The Girls Who’ve Become “Our Girls”
“Bring back our girls.”
Our girls.
In the protracted tragedy that has become the abduction of 276 schoolgirls in norther Nigeria, the international cry of care and disgust has led much of the world to what seems to be a new step.
Too often tragedies that unfold in Africa don’t receive nearly the attention or concern among Western nations (or Eastern for that matter) that tragedies in many other areas of the world. It has often seemed that if those who suffer are black Africans, the media doesn’t care much, and likewise citizens of developed nations–unless and until the tragedy finally becomes so widespread and horrific that it finally shames the world into giving it’s attention.
Something has changed in the abduction of the schoolgirls in Nigeria–first reported in the USA by Christian Broadcasting Network, not the major media networks.
People have started to care and become indignant before it turned into a civil war or before millions of people were decimated.
And everyone’s calling them “our” girls–a collective embrace of humanity identifying with the girls and their mothers, who protested the Nigerian government’s lack of concern enough that the whole world listened.
The tragedy, as of this writing still unresolved, has bridged racial, economic, and geographical divides and brought people of the world to identify with and care about Africans more quickly and sincerely than I have ever seen before.
The disgust we generally feel regarding Boko Haram is countered by the breakthrough of human concern and breakdown of previous barriers. I don’t want to be naive, but this change ought to give us great hope.
And it has also had the effect of highlighting the worldwide horror of human trafficking.
As countless people pray and US military specialists assist in the hunt, may the girls be freed and the pigs who abducted them be brought to justice. And may trafficking victims across the world increasingly find freedom.
“Thy Kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.”
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Photo credit: www.voanews.com
This and one other Meriam, a pregnant women sentenced to death and 100 lashes for being a christian and marrying a christian. These have gained international attention and for once, as you said, we are seeing African problems as our problems. God is already glorified and as you said, may His kingdom come even more and may the victims be freed!
Yes, you are absolutely right. Meriam is another fine example.