Read this post. Read all
of it. It is important. To be fair, I should warn you before you begin that
I am angry. I am angry about the things I learned that I am about to share with
you. Can you call to mind the anger you felt when you first started to
understand the horror and injustice of the Holocaust? I can. And it’s that same
anger writing this post right now. But I will still demand that you read it
because I am more afraid of the apathy than of the anger. I’m more afraid that if
the Holocaust were to happen again, we would be far too busy not caring at all.
I just watched a
documentary called Six Days in Iraq. The two men who produced it – a writer and an ex-Marine – decide that they would like to see what
exactly is going on in the Middle East with their own eyes, so they collect a
camera crew and a large dose of crazy and fly off to spend a week with the Kurds in northern
Iraq. No plan, no inhibitions, no political viewpoint to prove. Just a camera
crew and a handful of near-death experiences.
If you look up who the
Kurds are, you’ll probably learn that they are an ethnic group living in an
area (called Kurdistan) that spans four different countries in the
Middle East. You might also learn that because they consider themselves separate
from all of those countries, they are pretty universally disliked by the governments
of those four countries. And with the rise of the KRG (Kurdistan Regional
Government) in northern Iraq, the Kurds living in Iraq are considered mostly
autonomous from the Iraqi government. However, this status of autonomy does not
stop them from being targeted by ISIS, and the Kurds have since been driven out
of their homes by this terrorist organization who, as we know, shoots first and asks questions later. Some of the Kurds are dead, the rest live in refugee camps
founded by the UN. “Oh they’re being taken care of by the UN,” you say. Not
quite.
As discovered in this documentary, the families in the first
refugee camp lived in “homes” that are the size of my bathroom. An entire
family fit their entire life into a room that’s barely 18 square feet in all
its glory. And that’s not even mentioning the later camps visited by the two,
camps which they said “made the first camp look like the Ritz Carlton.” The
last camp shown in the documentary houses families in cardboard boxes if they’re
lucky. One refugee from the camp said that “animals cannot live in these kind
of tents.” The camps are supposed to be maintained by the UN. The annual budget
for UNCHR is over $5 billion, but the only indication that anyone from the UN
has even stepped foot on this ground was their logo on the side of a tent.
Other than that, there is only dirt and rocks and devastation in the eyes of
these broken people.
Here are just a few of the
refugees’ stories featured in the documentary:
- A child who witnessed her father’s head being blown off his body before she was 5 years old
- A boy whose head, back, and left leg suffer the scars of the drill that was used to torture him when he was captured at 4 years old
But thank God we hear
everyone preaching this same old rhetoric of compassion.
And thank God we live in a
country where we don’t have to care about the horror show that is someone else’s
life. If we get a little depressed, we can just turn on a favorite TV show to
chase away the bad vibes. But this 4 year old will never be able to forget
seeing her dad’s head blown off in front of her. This father will never be able
to erase the screams of his wife and children as they died, but good thing we’re
taking care of the important issues like the latest development in Game of Thrones. This 8 year old boy was
left with permanent brain damage after Iraqi soldiers drilled a hole in his head
literally just for fun, but I’m so glad that I can see exactly how the Internet
has reacted to Finding Dory as soon
as I log onto Facebook.
And Christians, I am now
speaking directly to you. How can we say that we are serving God faithfully if we do nothing about the unspeakable suffering of the very people we are called to
serve? Jesus tells us to be servants to those in need, that as the city on a hill, it's our job to shine the light of love and compassion everywhere to those in need. His whole life was a lesson in service, and correct me if I misunderstood this part of the Bible, but I thought we were supposed to follow his example. How dare you stand there and speak of compassion and hashtag that love has won when
our brothers and sisters are being murdered on a daily basis by the hatred that they face for their faith?
Oh I’m sorry. You’re
right, I’m being too harsh. Is it just too much for you to handle? Is it just
too heartbreaking for you to think about the thousands of people crammed into a
few cardboard boxes that they label “home?” Is it just too sad for you to think
of the bodies piled high in the empty streets of what used to be a town full of
life – or worse, no bodies but just a bit of extra dust floating around in the
air? Is it just too damn depressing for you to consider that the heart of the
One who saved you is being broken by the holocaust of the very people that He
came to save? Well good thing you don’t have to care. Good thing you can just curl
up under a blanket and watch a video about kittens when reality gets a little
too close to you. But what about the others, the ones living in this hell? What
can they do to escape the horrors of reality?
So yes, I am angry about
this. And you should be too. This is your life. This is your future. Call
yourself a citizen of the world? Pride yourself on the love you show to everyone
around you? Maybe try caring about the issues that deserve your attention. Maybe
try caring about the people who need your help right now. Maybe try caring
about the difference between right and wrong, because if you don’t stand up for
what’s right, who will? Or, as they say, maybe there will be no one left to
stand up for you.
You may feel overwhelmed.
This is such a huge issue, where can you even begin? I know, I feel the same
way. I literally have no idea what I could possibly do to help. But that is absolutely
not an excuse to do nothing. We can pray. We can donate to those charities that
are actually trying to do something to help (link below). And you, reader, can
find something – anything at all – to do. It doesn’t matter how insignificant
or unhelpful it may seem, any action you take, any small step towards helping
these people who are suffering is better than sitting around on your ass in intentional
apathy.
To donate to Christian refugees:
https://mercuryone.z2systems.com/np/clients/mercuryone/donation.jsp?campaign=210&
To read more about the Kurds fighting against ISIS:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshmerga
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