While ignorance is of the utmost bliss, I wouldn't personally feel depressed about it. I guess specifically mentioning any such similar news at this point of time is less oh no and more we knew it was coming. I tend to feel the responsibility one has when you have a good head on your shoulders is to ensure people don't forget or don't ignore such things, as otherwise these governments, nations and leaders would do everything and anything to act as if it never happened. You shouldn't feel guilt for not being able to do anything, and comparing your life scenario to one elsewhere like that is truly dangerous and self defeating.
I can't help but disagree with directly impacting your life. But it's easy to think that a country that far away means nothing. When conflict arises, which it most always does, then suddenly bigger and bigger parties become involved until we're all but Cold War II. For every nation that rejects Western influence (which the African Union is most definitely doing), it leaves them "susceptible" (there is a bias here, forgive; I'm not exactly saying the West is the Best) to other influences that are less accountable.
Ok, so you were following this news, so you knew it was coming. If I was following the situation in Africa, maybe I'd feel similarly. And I do feel a certain amount of responsibility. I live in a privileged country, I'm part of a privileged demographic, and I'm likely not to face too many hardships in life. There may be things I could do, if I put enough time and effort into it, to impact the situation.
But then I remember the new situation in Iraq with Isis, the country going to **** all over again.
I remember the human rights violations and deathly clouds of smog in Hong Kong.
I remember that Russia is slowly but surely going Hitler on eastern Europe, and we're defaulting to appeasement again because nobody wants a war with nukes, or Russia in general.
And I remember that our own Supreme Court just tied church and state together by allowing business to enforce their religious ideologies on their staff and customers.
If you want to find injustice to worry about in the world, it's easy. The coral reefs, rainforests, and endangered animals are all being systematically destroyed by human greed. There's a lot of tension between more than a few countries all over the world, with several of these countries possessing nukes. There is a substantial part of America that gives the Tea Party not only attention, but votes.
If I try to keep track of all these things, I'll go crazy. I could pick one, maybe two things to keep up with, advocate, try to change, but it'd always be uphill at best, and it'd be a huge time suck. And it wouldn't be me.
So maybe we'll go into a cold war with Africa. Maybe Russia will fire nukes. Maybe Isis will take over Iraq. I hope none of these things happen, I really do. But as you said, " feeling guilt for not being able to do anything, and comparing your life scenario to one elsewhere like that is truly dangerous and self defeating"
And so I ignorantly, and peacefully live my middle class life as a white male in the united states, because that's about as entitled as I can get. I was born damned lucky, and I'm going to take advantage of it, not waste it worrying about disastrous current events that may or may not get worse.
Edit - Rereading that, I feel like I sound like a major ****, but I'm just trying to be brutally honest, I guess. It's not that I don't enjoy discussing tough topics with people, it's that I don't enjoy thinking about them instead of sleeping...
