I know that normally I come on this blog and write about movies and love and Russell Brand (sometimes all three), but today I am going to talk about something different.
Not something more “important”, that’s impossible – there is nothing more important than love (or Russell Brand or my love for Russell Brand), but something different.
So last night, I took part in a demonstration for Invisible Children called The Rescue.
Invisible Children is all about raising awareness for Joseph Kony’s child soldiers in Uganda and the Congo. It’s a fantastic organisation and something that I am personally very passionate about. For more information please (please) visit http://www.invisiblechildren.com/, watch the film and prepare to have your eyes opened and your life changed.
The Rescue was a peaceful demonstration where 10s of thousands of young people (mostly Pete Wentz fans) in over 100 cities in 10 countries across the world symbolically abducted themselves, walked around 6km to an LRA camp where they waited to be rescued by at least 1 form of media and a person of cultural influence or of political position.
I attended the Sydney Rescue and it was good, but it did show me that people in this world or at least in Sydney, Australia really just don’t care.
For the event to be considered a success, for us to be ‘rescued’ we had to have media coverage. So for the weeks leading up to the event, people like myself called and emailed and got rejected by every newspaper and TV channel in the country. We then called them on the night and Channel 7, Channel 9, Channel 10, SBS, The Herald, The Australian, The Telegraph and probably more promised they were coming, as long as we stopped calling.
Not one showed up. Except ABC Radio, which I think was just some dude in a hoodie.
The media apparently won’t cover a story unless it’s entertaining or has been orchestrated by some wanker with billions of dollars. They are meant to inform us of the happenings in the world and in our city – thousands of teenagers actually giving a shit about more than Miley Cyrus? Surely that’s newsworthy.
Politicians were informed that over 1000 young Australians, 1000 of their people were camped out in the Domain. Some dude from Underbelly had to rescue us (he was lovely actually, Damian Walshe-Howling and I would like to thank him now for coming, for caring).
I’m 17 years old. I have an unhealthy addiction to the internet. I only found out last night that a prominent politician in Brisbane is called Grace Grace. I am a member of this so called ‘apathetic’ generation.
But I showed up. I care. I believe in this cause and many like it. I believe in this world and its people and have strong views on everything from capitalism to the Jonas Brothers (I don’t like either, for the record). My fellow bloggers care and so do many more of us.
Yesterday, the 25th of April, ANZAC Day, I saw hundreds and hundreds of men and women step out to commemorate the lives of our countrymen lost in wars past by watching a parade and getting wasted, while only the young showed up to try and end a war, the longest running war in Africa.
My fellow bloggers were in attendance and I am sure they would agree in saying that this once and only this once, the young people were on our side.
In the eyes of our government, the child soldiers are of little importance. No one cares. Uganda has no oil or resources and is too small and chaotic to prove much threat.
These children need to be seen.
But I worry that unless the people who have the power to make this happen bother to open their eyes, they will remain invisible.
Grace, loves Easy Way, Seth Rogen's laugh and needs to stop constantly refreshing Twitter.
p.s. John Green is coming to Sydney! NERDFIGHTERS!
Listening to: All These Things That I've Done - The Killers
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