By Daniel Johnson-Kim, Editor in Chief
Most Americans often speak in exaggerations.
If we have not eaten all day, we are “starving.” If we fail a test, lose our keys or get fired, we have the “worst day ever.” If we get dumped by our significant others, “our lives are over.”
It is not our fault.
Thanks to the wealth of our nation, the strength of our legal system and the modern technology we take for granted, the majority of people in this country enjoy lives of comfort, protection and lethargy.
We don’t think twice about exaggerating our suffering over the little things because we live in an environment where the big things – sustenance, shelter and safety – are taken care of.
But imagine if this truth disappeared.
Imagine several news sources report President Barack Obama is assassinated when a rebel army shot down Air Force One and began viciously attacking all people who were not part of their political tribe.
With the current leader out of the way, followers of the rebel army immediately begin viciously killing those who do not belong to their group. Men, women, children, even the elderly – anyone who does not come from the same place as the rebels now deserves to die.
Moments after hearing the news about the president, you hear gunshots, and the sounds of trucks carrying blood-hungry rebels fill the streets.
Your neighbor goes outside to confront the soldiers. You hide behind your front door. The soldier decapitates the guy you usually shoot dirty looks because he does not clean up after his dog.
People abandon their homes to flee the violence. Victims take refuge in churches, hoping their holy ground will offer shelter.
The churches soon become the scenes of horrible massacres. The refugees turn to the international community and our country’s allies for help. They ignore our pleas and categorize the violence as a Civil War. They do not want to fix the problems of another nation’s infighting.
Journalists, doctors and educators who sympathize with the rebels give up contact information of the rebel army’s targets.
They broadcast on radio stations where to find those who are not members of the tribe. Neighbors are forced to kill each other. People murder their own family. If they do not comply, they face death themselves.
The skeletons of innocent Americans begin to pile up. In less than 100 days, more than 10 percent of this country’s population is exterminated.
Sound ridiculous?
Tell that to the people of Rwanda. The series of horrific events just described is a simplified story of the Rwandan genocide in the mid-1990s.
The killing began with tribal Hutu militia members shot down a plane carrying then-President Juvenal Habyarimana on April 6, 1994. The Hutu-led army immediately began murdering the Tutsi, the minority of the two main ethnic groups, and in less than 100 days, more than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by their countrymen.
Monday marked the 15th anniversary of a tragedy one ACU student athlete, Serge Gasore, will never forget. In this newspaper, a feature story written by former editor Jared Fields (08) profiled the Rwandan native’s tale of the murder he witnessed during the Rwandan genocide.
The story placed nationally in a Society of Professional Journalists writing competition, but Gasore’s story is not what was so amazing.
It was his worldview.
“Everything beside genocide is easy,” Gasore’s was quoted as saying in the story.
Life’s little annoyances don’t bother Gasore. If his life is not in danger, then he has everything to be thankful for.
Americans can learn much from men like Gasore. Rather than submit to our impulse to scream an exaggeration and declare how horrible our lives are, let’s stop and remember.
“Everything beside genocide is easy.”
