One question for those whose complicity in genocide is so horrifyingly blatant

Violet Lempke

She/Her

Contributor

5/3/24

31,184 dead and 72,889 gravely injured. In 6 months, backed by the United States and your tax dollars Israel has massacred almost 32,000 people, gravely injured 73,000, made missing tens of thousands more, and put 2.2 million civilians in severe and immediate risk of famine. What have you done to stop it? 

As protesters are brutalized across the country I watch with adoration (and a deep sense of fear) as our siblings at UNH rise to the challenge and make it known that they will not sit by in silence while their fellow human beings are massacred in front of their (our) very eyes. In the same breath I can’t help but anguish in disgust as PSU continues to revel in the festivities of spring fling, parties, and celebrations, willfully uncaring as their colleagues in academia are brutalized nationwide for exercising their fundamental rights.

As a young woman learning about the horrific atrocities humans have committed upon themselves like the holocaust and Rwandan Genocide, I always found myself asking myself why no one stopped such horrific violence, as a young adult the answer has become clear in a way that makes me sick to my stomach: nobody cared. 

Time and time again the world has failed to fulfill our salient promise of never again; make no mistake, never again is now. If we continue the course we are on now it is clear that our children and grandchildren will ask of us the same questions I asked the history books as a child: why didn’t you do anything to stop it?

Violet Lempke is a student of Computer Science and Mathematics at Plymouth State University with a passion for politics and storytelling.