(Warning: no more adult language ahead. I got it all out of my system in the title.)

I’m upset with the mainstream media and a little bit with myself as well.

24 May 2014. Two million people around the world marched against Monsanto. All around the world.

New Delhi, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Stockholm, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Dusseldorf, Cape Town… you name it.

Six continents, 52 countries, at least 48 US states, over 400 cities.

Yet, it’s like searching a needle in a haystack to find any mainstream media reporting about it. Just like last year.

That upsets me.

Instead, I see front pages filled with articles about the turmoil in Thailand which is of course terribly appalling to the oh so democratic and developed countries in the rest of the world. Or with videos of some famous Hollywood person’s son shooting people in the United States, as if knowing that does me any good. Or with pictures of some over-paid baboon whose primary skill is to run after a leather ball and whose second best skill is to display Neanderthal-like behaviour thinking he’s the world’s next saviour.

Those news items all seemed to be more important than millions of people speaking out against a bio-tech firm globally monopolising our agricultural freedom.

All that upsets me.

Of course, it’s not a pretty situation they are in over there in Thailand and I wouldn’t want to be an ex-Thai minister right now. And it sure is newsworthy.

But all the sensational reporting about curfews, no internet and no TV, well, it’s really not that bad. I just got an email from a friend who is in Bangkok as I write this. It’s all quiet, she’s happily browsing the internet and is out on the streets without noticing any unrest.

It reminds of the times that car bombs go off in Cairo. I’m not saying I’m happy that there are car bombs going off in the capital of the country where I live, or anywhere else.

But the media jump on it like vultures, Ministries of Foreign Affairs advise tourists and travellers to cancel their trips to Egypt and before you know it, Egypt is in a new financial slump. Yes, a few areas in Cairo may not be so safe. But for your information, there is a bit more to Egypt then Cairo. There are thousands of kilometres of Red Sea coast where the only injury tourists will risk is a hefty sunburn.

Then, the most recent shooting in the States. Definitely not cool. But it’s certainly not the first, nor the last time.

Perhaps all Ministries of Foreign Affairs should consider a travel ban to the US. It seems to be terribly unsafe there… (Un)fortunately, nor the media nor the authorities seem to worry about people travelling to a so-called developed country where any idiot is allowed to buy a gun and where the crime rate is higher than a tropical country in Asia

This contradicting, biased, sensation-inducing and so often erroneous kind of reporting upsets me.

Also, it seems that newspapers find it more important to publish gross images of a bare breasted caveman with “a tacky Messiah complex” (as one of my friend’s aptly described this soccer nitwit on Facebook) than of demonstrations around the world by peaceful people standing up for the earth’s and our children’s future.

Millions of people around the world rather watch 24 monkeys running after a ball than pay attention to millions of honest people fighting for global health.

Gazillions of all sorts of currencies are being invested by television makers in the rights to film and broadcast 120 minutes of useless, brainless and agression-provoking entertainment.

Imagine if that amount was invested in the health of our crops, in the development of sustainable farming structures, in projects to educate the ignorant masses.

These observations really upset me.

But then…

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi

At least, last year I was in The Netherlands and I was at the event organised by the March against Monsanto team in Amsterdam.

This year, I’m in Egypt by the Red Sea. I didn’t participate in any march because nobody here was organising anything and I didn’t bother to take the initiative. I don’t know if the Egyptian tomatoes, corn and wheat I’m eating, are Monsanto crop. I don’t know how many products in my local supermarket in the desert are GMO or not.

I’m just a desktop-demonstrator, posting and sharing a few messages about the topic and not really doing anything meaningful about it.

And that upsets me as well. Time for some self-reflection.

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Apprentice Editor:  Yaisa Nio / Editor: Renée Picard

Photo: Wikimedia Commons