I hate to rain on the parade, but theres something thats been bothering me about the march in Paris over the weekend. Of course Im all for anti-terrorism and freedom of speech, and I liked seeing people of different faiths, or no faith at all, marching together for a common cause. I also liked seeing world leaders marching together singing Kumbaya. And though I thought it was an odd collage of leaders touting their support for freedom of speech -- heres looking at you, Saudi Arabia -- I thought that the U.S. should have had a representative there and was puzzled that we didnt. But with all the mixture of elation and outrage and faux controversies playing out on the worlds television screens -- or, to be fair to the rest of the world, probably just U.S. television screens -- the world seems to be forgetting that roughly around the same time the attack happened in France, as many as 2,000 villagers in Nigeria were slaughtered by Boko Haram, and nobody seems to give a shit. Perhaps at this point I should say, Pardon my language, but Im not going to do that. I think the real need for pardon belongs to all of us, and the world system that once again has told black people that their lives dont matter. While I mourn the little over a dozen French people who died last week, I also mourn over the fact that world leaders are expected to march hand-in-hand when a dozen Europeans are slaughtered and not when thousands of Africans are slaughtered. The worlds media and governmental structures have sent the message loud and clear: Africa can go to hell. When I was a missionary in Senegal, I worked with a Nigerian pastor who once said to me, Africa pays the bills of the rest of the world. And its true. Global trade policies are rigged in spades against Africa. We can thank the World Trade Organization for that, and the wealthy nations the organization serves, but we can also thank all of us in the West who benefit from the system and, thus, refuse to speak out. About a million children die in Africa every year because of treatable diseases and a lack of clean water. Its a moral bloodbath, and yet were not outraged. The longest-running war with the most civilian casualties has taken place in Congo, and yet were not outraged. Two hundred girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram -- two hundred girls -- yet nobody expects world leaders to march for them. Theres something wrong with a global system that values life more in some places and less in other places.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 16:37:37 +0000
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