When you go to the cinema, sometimes you go to have fun with your friends and just take some time out for you. However, when I saw The Last King Of Scotland and Blood Diamond, I asked myself, who and what the hell are we?
Blood Diamond makes you wonder about the killing fields we create with our own hands. Give a man a weapon he can use and he will show you how creative he can get with it. People's hands being chopped off, I can stomach a lot of things but that was too much to handle. We have an estimated 200,000 child soldiers in the continent of Africa. I used 'We' because we all promised after Rwanda that 'Never Again' and this is one of such promises. Let our babies be just that, babies and our sons and daugthers the children that they are; promises for the future. Then again, maybe that is just a dream or should I call it wishful thinking?
I could go on and on but it won't make much difference. I would love to write about how I enjoyed sitting back to watch reality unfold in pictures but that would defeat the purpose these movies were made. Yes somebody got richer by making them. The question I would like to ask is who went home empty handed and how long will the continent of Africa supply us with horror stories that we turn into Hollywood blockbusters?
Feel free to draw your own conclusions on that.
Blood Diamond makes you wonder about the killing fields we create with our own hands. Give a man a weapon he can use and he will show you how creative he can get with it. People's hands being chopped off, I can stomach a lot of things but that was too much to handle. We have an estimated 200,000 child soldiers in the continent of Africa. I used 'We' because we all promised after Rwanda that 'Never Again' and this is one of such promises. Let our babies be just that, babies and our sons and daugthers the children that they are; promises for the future. Then again, maybe that is just a dream or should I call it wishful thinking?
I could go on and on but it won't make much difference. I would love to write about how I enjoyed sitting back to watch reality unfold in pictures but that would defeat the purpose these movies were made. Yes somebody got richer by making them. The question I would like to ask is who went home empty handed and how long will the continent of Africa supply us with horror stories that we turn into Hollywood blockbusters?
Feel free to draw your own conclusions on that.
Children Should Not Be Used in Armed Conflict by Mustapha Sesay, iEARN-Sierra Leone
Film images from various sources
Child Soldier Image from www.childsoldiers.org
1 comment:
I totally agree...on the one hand, we can be happy that Blood Diamond and other such movies create awareness; but on the other hand, why are the painful realities of people's lives used as fodder to feed a multi billion dollar industry? I think it's a commentary on the state of the world today - even poverty and war are used as inspiration for monetary gain!
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