I finished watching the Hunger Games series this weekend. I started watching the series back in 2012 when the first movie came out, and I enjoyed it enough that I was inspired to read the book series. I was so upset with Prim’s death</SPOILER ALERT> in the final book that I refused to watch the rest of the movie series. But I had a few hours to kill this weekend, so I decided to watch the movie series mostly to see if I had the same strong emotional reaction the televised version of the death of Prim </SPOILER ALERT> as I had had when I read the book. (I didn’t because the movie didn’t really have much character development of Prim, and plus I knew she was toast.) But I digress…
As I watched the movie I found myself in awe of the callousness of the residents of the Capitol. How could they be so indifferent to the fact that children were dying in front of their very eyes? Not a movie. Not a play. Not fiction. Real children as young as 12 years old. And to them it was entertainment. A mere game. Not a matter of life and death.
I silently assured myself that I was only watching a work of fiction play out onscreen. That there’s no way humans could be that indifferent to human suffering and the loss of life. But then I started thinking back on historical events that mirrored what was playing out on my tv. The Coliseum where Romans watched Christians fighting lions and being burned at the stake. And then there’s public executions as the adoring public cheered on the executioners.
Friends and family members who are grieved to the point of tears by the loss of a dozen lives in a US school shooting, can barely stifle their yawns when I speak to them about the 130 children who die EACH DAY from starvation, malnourishment or disease as a result of the American aided, Saudi led war in Yemen. In an effort to placate the Saudis after the US signed a nuclear deal with Iran, America is providing naval and air support to Saudi Arabia as they blockade this desperate nation depriving it of crucial medical supplies, household goods, and food. Since 2015 more than half a million people have died in Yemen as a result of the war there, and a worst cholera epidemic of the last 2 centuries is spreading across the country. Saudi Arabia with the assistance of the US military is committing war crimes in Yemen by intentionally targeting Yemeni civilian targets. But the major news networks can’t be bothered to even mention Yemen on an obscure daytime show.
