It’s so frustrating that we are living through an active genocide (again) and doing absolutely nothing (again). In my youth, when there wasn’t yet a 24 hour news cycle and I learned about the genocide in Rwanda as a teenager, it was my naive belief at the time that a lack of knowledge was the main reason for the general indifference in “the West”. A year later the genocide in Bosnia, especially the massacre at Srebrenica, was headline news in my home country of the Netherlands and yet people seemed to collectively just shrug that off just as quickly as it happened. Now, many years later, I’ve become much more cynical. If you want people to care about unjustified murder you should either make sure to have your country located really really close to “the West”, but even that is just of limited use to Ukraine, or make sure that the killing happens to take place at the hands of mostly Jewish people, although most Palestinians can attest to the fact that while media attention is good, action is still lacking.
That’s a very sad point, if true. I’m old enough to remember coverage of that event on the evening news. How can a clear and obvious case of ethnic cleansing be downplayed?
People claim it was blown out of proportion (with inflated numbers) or that it was presented selectively (without mentioning Bosniak and Croatian atrocities). This is a relatively frequent idea among American leftists, at least the more radical circles which are common on Lemmy.
Similar to Ukraine, tbh. Basically, nothing has to be “clear and obvious” if you don’t want it to be.
How willing have you been to go and put your life on the line to stop these atrocities? If you’re not willing to, why should others?
If none of the individuals in a democratic country are eager to go die to prevent the atrocities, then why would you think a democratic country would take action to force individuals to go die to try and prevent a genocide?
And in this particular case, international trade with Sudan is at like 3% of their GDP – they don’t really trade with anyone, so its not like democratic countries can be all “smarten up, or else no more [x]!”
The UN at one point in the past had a decent peace keeping force function, that’d go and assist such regions. But the UN has basically been kneecapped by both authoritarian non-democratic countries having veto powers, and by the USA overtly defunding all its programs as of late.
And the US is now participating eagerly in war crimes / crimes against humanity – they’re the ‘supposed’ leader of the democratic west, but they actively encourage genocides like in Israel. The people of the USA voted for it. They’re ‘democratically’ in favour of encouraging genocides. Your opinion in the broader democratic environment, if you’re American, is in the minority. And part of living in a democracy is accepting the will of the majority, which happens to be in favour of genocides.
When was the UN peacekeeping force actually keeping peace? From what I remember, they had boots on the ground in Rwanda, several bases. And still, stood by and did nothing of consequence to stop the butchering of civilians.
I was in Afghanistan, first serving with the Dutch armed forces and later working for a company that built clinics and schools. After that I worked in eastern Africa for a rural electrification programme. While parts of these efforts may have been fruitless in hindsight, I still stand by these choices.
What have you done? I feel like I was (and am) willing to work towards putting an end to atrocities, at least within my limited influence. I am willing. Therefore I expect a similar level of caring for the lives of others from others.
Congrats. It seems the rhetorical device is lost on you, and you’re not inclined to view the statement more broadly from the perspective of the majority. The rhetorical device isn’t meant to be applied to a single individual case, but rather interpreted as a broad concept highlighting the situation of what people would envision for a ‘regular’ citizen. From that vantage, you’d be looking at a majority who simply try to make ends meet and who’s focus is largely on treading water in a system increasingly aimed at crushing the agency/freedom of its people. Most can’t afford to be altruistic, and there isn’t enough revenue to support larger volumes of people working in organisations aimed at helping impoverished areas.
But further, to put your situation slightly differently: it sounds like you were provided with an opportunity to work for the armed forces and for a company that built clinics and schools, because others in dutch society produced what was needed to maintain dutch lifestyles, and the excess of their labour allowed you to pursue more altruistic goals. It’s the same general concept as the rich being able to give to charities / social causes because they’ve fucked the poor and created social issues to become rich, but abstracted a bit to social values. And the practical reality that there are some people working in those countries towards worthwhile ends, isn’t really material to the broader situation: just like the fact that some rich people are philanthropists, doesn’t realistically change the amount of damage done by the wealthiest demographic collecting/hoarding the wealth that some of them trickle back via charity.
Your framing is bizarre to me, as it was never meant as a directed/individualistic comment. The presence of outliers doesn’t really impact the point I had been making, which is what I had to re-iterate once someone declared themself an outlier and pretended like that’d somehow be material.
Like if you make a post saying “People are struggling to afford groceries these days”, and someone responds back saying “I can afford groceries”, it doesn’t really change the validity of that first statement. It’s just that the person responding back doesn’t understand the context or something.
it was never meant as a directed/individualistic comment
You should probably have said something like “my bad” and explained yourself then, rather than insult people who read your words and all took the same thing away from them. Your intentions are meaningless when your words don’t explain them
Oh Boy. A keyboard warrior who tries to compensate for a lack of courage with a wall of text. Have a great life. I hope you come up with something good to do during the rest of it.
But the UN has basically been kneecapped by both authoritarian non-democratic countries having veto powers, and by the USA overtly defunding all its programs as of late.
Lately the US has been an authoritarian non-democratic country.
I understand your complain to a state level but not to individual level ,like even if I hate genocide and that make me sick I can t do anything again it , unfortunately
Yeah like im sorry but im not as brave as Alex Pretti and Renee Good and my plan is to flee the country when the civil war breaks out. I’m not fighting to save it. Good luck to the rest of you.
