but it promises to be very moving. I'll try again later from another computer. In the meantime What have we done? is a video presentation from Newsweek with a photo slideshow of Jan Grarup's pictures of Darfur refugees set against John Lennon's 'Happy Xmas (War Is Over)', and I thought I'd link to it here.
I haven't blogged about this before, but I feel very strongly about genocide and the targeting of civilians by the military during conflicts. Darfur is just the latest of a series of conflicts aimed at eradicating people based on what they are, not what they have done.
We are doing way too little to stop the genocide in Darfur, and we need to let our leaders know.
For more on the conflict in Darfur, read the Wikipedia article. For more on what you can do to help, check out SaveDarfur.org.
One of the aspects of the conflict that is being highlighted, beyond the death and starvation, is the use of rape as a target against civilian women and girls. Like the Balkans and Rwanda before it, rape is being used as a tool for spreading fear among the ethnic groups targeted. The effects of rape and terror linger long after the conflicts subside, haunting women their entire lives.
Save Darfur is a coalition of over 160 faith-based, humanitarian, and human rights organisations. Looking at a listing of the executive committee, I was gratified to see several Jewish groups (regardless of what the conference in Iran thinks, the Holocaust was very real and many Jews are committed to preventing similar attempts at ethnic cleansing), the NAACP, representatives of Catholicism and Evangelical churches, and Amnesty International. The Unitarian-Universalists are also members.
Together, it is hoped, the coalition and other groups can help pursuade the United States and the United Nations to lend a peacekeeping presence capable of controlling the violence. I don't know how likely that is to happen in light of how things went in other conflicts and given the present wars for which there are already concerns about manpower and being mired in civil conflicts, but one thing is certain...we cannot sit by idly while people die all because of their tribe or ethnicity. To do so means we have learnt nothing from history. Preventing genocide is at least a noble cause for war, as causes go.
A few years ago, President Bush scribbled, 'not on my watch' in the margins of a report on the Rwandan crisis. The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are distracting the US from the Darfur crisis. It has not reached its climax, many say; there is still a chance to prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths. But only if we act now. Educate yourself about Darfur. Educate others as well. Find ways to act through your church, your community, and other groups. Write to your leaders. Check out the Darfur Scorecard for how your leaders have voted and to contact them about further support. Donate money if possible. There is a push to provide humanitarian aid to the region, although there are concerns about trying to get aid to the people. Like other areas plagued by armed conflict, it can be a logistics nightmare. Remember the people of Darfur during this holiday season. Remember that there are people who will spend this coming year without food, without hope, wondering whether they or their children will be the next to die. No one deserves to feel like that, and certainly no child deserves to lose a childhood over such worries. Please help save Darfur.
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