Today in my Introduction to Theatre class, we discussed a play that was to be read for today's class. It's called Ruined, by Lynn Nottage. I mentioned that I was reading it in yesterday's post, but the severity of the issues raised in the play didn't fully hit me until the three presentations were given in class.
The one presentation (done by my fellow classmates) that truly horrified me was about the rape and torture of women in war in the Congo. Not many people realize that this problem even exists because it's been eclipsed by the wars in Rwanda and Darfur in the media. I'm not saying that those were not extremely serious conflicts that demanded our immediate help, but the war raging in the Republic of Congo is immeasurably more fatal and brutal, and has been going on for much longer. One of the points made in the presentation was that the final death toll in Rwanda was under the estimated 250,000, and while that is an absolutely horrific number of innocent lives spent, the death count for the Congo is well over 1,000,000 and it is still climbing even today.
I won't go into any graphic detail, but let's just say that they then told the stories to two small girls who were sexually tortured and killed in very gruesome ways. This kind of torture has unfortunately become custom on both sides of the battle. This kind of behavior is specifically done to target the opposition's spirit, to instill a sense of fear in the locals and kill their will to fight the war. It would be bad enough if it stopped with the opposition, though. Often times women who are taken from their homes for months or raped and tortured in public return to their communities and are shunned by them, the very people who should be helping and supporting them.
As disturbing as this class was today, I think it was necessary for us to learn this information so that we can actually begin to reverse this kind of behavior. I encourage you all to visit this website. It's the UN's solution to stopping rape and violence against women as a weapon, called Stop Rape Now. Please, please, PLEASE visit this site and do anything and everything you can to help!
Sorry for extremely upsetting post, but I really felt that it needed to be said.
I think that about takes care of my blogging for the day.
HPRT: I brought my completed Gryffindor scarf (i knitted one myself) to show my costume professor today. She said it was gorgeous =]
Current Song: Whatever Evan Lysacek just danced to on Dancing with the Stars!
Current Book: An Actor Prepares by Constantin Stanislavski
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