hm. so i couldn’t sleep. just had too much going on in my head. so i thought i’ll jump on here and throw a little bit at the screen. probably more for me than any of you, but that’s okay.
the one thing is the crisis in Syria. which to be honest i don’t really know a whole lot about. not enough by any stretch of the imagination.
i know that a while back over 600 people had been killed. but i also know that chemical attacks were made. i know the death toll is well over 1000 now.
i know that America are paused to intervene. i know that UK, France, Germany and Turkey have joined the calls for intervention.
i know that America does not have the greatest reputation both in terms of their motivation for getting involved in world skirmishes and also their actual involvement in a number of countries, both in the middle east and beyond.
i read that Kevin Rudd, prime minister of Australia had this to say: “I do not believe the world can simply turn a blind eye to the use of chemical weapons against a civilian population resulting in nearly 300 deaths, or more, and some 3,600 people hospitalised.” [The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/26/syria-us-un-inspection-kerry]
AND THEN THERE WAS MILEY
meanwhile from the corners of the CNN.com website to the front page of the Onion satirical online news site, from Twitter to Facebook and beyond, a huge number of people seemed to be spending the last 24 hours obsessed with the goings on at the Video Music Awards show.
in particular, Miley Cyrus and the number she performed with Robin Thicke, that was so sexually explicit and in-your-face dodgy it sent a picture of the reaction of Will Smith and his family while she was performing viral just by their looks of disbelief and what-the-heck-is-going-on-here-ness
i watched the video and it was too much of too much. as Robin Thicke’s mom commented after she was shown it, “I can’t unsee that.”
it is bothering me that the Miley Cyrus thing clogged up the Facebook status and Twitter feeds and only here are there is there mention of what is happening in Syria
[it should bother me equally as much that i spent more time following information about Mileygate than i did researching the situation in Syria, although Val and i both ended the evening sharing information with each other as we read up on different reports of it]
also remembering that the previous 24 hours had been completely taken up by the internet’s overwhelmment at the news that Ben Affleck would be playing Batman in the new Superman vs Batman movie [to date more than 50,000 signatures have been added to a petition asking for him to be deBatmanned]
THE EUGENE CHO CONVERSATIONS
Eugene Cho is someone who i follow on Twitter. He is a follower of Jesus and from what evidence I have of his life I have a lot of respect for him. He challenges and encourages me regularly by what he writes and shares.
he tweeted some stuff about the war in Syria and got all sorts of conversations going:
Eugene Cho @EugeneCho: We can’t do nothing in the face of genocide in Syria. It may not be popular but one we must make.Praying for wisdom and courage for leaders.
Eugene Cho @EugeneCho: Stunning and shameful. Over 1,000,000 children have fled Syria and another 2,000,000 children are displaced within the country. #WeMustAct
Eugene Cho @EugeneCho: I’m so torn but…Yes, I do support military intervention in Syria. There’s a distinction between military aggression & military protection.
to which he got some huge pushback – some was more accusatory:
wondermirk @wondermirk: @EugeneCho Really bro? I can’t retweet that. Violence is simply not acceptable. Fighting for peace is like fornicating for virginity.
Maxwell Mooney @MaxwellAMooney: @EugeneCho come a long way from the pacifism you endorsed not long ago. Could it have to do with your recent political ties with the Prez?
while others were more just wrestling with the question themselves:
Warwick Rendell @WarWraith: @EugeneCho It’s something we were discussing earlier. How do you protect the oppressed from the violent oppressor without violence?
And as someone who has a strong focus on non-violence [certainly a more focused intentional view on non-violence since our time over here as we have faced the idea and concept and questions related to it a lot more] it feels like a huge catch-22. If doing nothing means we see another potential Rwanda, then surely there has to be a better answer? But if entering violently just escalates the violence and creates flashbacks to time in Iraq and a lot of the mess that happened there, then what?
WHEN MILEY MEETS SYRIA
Back to Eugene Cho, who feeling similiar to me about the fact that the Miley Cyrus dodgefest was receiving more focus and attention than Syria tweeted these:
Eugene Cho @EugeneCho: That so many would be outraged by #MileyCyrus and yet, so apathetic by what’s going on in Syria, Congo,& North Korea…is truly outrageous.
Which made perfect sense, until this conversation happened on Facebook:
Eugene Cho: That so many would be outraged by #MileyCyrus and yet, so apathetic or uninformed by what’s going on in Syria, Congo, and North Korea…is truly outrageous. The former is entertainment. Yes, bad entertainment but the latter is real life.
Tracy Bieger: While I wholeheartedly agree about the horrible atrocities taking place here, I think the former is also real life. The very real implications of a young woman who is looked at by other young girls as a “role model”, and the objectification and sexualization of young girls is still okay. This only fuels human trafficking, and the rape culture we still live in. Very real life.
Eugene Cho: Tracy Bieger – Appreciate that comment. Fair pushback. Really fair and important. Another reminder why we need to be open to pushback. Thanks for sharpening me.
WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE US, ME?
To be honest, feeling pretty helpless.
What is there to do besides making statuses, tweeting my interest/horror/outrage and then moving on again next week when the next big thing hits?
And how do i differentiate in my mind the “big” thing that is Ben Affleck as the new Batman or Miley Cyrus twerking Robin Thicke inappropriately and the “big thing” that is a war that has currently seen more than 1000 people die?
To me, both are glaringly obvious symptoms that we live in a broken, messed up world. Which is both quite scary, but also quite encouraging in a sense as it just makes a whole lot of the Jesus-following stuff i believe a lot more clear.
The world is definitely in need of some saving. And i happen to know a Saviour. I don’t think that’s a huge coincidence, but I do think I need to figure out some more stuff in terms of the ‘what do we do with this stuff’ness of it all.
Anyone got any thoughts or ideas?
Irresistibly Fish 
Glad to read your thoughts. I heard Eugene Cho speak at a youth conference in Toronto, and he was excellent! I feel like…. yes, the brokenness of the world is overwhelming. If we don’t admit that, or try to gloss over what is ugly and sick, then we gloss over how miraculous God’s grace is, that this is the world he died to redeem.
What WE do about all the mess.. I don’t know either. I think God calls different people to different things at different times (not as a cop out, just saying there’s not one conclusion to arrive at). May I encourage you through John 17, esp vs 20-26? That’s as far as I have gotten with any of this.
ah thankx Alyssa, great words, muchly appreciated, and some good Word there at the end…
Whoa – time to get updated. We’re not talking 1000 deaths in Syria – we’re talking something like 90,000 deaths conservatively already, and millions and millions of people turned into refugees, fleeing from their homes without any shelter or food into places like…Iraq. And a fairly well accepted report of chemical weapons having been used on civilians. And lots of little kids dying, being shot while trying to cross the border to get out of there. It’s been pretty intense now for about 2 years, and getting worse and worse all the time.
A wise man has told me several times, “Leaders don’t express outrage – they look to solve problems.”
His point is that expressing outrage is more self-serving (to ease the frustration inside) than it is anything else. There is a lot to be said for discussing issues and seeking truth, and I don’t think it is inherently bad to express outrage… I just feel a lot of what gets written and posted these days (especially with these controversial topics) is more focussed on expressing outrage than with seeking truth / solutions.
So thank you, Brett, for seeking truth and wrestling with this.
We all face the temptation of trying to “unsee” these events. But with that temptation comes this:
“For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’”