I am ashamed. I am ashamed of myself and my fellow Americans, and even worse ashamed of the world I am living in. Last night on the Nightly News there was a story about what is happening to the people of Somalia right now. I am wondering do you know what they are dealing with right now?
I do not pretend to know all there is to know all about the political unrest in Somalia. In looking through my newspaper this morning, I couldn’t find one single article about it. But, what I do know is past history. I was raised in a Jewish home and I was taught about the Holocaust. I never had to suffer the horrors that the millions of people did when the Nazi’s tried to wipe the Jews off the earth. But, as a teenager, in a visit to Israel I did see enough pictures to rock my soul and make me question my spiritual beliefs as well as my faith in humanity. I am human. How can you now be affected by these pictures?
So when the Nightly News started showing pictures of what is happening in Somalia, I was brought right back to that feeling of being shaken right down to the core. Here I am in America, and I am first seeing these pictures, almost in passing on the news. Maybe I just didn’t pay that much attention to it before today, and that is why I am ashamed. However, if I am seeing these pictures, that means millions of others can see them too. But what are we doing to help?
I just want to remind people that there is a huge injustice being done to these people in Somalia and many other parts of Africa. Here we are in the year 2011 and many parts of Somalia are experiencing a famine, with millions of people on the brink of starvation. The delivery of aid to these people has been complicated by the fact that militants control the famine zones and refuse to let any help in. They have killed dozens of aid workers in order to stop help from reaching its people. And now to top it all off, the region is suffering from the worst drought conditions the region has seen in over 60 years. People are starving to death in huge numbers, and the militants, connected with Al-Qaeda, are denying them any aid and are trying to stop them from leaving the region to get help.
I am not saying America needs to send of troops to yet another region, to fight another war we cannot win. But, as a human being I am sick thinking about these people and their poor innocent children who are suffering. I see similarities in these pictures to those old pictures of the Holocaust. Innocent people are dying because they were born in a certain region, as in the Holocaust where people were born to the "wrong" religion. I knew bad things were happening in Africa . I guess I needed a little reminder and a lot more educating on how bad things have gotten.
The United Nations has estimated that over 11 million people are in need, millions of those people are children. I hope United Nations steps up and helps before millions starve to death. I'm not sure how as a human being I can help and that makes me even sadder.