Sudan

This is a picture of South Sudanese women getting food from Samaritan's Purse.  I had read on my BBC app last week that the people of South Sudan were facing starvation at epic rates.  

It never seems to end for the Sudanese.  Ten, twenty years ago they were embroiled in a civil war between the Arabic Muslim north and the African Christian south.  The lost boys of the south were coming in droves to all over the world in the hopes of a better life, after losing everything they had ever known because of the militia in the north.  I had read a book about one that wound up in Fargo, ND, of all places.  I had seen short pieces about them on news programs.  Our world was so different from them.  I couldn't imagine what it would be like.  

I made a female friend from Sudan when I was going to college at the U of MN.  She had been imprisoned for protesting the actions of the northern militia, but now she lives here.  I didn't know much about her, except about the imprisonment and how she had malaria multiple times.  I knew that she suffered discrimination at the U, despite it's supposed acceptance of all peoples.  I knew myself that the U was not accepting.  But that is a story for another day.

Now I am reading a fictional novel that takes place in South Sudan, and how there is war there.  Atrocities being committed by hateful men, against women and children.  I already knew this was happening.  Even though a supposed peace deal was signed a few years ago, it fell apart pretty quickly.  I know the South has natural riches that everyone wants, and that everyone is killing for.  Apparently it is worth millions of lives, according to the murderers.  

Most of Africa, if not all, was colonized by a European country.  By the time the second World War was over, most were out, or at least on the way out, of all the countries that they had colonized so long ago, all over the world.  

It was a race to get the most of the natural resources.  Then they just abandoned the people, when they could no longer afford to rule over them.  The people were left behind, with a broken country and a wasted land.  

Wars have been happening ever since.  

I don't know what the answer is.  People can say all kinds of trite things about it.  But there are no easy answers, no easy solutions.  

I wonder if this will ever be resolved in my lifetime.  I feel like I am world away here, safely in my apartment, typing on my computer.  

How easy we have it.  We know where our food is coming from, we don't have to worry about being massacred.  We have a government and militia that protects us.  I try to remember this when I feel sorry for myself.  I live such an easy life.