Why Does No One Care for Darfur?

“Rapes in and around the (refugee) camps continue. Humanitarian assistance is still hindered. More than 5,000 displaced persons die each month.” These are the words of Luis Moreno-Ocampo to the UN Security Council. He asked in July of this year for the arrest of Sudan’s president, Omar al-Beshir. Here is a man taking action. Here is a man fighting for what he believes in. Here is a man willing to stand up. It’s a clear showing of courage and leadership, so I just have one question. Why aren’t you? Why are you okay enough with this genocide to not do a thing about it? Do you approve of it? Not preventing an evil from occurring is saying that it is okay. Indifference and inaction are the reason why evil exists in the world. Only when people sit by and do nothing are horrors like genocide allowed to happen. An estimated 300,000 people have died in the Sudan genocide. 2.7 million have been forced to flee their homes. This is a genocide which started in 2003. Why is it still happening? 5 YEARS later, it is still happening. Why? It can be summed up in one word. Indifference. This is probably the point when you will start rolling your eyes, and may simply veer off of this page in search of something more interesting. Which proves my point exactly. The rest of the world (or at least a large percentage) spend their days going about their daily lives and thinking about nothing outside their own existence. Do you ever take time out of your busy day of perusing the internet, sipping Starbucks and going to shopping malls to think about the fact that over people are screaming and crying as they slowly die from hunger? I’m guessing not. It will take at least a month for Moreno-Ocampo’s request to even be acknowledged by the U.N. An investigation of the Sudanese president could take 12 months. An investigation of Ali Koshieb, the pro-government Janjaweed military leader, has not materialized TO THIS DAY. Why aren’t we ripping our hair out?! Why aren’t we having massive panic attacks?! Why aren’t we crying, when somebody is MURDERED EVERY THREE MINUTES? But as I’m writing this, I realize that this is a hopeless dream. Look at us, us human beings. Look at the U.S. Look at some of our main industries. Look at what we do with the internet. We spend our time online shopping, playing MMORPGs in virtual, non-existent worlds, and watching porn. Look at what happened on Black Friday! A worker DIED after being trampled to death by shoppers wanting to save 40% on pointless, temporary and materialistic crap!! We never learn. Never. The Holocaust. Rwanda. Bosnia. Cambodia. Armenians in Turkey. Rape of Nanking. History is screaming at us, with numerous examples of how horrific, how damaging, how WRONG genocide is. But we choose to spend our time waging wars over oil, killing Walmart workers, masturbating to internet porn, not caring about stupid Africans? We don’t even know them. They’re not here, with us. They’re not in our bubbles of pointless existences. Why should we care, right? Better to just remain ignorant. Problems can work themselves out eventually, right? Better to continue trampling Walmart employees and caring about absolutely nothing except ourselves. Look at yourself. Do you care? Do you care enough about the injustice being done to others to actually do something? Do you care about anyone but yourself? Apparently not. Because nothing is being done. And nothing will ever be done.