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Thursday 24 January 2013

8,000,000 deaths, Welcome to Congo!

I am not the kind of person that read a lot of articles and books about the world. If i could choose I'd rather read "Is Khloe really a Kardashian" than "200 died in Israel". This is because reading about people getting killed is depressing, and reading about the Kardashians is entertaining. But this is only because I'm one of those girls who would rather go see a Chanel fashion show than the Phantom of the opera. Yes i'm one of them. One of them high heels wearing, Bridget Jones watching, only talk about boys and clothes kind of girl.

But sometimes, i decide to click on a random article that some clever person shared on Facebook. And i did today, "Världens största krig är osynligt i medierna" which in English would be something I'm not sure of. But basically it was about how we don't know anything about the worlds biggest war. Where do you think that war is? I would guess either in the middle-east or in Africa somewhere. Everyone knows that some places in Africa is hardly the place to go for a holiday. But the war I'm talking about is in Congo. 

Did you know that in the war in Congo, 8,000,000 people has died so far. And only in the first two 1.800 000 people died, and in the first two years of Palestine-Israel being up each others asses only 2000 people died. And still, everyone knows about that conflict? Even me, a Vogue reading salad eater know a lot about the situation in Palestine and Israel. The only reason i know about something going on in Africa was because on Kony2012, and that has nothing to do with Congo. So basically I'm clueless. 



But i think it might be time to get to the point now. 

My point is, how powerful is the media really? I mean i told my boyfriend about this and he didn't even know that there is a war going on in Congo. And close to the same amount of people living in Sweden has died there. All because the media thinks Palestine Israel is more "interesting". In my opinion i think that's shit to be perfectly honest. The New York times wrote 11 times as many articles about Gaza than about Congo. And CNN 53 times more news was about the Palestine/Israel conflict. 


Its like the media chooses what the world should know about, and when you think about it? Isn't that a bit scary? I mean I know a war that started because the media choose to tell the people what they wanted you to know. I just think it's wrong and we should get a scoop of everything sort of. 

don't know if this is making sense to anyone reading this, but that people doesn't know about what's going on in Congo is just wrong. Did you know that Congo is the worst place on the planet to be a woman? Why? Well one of the reasons is because their average rapes PER DAY is 1,152. In Sweden 344 women was raped last year, which to me sounds like a very high number. so that's 344 in Sweden last year, and more than 420 000 in Congo. And the world doesn't have a clue. 



How did this happen, that's what i want to know? Is it because we know Africa is poor and many of the countries are not very developed? Or is it because the middle-east is closer? Or is it because we like to read about things like this, but when it comes to millions of people dying it's too much, we don't want to know? So we decide not to talk about it and pretend it's not happening? From a news papers point of view, I think it's because reading about whats going on in the middle-east attracts more readers, because we know Africa is a miserable place basically. But I dont own a news paper, so i dont know. 

Maybe it's time for all the powerful people on this planet to look away from the middle-east for a bit and focus on people who really need help? There is not much i can do as a one in a billion little person, but at least now you know. 

Here is the article I'm talking about: 
http://www.svd.se/kultur/understrecket/varldens-storsta-krig-ar-osynligt-i-medierna_7846030.svd 

I'll blog about less serious and depressing things later. 

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