You
never realize how many horrific things happen in the world until you find out
and someone tells you. That is the case with today’s talk "How Apple and
Students Can Help End the World’s Deadliest War" presented by human rights
activist John Prendergast. The talk was
started off with the shocking and gross reality of how an estimated five and a
half million people have been killed within the last twenty years in the
Democratic Republic of Congo: what Prendergast describes as the “world’s
deadliest war”! But even deeper and more personal than that, he talks about the
personal story of a Congoian women, who trying to survive in a country full of
mass poverty as a teacher and as a seller of salt from mines, found herself
being captured along with other women by militiamen to become sex slaves.
She
along with some of the other women was able to run away and eventually found
shelter after begging for food. But Rwandan soldiers’ happened to find out
their location, tracked them down, captured them, and disturbingly raped them.
The story of the woman Prendergast talks about is inspiring as the woman didn’t
just give up and didn’t, in the words of Prendergast himself, “let despair take
over”. Through her skills as a teacher and her courage and resilience as a
human being, she was able to use her experiences to not only make herself
stronger, but help other women who went through the same experiences and mentor
them. She wanted “peace” and for “rape to end” as Prendergast quoted.
These
sexual assaults being done by militiamen and soldiers without any intervention from
the government can leave one in confusion as to why this is happening in the
first place. John Prendergast notes that “war happens from greed and grievances”.
And because the Congo government, in which Prendergast describes frankly as a “mafia”,
benefit economically from the minerals dug up in the mines by women, the
Congoian government condones and cooperates with these “looters”. As a result, these criminals use rape as a method,
as a “weapon”, that can socially control and exploit the people and their
communities for resources. The Congoian government—along with other African
sovereign states—on average is about 60 years old. And so Prendergast makes the
point that these types of atrocities happen when a new nation is forming. Although
he does mention that there are leaders and activists in Congo who heroically
fought (and continue fighting) against these crimes and help the victims. Also,
slowly but surely criminals who committed these sexual assaults have been
prosecuted in the justice system.
But
the main point Prendergast wants to make is that there are things we can do as
students, as people, to help put a stop to these terrible acts. He makes a
strong case that we as consumers have control and influence over the electronic
industries that are the ones that purchase these minerals from places such as
the Congo and use them in their products such as the laptops and cell phones we
use on a daily basis. Prendergast gave his own personal story he had in
convincing Apple, a major leader in the electronic marketplace till this day,
of where they are getting the resources from, and in turn, what the atrocities
they are contributing to. Prendergast and his team had corresponded back and forth
with the one and only Steve Jobs. And ultimately Apple was on board to
regulating who they bought resources from creating a domino effect with other
companies.
John
Prendergast said that “history is altered through social movements, through interacting“.
Because of the knowledge we gain when we
learn of these horrific acts committed around the world, and in particular,
within Africa, we can contribute by taking actions in a variety of ways. We may
not be able to go to the source (in this case Congo’s government), but we can
reach out to our elective officials and express our concerns and what we care
about, in which through their political influence can ultimately pressure the governments
who are doing immoral acts so that those governments can enforce regulations,
hold people accountable for the crimes they commit against humanity, and try to
prevent it from happening in the future. U.S. politicians, as Prendergast noted, not
only want to hear from students and what they care about because of their own
political interests that perhaps one day in the future we would vote for them.
But they really care on an emotional level about what students’ want, what we
as citizens’ demand. And so if these politicians’ realize that more and more
people care about these crimes against humanity and want the U.S. government to
address them, then they’ll work on it.
In
a less political but more economical manner, we can express our grievances as
consumers to the industries by simply writing them and telling them that we
aren’t buying those products knowing that it comes from places such as the
Congo where women are being exploited to produce these minerals and being
sexually assaulted. These companies are constantly surveying and analyzing its target
markets in order to understand what the consumers demand and what companies can
do to accommodate them. And if they know they’ll lose money because people don’t
want to buy their products for these reasons they will without a doubt change
their methods.
We
can also gather student polls and push towards campus initiatives encouraging
universities such as Kean to make statements on behalf of the students’
grievances. We can also keep informed and find and follow organizations that we
like who fight for causes around the world, such as John Prendergast’s own
EnoughProject. I myself have struggled with the feelings of being helpless when
atrocities such as the one in Congo are going on. Now I know that we students have
more influence and control over the things that happen in the world. We have a
voice.
Further Information:
http://www.enoughproject.org/
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