Reading about all the barbaric madness happening in Sudan makes me really sad. I cannot understand how people like the Janjaweed can have such total disrespect non-caring attitudes towards human life. As I read the articles on this subject, and read the details of some of the violence, I get the same feeling of sickening shivers and nausea that I felt as I walked around the Terezin concentration camp in the Czech Republic when I was 16.
But, I guess having had a very privileged life so far, there is no reason why I would ever have to try and understand this kind of violence. I can’t put myself in these peoples’ shoes.
It's weird to think that, to us (as in the constantly educated middle class members of the Western World), pogroms and murderous rampages are things that just should not happen anymore. We think, "Haven't these people learned from the past...and seen how incredibly terrible genocide is?" But, if you really think about it, I doubt these people know anything about world history really, except maybe stories about their own cultures passed down from previous generations and taught through religion. It’s also weird to think that there is not enough worldwide governmental support to go in there and stop all of this, and even to impose sanctions against Sudan. America is busy in Iraq and Afghanistan, Arab countries won’t get involved because the Janjaweed are pretty much Arab nomads, and other top countries, like Pakistan and China, are too interested in Sudan’s oil industry to put a strain their governments’ relationships (source: Time Magazine through aol.com: The Tragedy of Sudan: Simon Robinson Visit Darfur and Witnesses What is Happening While the World Dithers).
Sometimes I wish I lived under a rock somewhere and never found out about any of this.
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