If a Tree Falls In a Forest and No One Hears It, Does It Still Make A Sound?

Attention was grabbed by the Kony 2012 video. Attention was paid to the fact Joseph Kony is still at large. But did you know that:

“UNHCR has received reports of more violence by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in central Africa in recent weeks.

Since our last update on 6 March, there have been 13 new LRA attacks in north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Most occurred in Dungu territory between 6 and 25 March. Two people were killed and 13 abducted, including a child in the town of Aba. The violence has also displaced more than 1,230 people in the Dungu area.

This brings to 33 the total number of LRA attacks in north-eastern DRC so far this year, with more than 4,000 displaced. There have also been reports of attacks by the Ugandan rebel group in Bondo, close to the border with the Central African Republic (CAR).

In CAR itself, attacks attributed to the LRA resumed in January after a lull since April 2011. Eleven LRA attacks have been recorded in the south-eastern part of the country this year. Eight of those took place near the towns of Zemio and Mboki, where UNHCR assists refugees and internally displaced populations.

Four people were killed during the attacks and 31 abducted, according to the CAR defence and security forces.

The security situation in south-eastern CAR remains extremely fragile. One exception is in the city of Obo, where the situation has improved with the presence of U.S. troops deployed last October to bolster efforts by the joint CAR-Ugandan armed forces hunting the LRA and its leadership.”

Has anyone been talking about these attacks? Not really. Everyone is too preoccupied with commenting on how badly Jason Russell is messed up given that he had a psychotic breakdown and even after that video no one cares about these attacks.
Are people in Uganda talking about them? No. Are people in the US talking about them? Well, I’m not in the US, but I have a Google alert set to tell me when stories about the LRA come out in the news. Out of the recent 30 stories, about 5 have been about the attacks. A whole lot more have been about criticism of the Kony 2012 video.
You can argue all you want to that the US is not needed to find Kony, that Africa can take care of itself. But the UNHCR says that the most secure region of the Central African Republic is the city where the US troops are present.
The tree has fallen: the LRA is still active and they are making noise and stepping up their game. But I’m starting to wonder if the world audience has been caught up listening to a very different forest. I think the Kony 2012 video did a great thing by calling attention to what’s happened with the LRA. But I think it’s also time people pay attention to what is still happening.
I had a conversation with a friend from UCU (the university my parents work at) the other day. While I disagree with a lot of the way he viewed the movie (which he now is very aware of) he did say one thing that resonated. Africa is always portrayed as being a war-torn impoverished nation. It is stereotyped as such and is treated with a general pity and misunderstanding. The fact is that there is some truly amazing richness in Uganda… maybe not material wealth but there is a richness and beauty in the culture, the people, the nature. There is such incredible beauty mixed among all of the poverty, that it’s easy to see one and forget the other. The amazingness that is Uganda should never be forgotten.
However, Africa does suffer. There ARE rebel groups that would not be permitted in the US. People DO live in horrendous situations. According to Wikipedia (go ahead, argue about how reliable it is) 5 people were killed in the civil unrest in London last year. How many weeks did we hear about that on the news? 6 people have been killed in recent weeks in central Africa. Has anyone heard about that?
It’s the sheer extent of the suffering, the unbroken tide which is not seen in the West. I visited a homeless shelter with my church youth group in the US a few years ago while they ate breakfast and had their clothes washed. Okay now read that sentence again. A group of youth visited homeless people. They were in a homeless shelter. They ate breakfast. They had their clothes washed.
As much as homeless people in the US are real, and they suffer, I was startled by how clean the people were. Yes, they had some dirt on them. Yes, they looked weather-beaten. But they had food. And they didn’t have to beg for it.
Yes Africa is stereotyped. But YES it is also true that three year old children are malnourished and starving and knocking on our car windows asking for the equivalent of 5 cents because they are so hungry.
I visited a shelter for homeless children here. It was the place where the police sent juvenile delinquents and children they didn’t know what to do with. Clean? Clean?! There was nothing clean about those children. I sat there with one four year old boy whose toes were literally rotting. The flies fed off of them while he bled. When I tried to ask the nurse to look at him, she just looked at me and said “I can’t keep up with all of this. There are kids in a lot worse shape. I can’t afford the time to look at this one boy”.
So, is Africa stereotyped and is it assumed that all Africans are poor? Yes. Are all Africans poor? No. Are there poor Africans? Yes. As Christians, do we have the responsibility to help those who suffer? The Bible tells me so. Argue all you want about foreign aid… at the end of the day in the last month more than 4,000 people have been displaced. Whether YOU hear it or not, I think that still makes a sound