the worst elements in the Middle East to transfer their jihad into their country.

There are certainly many more injustices going on in the world, those are just the ones that I think we should all spend more time talking about with our friends.

I promise to get back to more funny stories about Serbia, but as an American living abroad, I am constantly reminded about the bubble in which most Americans live and the effort that must be made for all of us to reach out of our bubble and pay attention to what is going on in the world around us. It does matter. It matters because knowledge is how "we" do not let these things happen again.

posted by Brooke @ 9:08 AM