We Don’t Care About Africa or Palestine
We care about ourselves
Let’s be honest, folks. We don’t really care about Africa or Hamas or Israel. We care about ourselves. Before you disagree, hear me out.
Let’s take the two situations and break them down.
Ebola in Africa
Thousands of Africans are dying in Western Africa right now. Thousands are continuing to be exposed, and this will probably get worse before it gets better. What do we see on the news — the two Americans that contracted the virus. Why do we place such a high value on two Americans while thousands of Africans are suffering and dying daily?
Don’t get me wrong, I hate the fact that people that are putting their lives on the line every day to combat deadly diseases like this are historically the same ones that end up contracted the virus itself.
U.S. news was swarming around the story of Dr. Brantly and Writebol just two days ago, but now that they’re in Atlanta (next week for Writebol) it’s a firestorm. Want to know what the people at Emory are thinking right now? Read this excellent article on what it was like for one infectious disease doctor to deal with AIDS, smallpox, and SARS. The language is salty but his insight is profound.
The reality is that we just don’t care. I wrote a post about this yesterday, but now EBOLA is really in our own backyard. Yes, many, if not most of us, have compassion for the situation for Africa, but very few of us lost sleep over it. How many people are scared to death now that Ebola is in Atlanta? Message boards are lighting up with people furious over the transfer of these two American citizens coming back to the States with Ebola.
I’m not an alarmist, and I believe that the C.D.C. will do their job and keep everything contained, but we need to check our hearts on what provokes outrage and what merely causes us to think “Oh, wow, that stinks!”
Casualties in Palestine
In a similar vein, there is a raging age-old debate about the Israel-Palestinian Conflict. Israel has to defend itself against deadly rockets, while Palestine is in such a desperate position that they have to resort to fighting dirty. Hamas supporters will tell you that hiding weapons in churches and schools is their only option for survival. Perhaps it will cause the Israeli arsenal to think twice about returning fire. Israeli supporters will cite the weapons caches, secret tunnels, and suicide bombers as acts of terrorism.
Hamas is operating from a weak position, one of desperation. Israel is attacking Hamas and destroying tunnels because they fear a rocket hitting a major public center, or Hamas fighters sneaking under the border and wreaking havoc on Israeli neighborhoods.
No country is above reproach when it comes to how fear is handled. Yesterday, President Obama confirmed that shortly after 9/11 we resorted to torturing prisoners with waterboarding. Fear and desperation leads people to unthinkable acts. I’m not saying waterboarding is the same as the civilian deaths in the Gaza Strip, but it’s interesting how countries react when they’re gripped with fear.
Just yesterday a humanitarian cease-fire was ordered and shortly came to an end after an Israeli soldier was reportedly captured by Hamas fighters after attacking an Israeli post. U.S. news focused on this new story and American stomachs’ turned.
“Imagine if people were sneaking across the border and capturing Americans?” Undoubtedly, someone on Capital Hill is already trying to draw correlations with the influx of Central American children that are illegally crossing the border every day. “Sure, it’s kids for now, but what happens when the gangs start kidnapping our kids?” I can hear it now.
The fact is that we care about Israel because they’re a strategic partner for us, the only democratic nation in the region. Surrounded by people that see the world very differently than they (and we) do. While it’s very healthy for the U.S. to support other democratic countries, we need to check our hearts in these matters. We’re outraged over the Israeli soldier who’s kidnapped, we’re furious over Hamas and their reported use of human shields and placing weapons in schools and hospitals, but do we shed tears for the civilians of Gaza that are caught in the middle?
Keep in mind there is such a thing as a Palestinian Christian. According to this July 14 article in the Christian Post, Americans and Europeans just don’t understand the complexity of the conflict.
“The Palestinian Christians in Gaza today, they suffer as much as the Palestinian Muslims in Gaza. They are under bombardment. They have only eight hours of electricity of every 24 hours. They have a hard time getting fresh water,”
But even if Gaza was an all-Muslim state, that shouldn’t change the fact that we should mourn over these innocent women and children that are dying each day of the conflict.
We care about ourselves
The honest truth is that our media will focus on what we really care about — which is ourselves. In 1 Timothy 1:15, Paul says that he is the chief of all sinners, and that’s how I feel about myself when it comes to having a heart for the world. There’s just too much to keep up with in the world. I’d prefer to keep that CNN.com setting at “US” edition as my default instead of “International.”
I’m more interested in Ebola in Atlanta than Ebola in Africa.
So, what are we to do with this general disregard we have for the rest of the world? What are we to do with our isolationist mindset that trumps even our strongest desires to care? We need to die to ourselves. We need to suspend our own desires and care for others. We need transformed hearts. We need more people on the front-lines willing to push back the darkness for a purpose that is bigger than ourselves.
God help us to be the salt and light of the earth.
