Why would we care about war?

If you have not seen the film Hotel Rwanda - see it! I have seldom felt such an emotionally dispair. What did we/the west do when this happened? What did UN do? Everyone who, like myself, was grown up when this happened should be ashamed. We read about it, heard about it, we even saw pictures and films at the television, but we closed our eyes. Did we think that they were different from us, that they cared less about their lives, their children, parents, brothers and sisters?

In September I visited a friend in Sarajevo. There were not a lot of traces from the war, still there were enough to make me realize what a naïve teen ager I was when all this happened. Among other things I saw a small part of the tunnel under the city, which was used for transports of food, weapons, medication during the occupation of Sarajevo. A few days later, I thought about the tunnel when I was about to make a presentation about a totally different thing at work. Suddenly there were nothing to feel nervous about. My family is safe, we have enough of everything we need and have never been close to something like war. What is a meaningless presentation for the board compared to wading in the tunnel of Sarajevo?

The war is a never ending story around the world. The last weeks the paper Expressen has reported from Iraq. There has been reports about the situation for women and children of Iraq today. There is a lack of heating possibilites, of medicines, food, education, water - you name it. It is easy to ignore the information under the pretext of heavily exaggerated articles. Yes, for a Swede, whose biggest problem is what to buy for christmas presents, the reports may seem exaggerated. While considering what happened in Rwanda, in Balkan, in nazi-Germany, the reports of the situation in Iraq is not particularly unlikely.

The least we can do is to welcome those refugees who come to our country, to accept them, invite them to our lives and homes, to care for them. But I guess we are to occupied to beat all records when it comes to spending money on useless toys for chrismas!