Hotel Rwanda and My Own Shame

In 1994 i was a college student. It would be rare indeed to find another young westerner more educated about world politics or african politics without traveling many miles beyond my classroom. In that time the Rwandan massacres occured. I was keenly aware of what was going on. I was aware of the radio broadcasts that urged on the geonocide. my professor, Dr. Paul Kaiser, a UN elections monitor illuminated me to exactly what was going on then in africa. I gave speeches about what was happening. I debated people over the airwaves about what should be done. I had a democratically elected president that I selected in the office. all of this was meaningless. I probably have not thought on this in a decade. I was made to again tonite. the attrocities that happened...that were allowed to happen, are a stain and and a shame on the entire western world. my world. my efforts. I cannot express the level of shame that i have that my nation did nothing. I cannot remove myself from the guilt that Jean Paul Sartre forced me to understand. It is with a heavy heart that i was made to realize what our world has allowed to happen...here. in "modern times". long past the picture show of WW2 that exists for most of us. sometimes there is no helicopter to lift the protagonist to safety if we do not provide it, and we certainly did not. Those that have been left on the ground. abandoned then, just as now in the Sudan are left to fend for themselves and save their people. those people are the true saints of our age...walking among mortals that do not deserve to look upon their faces. i am humbled and ashamed. mostly because i knew what was happening, and my life was continuing with inconsequetial bliss. Human beings deserve better than what we are giving.

always remember that.