The Hero Within You, Part I
By Robert Ringer
I rarely watch sports on TV anymore, and that includes March Madness. Somehow, I find it difficult to get excited about these young kids, especially knowing that a majority of them will not graduate from college. Heroes? Not so much.
So, instead of watching college hoops like normal Americans this time of year, the other night I watched the DVD of the last Rambo. It was a grim reminder of the never-ending genocide in Burma (a.k.a. the Union of Myanmar). Part of the movie’s weak plot is based on Rambo’s warnings to a group of well meaning but naïve missionaries to go home … that their efforts in Burma were a waste of time.
Notwithstanding the over-the-top violence that saturated this film, it made it clear that there really is a brutal, repressive military regime in Burma that continues, to this day, to systematically rape, pillage, torture, and murder Burmese minorities, particularly the Karen and Shan people. These military thugs have been in power since 1962, and I’d have to agree with Old Man Rambo that things aren’t about to change anytime soon.
Burma is also a reminder that when most of us think of the word holocaust, we mistakenly associate it only with the Jews who were exterminated by Germany’s Nazi regime during World War II. And when we think of the word slavery, our myopic American view focuses only on pre-Civil War African slaves in the U.S.
Unfortunately, both genocide and slavery are, and always have been, widespread. They have, in fact, been staples of human existence since at least the days of the ancient Greeks, and probably much earlier.
For example, in the 12th century, Genghis Khan specialized in pouring molten lead into the eyes, ears, and throats of his captives. Not exactly the kind of guy you’d want your daughter to bring home. More recently, Pol Pot, who apparently was a neatness freak, kept the skulls of his victims stacked in an orderly fashion on shelves in specially designated warehouses.
Ida Amin, the black bubba of Uganda, preferred to stuff his mutilated victims in the trunks of cars. And Saddam Hussein employed everything from lethal gas to rabid dogs to keep upstarts in line. It’s been pretty much the same story in Rwanda, Darfur, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, and who knows how many nameless towns and villages throughout black Africa that are terrorized by thugs brandishing weapons made in Iran, North Korea, and China.
I’m not suggesting that the U.S., or any other Western country, should intervene in any of these ongoing human tragedies, because thousands of years of recorded history have clearly demonstrated that well-meaning people don’t have the power to permanently end Third World suffering.
The days of a British Empire occupying a country like India and leaving behind a modern legal system, modern infrastructure, and a modern education system are gone forever. (It goes without saying, of course, that the Brits also plundered a good deal of India’s wealth, but most Indians concede that their country is far better off today as a result of two hundred years of British occupation.)
The reason such a foreign occupation is impossible today is because (1) the world political climate would never allow it to happen (Just think of the hatred caused by the U.S. “occupation” of Iraq.) and (2) Western countries (particularly the U.S.) are — to put it bluntly — broke. We can’t even afford to pay our current debts, let alone save victims of terror and oppression in other countries.
But in Part II of this article, we’ll take a look at what you can do to make things better.
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ROBERT RINGER is a New York Times #1 bestselling author and host of the highly acclaimed Liberty Education Interview Series, which features interviews with top political, economic, and social leaders. He has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, The Tonight Show, Today, The Dennis Miller Show, Good Morning America, The Lars Larson Show, ABC Nightline, and The Charlie Rose Show, and has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron's, and The New York Times.
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Fantastic article Robert. We need reminding that Nazi Germany and the pre-war South were not the only evil cultures the world has produced.
I too cannot get into march madness and get excited like I once did. There is something very shallow about some of the games. I think there has been a loss of character in the athletes, like much of the rest of our society in general. I tired of the Rambo series and never watched the last one. I’m adding it to my Netflix queue now. Thanks.
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