Gaza: So where is Bono anyway?

I just discovered this blog Arab Comment and the post that led me to it is just so … right:

So here is my question: where the hell is Bono? Where is that multitude of glamorously somber celebrities to draw our glitter-hungry gaze to what’s happening, right now, right in this very moment, to the Gazans? To remind us to stop being so heartless, to speak out? Where is that topical MTV music video with passionately flailing guitars? That magazine cover? Don’t tell me they’ve got no clue as to what is going on over there.

Sure, people have their pet causes. They can’t be in ten different places at the same time. Private jet fuel doesn’t come cheap. And lots and lots of people besides Gazans are also suffering as I type this piece. I get that part. And yet it strikes me as particularly telling that Gaza, and the latest crisis that has the entire world’s attention, is being virtually ignored by people who make their living from getting attention. - Link

Similarly, from Bernard Avishai:

This is not the first time (what we call) our world has seen this kind of thing. It may be the first time it just looks away. Things were no less bloody and hateful in Northern Ireland during the “troubles,” or Sarajevo during the Balkan War. Is it presumptuous to ask what method of cease fire, inclusive negotiation, international force, and investments worked there? - Link

When I was growing up, almost always after watching films or documentaries about the Nazis and the Holocaust, I would agonize for days on how such atrocities could take place and politicians and other people were not in the streets screaming and shouting: Stop! Enough! Was that naive? Am I naive today to wish for such a movement? Perhaps we are waiting for another Soweto to happen? Another Rwanda? Have we become so immune to violence and atrocities that only tsunami-like events can jolt us into action? One may be coming.

Cross-posted @ The Cylinder