You are African. You are poor. We take what we want from you, at will. We don’t really care about you.
When we go to sleep at night we have a high level of confidence that we will be safe until morning. On the television we see images of war and starvation. We have no personal experience of that level of danger and so we file it under ‘unfortunate’ and go on with living.
We complain when we stand in line at the supermarket. We complain that they don’t have our favourite brand of ice-cream. We complain when we are unable to park close to the shopping mall entrance. We complain that the air-conditioning at home is pushing up our energy bill.
Someone is rude to us and we feel slighted. The clerk in the store doesn’t greet us with a smile and we feel wronged.
Our points of reference for suffering, in our daily lives, are prices and attitudes.
In Darfur and places like it there is no security. When they go to sleep at night they may never see daylight again. Their child may be dead by morning. They may be raped at any hour of the day or night. Their spouses may not return home.
Imagine this. You have suddenly switched places. The sun is setting and you are lucky enough to have found some shelter; nothing fancy, just some branches lashed together and leaned against a tree; but it’s shelter. Your baby lies, wrapped in a cloth, on the ground, its beseeching eyes staring at nothing in particular. You love your child but you need the few scraps of food-aid you fought to snatch from the harried workers on the truck because you can make more children but if you are gone, then your family, also, is gone. And so you cry for your dying child but you let it die.
You begin to doze off when, in a rough sweep of hands, your shelter is brushed away and standing before you are three men. They wear uniforms and carry machetes and they begin shouting at you. You are confused. You don’t know what you’ve done wrong. One man steps forward, crushes your baby under his feet and kicks it away. Then he tears the few clothes you own from your body and he rapes you. His friends rape you. When they are done with you they raise their weapons and it all ends; for you.
This is a daily occurrence in Africa. It happens to thousands and millions. Someone once said, “one death is a tragedy but a million is a statistic”.
Just because we have trouble relating to the huge scale of suffering, it doesn’t mean we should turn away in reaction. “What can I do?” is such a common thing to say but you know, a beach is made of millions, billions of grains of sand. Alone a grain of sand appears tiny and useless. All those grains of sand together though; they amount to something.
A million voices or more together can make changes. But to make changes we sometimes need to sacrifice. We are comfortable in our air-conditioning and you know, the children need new sports shoes and the car needs a tune-up and why doesn’t that guy with fifteen items go to the other checkout?
We would love to help if we have time; but who has time?
You are African. You are poor. You are far away. We take what we want from you, at will. We don’t really care about you.
