I'm losing faith in humanity
When both of your parents survived a genocide, your heart almost stops beating when you see headlines that scream, "Srebrenica Part II: Aleppo" or "The World Watched and Did Nothing." Srebrenica was the worst act of ethnic cleansing since the Holocaust, and it was one of the biggest failures against mankind. To learn more about Srebrenica, you can read the article I wrote in honor of the anniversary back in July here.
The siege in Aleppo, Syria is a repeat of what happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina over 20 years ago. Water, food and electricity shortages have left the citizens of Aleppo trapped, begging for help when all they can do is sit back and pray that a bomb doesn't hit their house. All while we sit behind our phone and computer screens, retweeting horrible pictures of the crisis, feeling a pang of guilt for a few minutes and then going back to living our normal lives.
There is no doubt that social media has helped spread coverage of the crisis, but what are we actually doing to help? Going on and talking about how sorry we feel for the victims can only go so far. We might as well just sit and cry together, but that won't accomplish anything. This week, the citizens of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina's capital, took to the streets to proclaim their solidarity for Aleppo. These people witnessed similar horrors and understand exactly what the people in Aleppo are going through.
It all almost goes back to the fact that we may never truly understand something until we have actually experienced it ourselves. Will we never truly understand or can we at least attempt to understand? Does the Western part of the world need to experience a genocide in order for them to finally do something? I certainly hope not! Or is it just our political leaders who are so worried about the reputation of our country?
Will faith in humanity ever be restored? What are YOU doing to help the citizens of Aleppo? I want you to take a step out of the little bubble that is your life and think about your social responsibility to humanity. What can we actually do?
To help the citizens of Aleppo, click here to donate to the International Rescue Committee.
As a fellow Steemit user and someone who respects life, humanity, nature and much like most of the people on this community I dont think i am alone in seeing that this article is abbrassive in its assumptions. To clarify what i mean, to suggest that we dont understand what a genocide means or care because we haven't had one is ridiculous because if you open a history book it was only 70 years ago we had ethnic cleansing and genocide in Europe.
To suggest that we need to step out of our self absorbed bubble is a bit insulting considering most of the posts have some form of humanity such as life experiences, philosophy, nature, community, self sufficiency and matters of faith and health etc. Many people including myself have made personal sacrifices to change to get closer to humanity not isolated from it and they are bothered about Aleppo, as we are about all suffering, a lot of that is reflected in the posts they put up.
What can we do about it, stop putting crazy people in our government, take them to task so we don't keep getting involved in war, money should be replaced with currency like it used to be, the globalist nightmare is the true enemy not us.
I think there are more and more people who care about a higher value in life than just blaming other people for not cleaning someone elses mess, or assuming that everyone that doesn't march down the street is somehow insensitive to others pain. I think it is safe to say that we all feel bad about it and feel wretched about the death dished out in our name and taxes by those in power. All we can do is resist falling into any other ignorant and thoughtless systems that conform us to accept their axioms of thought and behaviour rather than being outraged and defiant to their lies, wars and social trends.
All the best otherwise
well said, but i'll also say the intent of the post is great in that we should all be aware of and vehemently oppose violence...especially of the institutionalized type! And like your response says, there are many people trying to prevent this type of insanity in our own ways. the primary cause of this type of mass murder is unrestrained government, so my personal crusade is to advocate freedom, respect for individual life, and the peace such things bring.
It starts my allowing governments to expand essentially unrestrained. Preventing such expansion is a necessary step in curtailing the extreme instances where governments get out of control. We should all remember this when voting on such silly things like outlawing people from drinking sugary soft drinks, or consuming raw milk...let alone mandating we buy health insurance we don't want, relinquish firearms (THE fundamental check on state violence), and forfeit nearly half our incomes (and hence 20+ years of our working lives) to the state...none of the supposed material gains promised warrant the risk of extreme violence enabled by creating all-powerful states. All of the resources confiscated by states enable them to wage perpetual war...luckily we have innovations like Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that allow people to peacefully opt out of the repression machines, so i recommend that anyone who wants to prevent mass violence in the future put their money where their mouths are and opt into a peaceful free market world.
Thanks for the comment and thoughts, i liked what you had written and i agree with your point of view. There is a plan somewhere that doesn't look great for any of us is my thought right now. We are all trying to do something, raise awareness, tell the truth, homeschool and all these things which truly is a revolution against the established system of beliefs.
Whatever way you look at it we are all in trouble and we all share some responsibility for our fellow mankind as well as keeping the establishment in check. Somewhere we have failed to do that and i guess that is why we all are doing something somewhere that stands more and more for what is good.
I liked the look of some of your articles so i will follow and upvoted your reply, so thanks and hopefully hear from you again at somepoint.
likewise!
Those were almost exact same words I said to my colleague yesterday, as we carpooled to work together. I said: "Twenty years ago we swore there would never be another Srebrenica. Now we are witnessing it again. Humanity never learns".
I'm working with refugees of war (mostly from Syria) every day. They come from Damascus, Aleppo and Homs. Some still have relatives trapped there. My heart goes out to them. But, beyond helping them here in Sweden and donating money to the Red Cross and signing petitions on Avaaz, I feel like there's little I can do in person to help. Just sit and cry over the lost faith in humanity…