I am supposed to write an intelligent post for the Unpaid Pundits today - but given that I have some kind of nasty chest cold and I am coughing fit to bust I am going to cheat and give them this, a piece written by my wife under her online nom-de-plume of Magik. I hope it makes the impact she would wish it to.
I'm furious and heartbroken. I saw a BBC segment that had been picked up by ABC a few nights ago and cried through most of it. The aid camps in Niger are turning away people because they can't help them and only some of the worst "cases" are taken.
If these children have to live through this then the least I could do was not turn away from what I was seeing.
I saw children who have wrists as thin as my thumb. Here in Texas when Jovane died of starvation on Christmas Eve the entire state went into an uproar. My GODS these children made him look well fed and cared for. And what is being done about it? The UN has said that it will take 2 months to get any kind of significant help to these people. Meanwhile 5000 not five hundred children die every day!
The government is spending 447 BILLION dollars on defence and and that is only a tenth of what it spends on it's annual budget. All Gorden Brown wanted was the WORLD to give 50 billion. Not even all of it was to come from the US and it was thrown out.
WHY? Because the other governments who would be getting the help are corrupt? Anyone looked at our own lately? Plus, even corrupt, if it was YOUR child over there and dying - weighing even less than one of my cats damn it - and you KNEW the government would take half the money you sent, wouldn't the knowledge that even just that half that did get through would be there to help your child make it worth it? Are you telling me your own child is not worth half the money you have? How the fuck do you think the parents over there feel? Would they feel any different?
I looked at my youngest son last night after seeing that program and cried even harder because he has never known hunger or pain like those children do, and gods willing he never will - because the thought of my beautiful baby boy suffering those tortures is soul destroying.
The thought that it could have been alleviated by a simple agreement to help and that someone was so inhumane as to turn away is not only henious but criminal. The knowledge that that is EXACTLY what our government did as per Bush's decision horrifies me.
That person who has done such a thing should imagine dealing with the loss of each loved one of their own in the same manner. Watching them waste away in agony, tortured to where even their eyes and soul have gone dead. The only thing that prevents this from happening is that none of it is the fault of his loved ones. Oh wait! It's not the parent's fault of those children in Africa that are starving either is it? But they still have to deal with it.
As angry as that may make me it is the children who broke my heart. Those poor children who are living in desolation, starvation, disease, without hope and unable to even have the knowledge (much less the ability) to dream of not being hungry. Children who's eyes have gone dead and empty, who know nothing of the world except it means pain and suffering. Who's only thought is to please let the torment end even if it means death. That is what broke me.
I am a US poverty statistic. I'm a Denny's waitress, supporting 6 people and on welfare, but by the Gods I can put 1 dollar a day back for those children even if it means instead of taking a bus to work I have to walk. Aid agencies are calling for a total of about $15 million to avert just the Niger famine. Some charities, though, are saying that many large corporate donors have already spent their charity allocation for the year and some charities are in danger of collapse.
If every person who make even 10 dollars more a week than I do in the US put just 10 cents a day aside for those children, do you realise it would take only 2 months to completely change the lives of EVERY SINGLE ONE of them? How many more THOUSANDS of children throughout Africa have to suffer and die like this?
Yours, Magik.
You can contribute to the UN's Aid appeal here. and via the Disaster Emergency Committee here
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