17 June 2012

Day 22: Daily Mass-Massacre of Children Happening under Our Watch

"Some 21,000 children die every day around the world.

That is equivalent to:

  • 1 child dying every 4 seconds
  • 14 children dying every minute
  • A 2011 Libya conflict-scale death toll every day
  • A 2010 Haiti earthquake occurring every 10 days
  • A 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring every 11 days
  • An Iraq-scale death toll every 19–46 days
  • Just under 7.6 million children dying every year
  • Some 92 million children dying between 2000 and 2010
The silent killers are poverty, hunger, easily preventable diseases and illnesses, and other related causes. Despite the scale of this daily/ongoing catastrophe, it rarely manages to achieve, much less sustain, prime-time, headline coverage."

Anup Shah, Today, around 21,000 children died around the world, Global Issues, Updated: September 24, 2011

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realise that while the casualties in wars and conflicts and earthquakes and tsunamis are considered huge tragedies that receive major attention on the news, the fact that 21,000 children die every day barely ever gets mentioned.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to pretend to care by pondering over huge catastrophes when they are mentioned and given attention on the news, yet not give a damn about the millions of dying children just because they don't mention it very often on TV - proving that I don't actually care about people and their well-being, but only pay attention when they mention tragedies that could also happen to me - like a major conflict breaking out or natural disasters occurring, which shows that I don't really care about the people who experience the tragedies right now, but that I am worried about my own ass being on the line one day.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to question a world and a system wherein the equivalent of a major earthquake killing 21,000 young children occurs every day to which the world remains mute.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not question a system wherein the mass-murdering of children through malnutrition, starvation and disease is barely given any attention, except on global meetings or concerts, and even then, as soon as those campaigns or meetings conclude, the media coverage disappears again and everyone continues going about their daily lives while quietly children continue to die - TO DIE!

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that if my children were dying of hunger, malnutrition and disease, I would stand up and make sure adequate help is provided - yet when it concerns someone else's children on the other side of the world, it's suddenly not an issue anymore and apparently not worth my time and effort.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that if I am incapable of caring for a child, no matter whose child it is, then it proves I am incapable of unconditional love and thus not fit to be a parent.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that apart from the problem of children dying every day is not mentioned, the fact that wealthy countries are a part of the problem is mentioned even less.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that if I think that those children dying over there is not my problem that this is an indication that I have to urgently educate myself on how this world works, because in our current economic system, 21,000 children Have to die daily in order for the wealthy to maintain their lifestyle.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to condemn child sacrifices in religious rituals without realising that we sacrifice 21,000 children every day in the name of capitalism.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to see and realise how ridiculous the argument 'we've got nothing better' sounds in terms of why we accept capitalism, in the face of these disasters.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise the extent of brainwashing that is going on when the only times we hear about child deaths in developing countries it is in the context of promises of pledges from the wealthy, powerful countries to the poorer ones who apparently receive abundant goodwill, without even mentioning

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to see and realise that the mainstream media is perpetuating poverty and as such a cause of it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to stay quiet about dying children in the media because of not wanting to make people feel bad with continuous depressing stories and therefore rather play entertainment or good news because happy people are happy buyers.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that the reason why the media is not performing its role as a watchdog of humanity, is once again because of money - because if the same story is repeated every day this may result in lower television viewing ratings, which will in turn have consequences for advertisers whose adds will gain less exposure.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to only play sensationalism on TV because then the viewing rates will be high and corporations will make big bucks while the population remains blissfully oblivious to the reality of the world we live in.

I commit myself to expose the atrocious consequences of our current economic system where thousands upon thousands of children are allowed to die every day.

I commit myself to show how the capitalistic system can never work for everyone and is therefore unacceptable and needs to be revised with utmost urgency since every day the capitalistic economic system runs the world 21,000 more children die.

I commit myself to educate people on what it means to truly care and unconditionally love where it doesn't matter who is suffering - it is unacceptable and action must be taken to stop the abuse.

I commit myself to establish an economic system that makes sure each child is fed properly and receives the best health care in order to eradicate deaths from starvation, malnutrition and easily treatable diseases in children.

I commit myself to establish an economic system where each child will receive the best of care so that it doesn't matter where the child was born or who its parents are - all are equal in the face of life.

I commit myself to transform media in a way that its only concern is unbiased record keeping and reporting of events and history, from the starting point of learning from events with the goal of perfecting Life for All.

I commit myself to transform media from an entertainment money-making business into an educational instrument through which we are able to continuously assess how we as humanity are walking as a group and in relation to our environment as the plants and animal kingdom, in order to ensure the best possible life for all living beings on Earth.

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