It’s so frustrating that we are living through an active genocide (again) and doing absolutely nothing (again). In my youth, when there wasn’t yet a 24 hour news cycle and I learned about the genocide in Rwanda as a teenager, it was my naive belief at the time that a lack of knowledge was the main reason for the general indifference in “the West”. A year later the genocide in Bosnia, especially the massacre at Srebrenica, was headline news in my home country of the Netherlands and yet people seemed to collectively just shrug that off just as quickly as it happened. Now, many years later, I’ve become much more cynical. If you want people to care about unjustified murder you should either make sure to have your country located really really close to “the West”, but even that is just of limited use to Ukraine, or make sure that the killing happens to take place at the hands of mostly Jewish people, although most Palestinians can attest to the fact that while media attention is good, action is still lacking.
Keep in mind you’re on a site where a solid number of users might downplay or relativise Srebrenica.
That’s a very sad point, if true. I’m old enough to remember coverage of that event on the evening news. How can a clear and obvious case of ethnic cleansing be downplayed?
People claim it was blown out of proportion (with inflated numbers) or that it was presented selectively (without mentioning Bosniak and Croatian atrocities). This is a relatively frequent idea among American leftists, at least the more radical circles which are common on Lemmy.
Similar to Ukraine, tbh. Basically, nothing has to be “clear and obvious” if you don’t want it to be.
How willing have you been to go and put your life on the line to stop these atrocities? If you’re not willing to, why should others?
If none of the individuals in a democratic country are eager to go die to prevent the atrocities, then why would you think a democratic country would take action to force individuals to go die to try and prevent a genocide?
And in this particular case, international trade with Sudan is at like 3% of their GDP – they don’t really trade with anyone, so its not like democratic countries can be all “smarten up, or else no more [x]!”
The UN at one point in the past had a decent peace keeping force function, that’d go and assist such regions. But the UN has basically been kneecapped by both authoritarian non-democratic countries having veto powers, and by the USA overtly defunding all its programs as of late.
And the US is now participating eagerly in war crimes / crimes against humanity – they’re the ‘supposed’ leader of the democratic west, but they actively encourage genocides like in Israel. The people of the USA voted for it. They’re ‘democratically’ in favour of encouraging genocides. Your opinion in the broader democratic environment, if you’re American, is in the minority. And part of living in a democracy is accepting the will of the majority, which happens to be in favour of genocides.
When was the UN peacekeeping force actually keeping peace? From what I remember, they had boots on the ground in Rwanda, several bases. And still, stood by and did nothing of consequence to stop the butchering of civilians.
I was in Afghanistan, first serving with the Dutch armed forces and later working for a company that built clinics and schools. After that I worked in eastern Africa for a rural electrification programme. While parts of these efforts may have been fruitless in hindsight, I still stand by these choices.
What have you done? I feel like I was (and am) willing to work towards putting an end to atrocities, at least within my limited influence. I am willing. Therefore I expect a similar level of caring for the lives of others from others.
Congrats. It seems the rhetorical device is lost on you, and you’re not inclined to view the statement more broadly from the perspective of the majority. The rhetorical device isn’t meant to be applied to a single individual case, but rather interpreted as a broad concept highlighting the situation of what people would envision for a ‘regular’ citizen. From that vantage, you’d be looking at a majority who simply try to make ends meet and who’s focus is largely on treading water in a system increasingly aimed at crushing the agency/freedom of its people. Most can’t afford to be altruistic, and there isn’t enough revenue to support larger volumes of people working in organisations aimed at helping impoverished areas.
But further, to put your situation slightly differently: it sounds like you were provided with an opportunity to work for the armed forces and for a company that built clinics and schools, because others in dutch society produced what was needed to maintain dutch lifestyles, and the excess of their labour allowed you to pursue more altruistic goals. It’s the same general concept as the rich being able to give to charities / social causes because they’ve fucked the poor and created social issues to become rich, but abstracted a bit to social values. And the practical reality that there are some people working in those countries towards worthwhile ends, isn’t really material to the broader situation: just like the fact that some rich people are philanthropists, doesn’t realistically change the amount of damage done by the wealthiest demographic collecting/hoarding the wealth that some of them trickle back via charity.
You could just say “good work” and move on rather than debase yourself like this
Your framing is bizarre to me, as it was never meant as a directed/individualistic comment. The presence of outliers doesn’t really impact the point I had been making, which is what I had to re-iterate once someone declared themself an outlier and pretended like that’d somehow be material.
Like if you make a post saying “People are struggling to afford groceries these days”, and someone responds back saying “I can afford groceries”, it doesn’t really change the validity of that first statement. It’s just that the person responding back doesn’t understand the context or something.
You should probably have said something like “my bad” and explained yourself then, rather than insult people who read your words and all took the same thing away from them. Your intentions are meaningless when your words don’t explain them
Oh Boy. A keyboard warrior who tries to compensate for a lack of courage with a wall of text. Have a great life. I hope you come up with something good to do during the rest of it.
Lately the US has been an authoritarian non-democratic country.
I understand your complain to a state level but not to individual level ,like even if I hate genocide and that make me sick I can t do anything again it , unfortunately
Yeah like im sorry but im not as brave as Alex Pretti and Renee Good and my plan is to flee the country when the civil war breaks out. I’m not fighting to save it. Good luck to the rest of you.