Somalia and her apathetic audience

Last week I took Twitter user @Sentletse to task for tweeting that South Africa need not bother giving Swaziland aid because Somali’s were starving. I tweeted back “there are starving people in Swaziland as well”, we tweeted back and forth about this and after I logged off Twitter I read up on the situation in the Horn of Africa and I was shamed. My stomach has been in knots since.

He was right to compare, if only to highlight how urgently Somalia needs Africa to hold them. I am an African and I don’t apologise for the fact that my face matches the soil, I celebrate it. But for as long as I can remember I have always had to defend it. It struck me that these beautiful Somali people have been reduced to begging for international aid on their home ground, you’d think it would be readily given. However mutterings of pirates and kidnappings are punctuating the speech of foreign countries that look on. This is how they rationalise not being quick with sending aid.

I hate that issues such as these are often whittled down to race, but you cannot ignore the fact that Japan received aid, Haiti did not or that New Orleans, a predominantly black area still bears the scars of Hurricane Katrina. Somali poet/writer Warsan Shire asked, why does the world seem to believe that suffering goes well with brown faces?

I’ve been nervous about looking at the images of the effects of the drought and famine in Somalia. I’ve read about a woman who lost her children while walking to find food. I’ve read about a woman who could not produce breast milk for her infant son because she herself was malnourished. A mother’s instinct is to nurture and to protect, but how do you do this when nature is unkind?

I have been obsessing over what I can do to make a difference, even if it is to one child, one mother, one family, how can I alleviate the plight of a desperate nation. Even if it is to raise awareness through a blog. Even if it is to harass people to look up and care. It rained alot in Big Bend, Swaziland yesterday and I was anxious about whether it would stop and when it did I became anxious about whether it would return.

No water in Somalia, no food in Somalia but we’re terrified of the pirates. These are Africans, these are our people and they need our assistance – 2 sides of the same coin, one heavy with fear the other laced with compassion. I’m not asking that people go on a fast but I am asking for you to care. Care enough to imagine their suffering as your own and then finding out what you can do to help from wherever you are.

I can’t rationalise apathy, I can’t be comfortable with complacency. Do something. Pray for rain and resilience for the Horn of Africa, food and fight for Somalia and her people. Sitting makes me nervous and anxious and it isn’t making the knots in my stomach go away.

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