Unless you have been living under a rock this past month, then you may very well be familiar with the events concerning Harambe. For those who are not up to speed, here is a rundown of the tragic event. A little boy of three years of age climbed into the gorilla exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden. After coming into the exhibit, the boy was then dragged around by Harambe, a Western lowland gorilla. The zookeepers feared for the boy’s life and shot Harambe dead. This event caused a huge outrage instantly. Some sided with the zookeepers’ decision, some criticized the mother, others did not care for it. Most would brush this occurrence off swiftly, but the Internet decided to glorify Harambe with posthumous fame.
Many memes were created involving Harambe. Many of them discuss the topic of Harambe as a martyr, how the public misses Harambe, how everyone loves him, etc. This meme is obviously sensational, and the event of this poor being’s death is tragic indeed; is there something deeper behind the meme?
This meme seems to unite people in ways we never thought were possible. You can go anywhere and say something about Harambe and those who hear his name will band with you in harmony. I think this whole situation is a dual tragedy. It is a travesty to kill a living being in general, but the fact that there had to be a death in general for people to group up is even grimmer.
Think about it: we had to kill a gorilla for people to recognize that someone is a bad parent, or that the zoo needs better restrictions and groundskeeping. We had to kill a living thing to even be close to being together as a people.
It seems that every movement nowadays starts by killing, and it truly is sad that a life has to be wasted for the population to take action against something. I call this the Harambe Effect. A problem is only faced when a death occurs to spark a movement against it.
For some reason, we cannot just accept a problem without it coming to light via some sort of violent act. We cannot face the problem of discrimination without someone getting killed first, we cannot fight against terrorism until the threats become an action in which many are killed. It is honestly ridiculous that we cannot recognize problems before some atrocity happens. We as people need to help each other outline these ever prevalent problems in order to stop them before more calamities occur. We cannot let more lives go to waste because we as a collective entity decide to keep these issues out of sight.
