Email 
Print 
HAVE YOUR SAY: How would you turn the spotlight on forgotten wars?
Written by: AlertNet
A seven-year-old boy from Democratic Republic of Congo holds a toy as he seeks shelter at a makeshift camp outside the Jeppe police station in Johannesburg, May 2008. At least 56 people were killed when rioting mobs attacked immigrants with knives and stones, raping women and burning shops and homes to the ground in shanty towns around the country.
REUTERS/Mike Hutchings
REUTERS/Mike Hutchings
No matter how hard aid agencies and even the occasional journalist try, some conflicts - like the ones in Democratic Republic of Congo, Sri Lanka and Somalia - just never seem to get the attention they deserve. A survey commissioned by the British Red Cross finds most Britons are unaware of major conflicts besides Iraq and Afghanistan. Asked to name countries with ongoing conflicts, 69 percent of respondents identified Iraq and 65 percent Afghanistan - both war zones where the British military is engaged. But less than 1 percent identified major African conflict spots, including Sudan and Somalia. Almost one in five people could not name five countries in conflict. Not all AlertNet users will be surprised by these findings. But what's most frustrating is that despite years of effort by the aid community to shine the spotlight on forgotten crises - with lists of top 10s, celebrity visits and the like - they still rumble on pretty much in the darkness. Bearing in mind the global credit crunch is hogging all the headlines, how would you force the world to start taking more notice of places like eastern Congo? Is the level of awareness in your country as low as in Britain? If so, why?
Reuters AlertNet is not responsible for the content of external websites.
We welcome argument but AlertNet will not publish comments that are racist, abusive or libellous.
1 response to “HAVE YOUR SAY: How would you turn the spotlight on forgotten wars?”
Please note that comments should not be regarded as the views of Reuters.
Leave a Reply
When you submit a comment to us we request your name, e-mail address and optionally a link to a website. Please note where you submit a website address, we may link to it via your name. By sending us a comment, you accept that we have the right to show the comment and your name to users. Although we require your email address, this will not be published on the site, and is only required to enable us to check facts with you, e.g. if you are making a claim we can not confirm easily. Additionally, if you would like your comment removed at anytime, you'll have to use this e-mail address when you contact us. To remove a comment at any time please e-mail us at blogs-(at)-reuters-(dot)-com (address obscured to avoid spam) specifying who you are and what you would like removed. We moderate all comments and will publish everything that advances the post directly or with relevant tangential information. We reserve the right to edit comments in order to maintain the quality of the comments, and may not include links to irrelevant material. We try not to publish comments that we think are offensive or appear to pass you off as another person, and we will be conservative if comments may be considered libelous. Reuters will use your data in accordance with Reuters privacy policy. Reuters Group is primarily responsible for managing your data. As Reuters is a global company your data will be transferred and available internationally, including in countries which do not have privacy laws but Reuters seeks to comply with its privacy policy.
Unlike some other content on this website, the written content in this article may be republished or redistributed by any means free of charge. Any use of photographs and graphics on this website is expressly prohibited. You must check whether written content contained in other articles on this website may be republished or redistributed without the express permission of Reuters or the relevant third party provider.
01 Oct 2008 14:58:13 GMT
At Neo Dimension (a think tank I personally founded years ago together with fellow students) we do our best to shed light on forgotten and hidden conflicts. The conflict in Somalia is featured especially often due to my personal interest and expertise on the subject. But Neo Dimension has also featured the conflicts of Chad, Niger and even the South Ossetian and Abkhazian conflicts before their escalation months ago.
Of course one of our main frustrations is the lack of knowledge and interest in these conflicts. Partly because we believe information is brought to people in the wrong way through biased or faulty analysis. Objective analysis explaining how these issues matter to every single one of us is a necessity in this field. From our point of view the way to bring these conflicts to the attention of the people would not require big money. All it would take is for an established media company to back a project along the lines of Neo Dimension to provide information, and actively spread it around by organizing lectures, publish mini informative documentaries online... etcetera. Many things can be improved easily, all it requires is the backing of established media to bring it to the people, for the current ignorance on the subject prevents people from digging up the info themselves. By initially bringing the info to the people interest would grow along with the knowledge on the subject.