Seeing the Invisible:Do "the least of these' matter?

“Don’t forget about us.”

It’s just one sentence—four words. I hear them all the time. What’s so different this time? What is it about these words that makes me question my goals in life? How can they turn my desire for more stuff into revulsion at my materialistic excess?

When they come from the mouth of an African child who, as far as I know, could be dead today, they move with a force stronger than any words should. They don’t cut—they dig. They pull back the layers of excuses and cop-outs until they take hold and reveal something I’d be more comfortable leaving covered.

How often I have forgotten. How often I have just slipped back into my comfortable life here in America. I get caught up in the boring sameness of my routine—school and work, school and work.

The children of Uganda have a routine as well. Every night, children as young as five years old walk miles into the nearest cities and towns and congregate in the streets. They sleep on concrete floors, with mats and burlap sacks for comfort. Tens of thousands of children gather in bus stations and other public places across the country every night. Why?

Uganda is in the midst of the longest-running war in Africa. Every day, 130 people lose their lives to violence in this fight. The leaders of the Lord’s Rebellion Army, wanting to replenish and add to their forces, nightly raid the outlying homes and abduct the children. They force these children to be killers. Any who refuse or try to escape serve as examples to the other children. They are tortured and killed. Over the course of the war, an estimated 20,000 to 50,000 children have been abducted by the LRA.

These children flee to the cities for protection. They are not safe in their homes. This would not be tolerated in the West. If thousands of American children were sleeping in the streets every night, something would be done. If they were Europeans, someone would intervene. Why then is this happening? Are the children of Africa any less important than our own? Are they any less worthy of basic human rights, of being safe in their own homes? Indeed, are they any less human?

Where is the moral outrage, the righteous indignation? We march when the government talks of making illegal aliens felons. We protest when the government does not go through all the proper channels to listen in on phone calls and when terrorists are not treated as well as we think they should be in prison. We are furious when our country goes to war against a tyrannical dictator. We are silent when the children of Africa are turned into ruthless soldiers against their will. We stand idly by as they are brutalized and left to fend for themselves at night.

How is it that so few people in America are aware of this terrible situation? Our newspapers and televisions tell us daily all the freshest gossip in the world of celebrities. We’re always well informed of the latest basketball rankings. We are woefully, but perhaps blissfully, ignorant of the single greatest humanitarian crisis in the world today. After all, as long as we don’t know, we don’t have to do anything. We don’t have to feel bad about our rampant consumerism or our unquenchable lust for ourselves.

A movement has started that seeks to bring about an end of this ignorance. Invisible Children is an organization seeking to inform the rest of the world of the situation in Uganda. It started with three young men taking a trip to the country and returning with this unbelievable story. They made a documentary, which they have been screening all across the US. They sell DVDs and bracelets made by the Ugandans to help raise money for their cause.

The next step will occur April 29, 2006, with what is being called the Global Night Commute. Tens of thousands of people, in 130 cities across the nation, will follow the example of the children of Uganda and march into the hearts of their cities for the night, to gather together to sleep in the parks and bus stations and other public places in an attempt to draw attention to the plight of these African children.

What then shall we do? Will we just go on with our lives here in America? Will we forsake these children and leave them to whatever fate awaits them? Or will we try to make a difference? It doesn’t take much—just a night away from the comforts of home, just a few minutes to write to a senator or representative asking the government to intervene, just a few dollars to help fund the efforts of those who are working to right this very grave wrong. It only takes us looking beyond ourselves for a little while.

Will we remember these helpless young ones on the other side of the world, or will we forget them?

For more information:
http://www.invisiblechildren.com
http://www.nrc.no/UgandaKeyFacts.doc
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=2346&l=1
http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/uganda/reports.do