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Wednesday, April 20, 2011

201

This is my 201st post and to commemorate it, I would like to make it a bit serious. I finished watching a movie today for my African film class about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and I think it's important for everyone to understand what happened. A lot of people recognize the phrase "Rwandan genocide" but not many understand what happened, why it happened, and how the rest of the world purposefully ignored it. Starting on April 6, 1994 and over the next hundred days, over 800,000 people (some estimates say around 1 million) were murdered because of their ethnicity, while governments that could help stop it refused to call it a "genocide," because then they would have to intervene.

Everyone should reflect on the things that happen, the horrific acts that people can commit through manipulation, propaganda, misunderstanding, and blatant prejudice, and take efforts to become aware of their own actions and who they support.

You can find the movie on YouTube in parts, a link to Part 1 is here.

2 comments:

  1. I totally agree. I'm taking African American Lit this semester, and it's amazing the atrocities we've committed even in our own "civilized" country. Today we watched part of a documentary on W.E.B. DuBois, and he was going to a newspaper to complain when he passed a butcher shop. A lynched man's knees were next to the pork for sale. I was so disgusted, and I tear up every time I think about it.

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  2. I love what a good heart you have.

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