Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Somalia is burning and we care about Mexican Abortions




You cannot find any news about the Ethiopian siege of Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia, on any of the main-stream U.S. media outlets. The New York times is leading it's international section with a story on the legalization of abortion in Mexico. CNN is leading with the story of a letter being sent to Iran from London with stories on South Park and Sanjaya Malakar from American Idol.

I am, once again, disgusted by the choices our media outlets deem as worthy of publishing. Noam Chomsky, in his book Manufacturing Consent, illustrates how the American media only publishes stories that are in the countries best interest. This can be clearly seen with the current events in Somalia.

For those readers that are not aware, there have been many skirmishes between Somalia and Ethiopia in the past 20 years. However, fro most of that 20 years, the United States made a firm stand to support the Somalians because Ethiopia was backed by the U.S.S.R. Fast-forward to today and we see an Islamic political party in Somalia that has been denied its right to rule and looks to take the power that is rightfully theirs with force. The Ethiopians, backed by the non-Muslim word, are using this Somalian affair to justify invading.

Where is the outrage? Where are the protesters? We have just allowed a country to invade another sovereign nation. In the West we do not care about this story; this is true orientalism at work. The Africans (Muslim Africans) have become the "other" that orientalism speaks of; they seem strange and we fear the terrorists that may be harbored in the countryside so we let this happen. No reports, no video, no embedded reporters.

I ask myself this question when I see events, such as this, unfolding with no coverage in the United States: Would the world care if this was happening in the US? With out a doubt, yes! Then why don't we care?

Below is video taken from Mogadishu. It is clear that there is fighting going on in and around the city.


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