I am sickened...

Pictured above is a photograph of slain Tutsis from the violent country of Rwanda. In visceral detail we can see that the poor souls were violently murdered and then left to rot. The Hutu people saw no reason to bury their countrymen when they initiated the most atrocious genocide of modern times (1994)- reminiscent of Hitler's "final solution". Inspired by racial prejudice and an absurdly arbitrary and selective hatred, the Hutus massacred nearly one million people. Babies were stabbed as viciously as men and women, and their skeletons were just as numerous as the bones of their parents. Women were raped and tortured, their breasts were cut off, their vaginas sodomized by sharp objects- many were only teenagers and many were kept as sex slaves for weeks before they were killed. Some militias used guns to carry out the murders, but most used machetes and blunt weapons because they didn't want to waste their ammunition on the inyenzi (the Hutu word for cockroach)- sometimes the Hutu were twistedly compassionate and would allow their Tutsi victims to pay to be shot rather than stabbed and beaten to death. Hundreds of refugees were herded into churches and other buildings, promised by clergy members and other false saviors sanctuary. They were then surrounded by death squads who spent days hacking and slashing their way through the trapped Tutsis. This went on for 100 days, and the world looked on and did nothing.

In 1948 the United Nations agreed to prevent any form of genocide- and yet when this atrocity was going on, they hypocritically ignored that decision. Some historians claim that the Rwandan genocide was more of a civil war than a genocide, but from the accounts that we have, such claims are shaky. It is widely believed that no country or establishment intervened because they didn't want to spend the money required to aid the Tutsi people. Again and again we can see that human greed has no limit. 

Though the entire world is to blame for allowing this atrocity to transpire, I'm going to spend some time attacking the religious for their hypocrisy and villainy during those tumultuous days- for it is they who claim to uphold high "moral" standings that supercede the secular morality held by atheists and liberals. At this I must scoff. At the time of the genocide, 65% of Rwanda was Roman Catholic and the church had several installations throughout the country. Furthermore, 15% of the population prescribed to various forms of Protestantism. Rwanda is one of the most Christian nations in Africa, and yet genocide still somehow happened. It was even "foreseen" by a catholic visionary by the name of Little Pebbles who had claimed that a great slaughter was going to occur in Rwanda. Not only did genocide occur in a largely "Christian nation", it's (Christianity's) progenitors, the very people who had offered religious assurance and (naturally) eternal life to the Rwandan people, took part in the slaughter. Several clergy members stood trial for participating in genocide because they had lured Tutsis into their churches and given them into the hands of their murderous countrymen. One nun refused medical aid to wounded Tutsis- even pregnant ones. She was accused of dropping a baby down a latrine. Another priest, lured several young Tutsi girls into what they thought was sanctuary, he then brutally raped them. A group of nuns supplied gasoline to militiamen who used it to burn down a building containing 500 Tutsis. They received about twelve years in prison for their crimes. 

It seems that the religious are just as guilty as the rest of humanity. I must ask... What evidence of this grand morality can the religious put forth? If their God can be seen through the lives of his followers, and his followers have no problem with dropping babies down latrines and luring hundreds of people to their deaths, then what kind of god is he? This blatant hypocrisy and how little known it is makes me sick. It makes my heart ache. It twists my intestines into knots and kills my appetite. To make matters worse, my family spends $35 a month to sponsor a young Rwandan girl named Joslyn. The sponsorship is facilitated by a Christian organization that advertises thousands of young, poor children on the internet and allows rich, white fucks to allocate miniscule funds to pay for their "adopted" child's food and basic necessities- almost like a Webkinz or Tamagotchi. A few months ago, my parents made me go to an event at their church where all attendees were challenged to buy various necessities for poor people in 3rd world nations. I trembled with anger as I watched hundreds of white people solemnly walk to the front of the sanctuary and make commitments to pay for a goat or a bike for the world's downtrodden. Everyone clapped and cheered when a church member came to the front and donated $50-$150. My blood boiled because I knew that their Mercedes cars and tailored suits would have paid for hundreds of these lifesavers. How can people decide the livelihood of their fellow humans so callously? Where in the fuck is this love that the Bible talks about so much? When did altruism become so disgustingly convenient? These are the questions I must ask... I can't imagine how degrading it must be to Joslyn to be financially supported by the same religious institution that stood idly by while her country was ravaged by genocide. Does the rape victim curl up with her rapist? I think not...

There are certain flaws in my thinking... the organization that my parents sponsor through is Protestant and not affiliated with Catholicism (the sect that the majority of the clergy members who committed atrocities in Rwanda belonged to). However, both sects fall under the monotheistic umbrella of Christianity and therefore are closely related. In fact, many people in Rwanda today reject Christianity because they know the role it played in the genocide. It's almost like receiving charity from a socialist charity group in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union- for it was Christianity that began to rile up genocidal sentiments prior to the event of 1994. Several religious figures (including Little Pebbles) claimed to have visions of the things to come and of celestial beings like the Virgin Mary. These violent imaginings created rumors of a religious prophecy that claimed that at some point (in the foreseeable future), the Hutus would rise up and kill the Tutsis and that at the end of the massacre Jesus would come back (for more information on these events read chapter thirteen of Christopher Hitchens's God is Not Great). So the next time a religious person tries to tell you about how moral he or she is, remind them about Rwanda and that they're just as fallible as the rest of us.