Darfur Mondays

In hopes of raising awareness about the reality of genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, Sam writes every Monday about a key issue in an attempt to stop the atrocity. Doing so may not bring about a wave of change, but it is a small ripple that represents the tide that needs turning.

The Information Age

One of the blockades to real progress in Darfur is information. America has the resources, connections, know-how, and economic and military power to stop this thing. Let’s just be honest for a minute: if we wanted, we could do some recon, find the worst militiamen who are killing and raping the most people and wipe them out. We could annihilate them. Sure, there would be severe political backlash, but the deaths of hundreds of thousands could be prevented.

As time passes, Darfur becomes a cliché. We add it to our prayers at night: “God keep us safe, protect our troops, end poverty, and help those in Darfur.” And it stops there. Because Darfur is becoming more ‘popular’ and more people actually know what you’re referencing when you say the word, we are at a critical point in this whole thing: either people can acknowledge the problem and stop short of any real action, or we can press onward using our knowledge as a catalyst for action.

Money is needed in Sudan, as is force, sanctions, medical care and shelter. But over here, prophets are needed. In the Hebrew Bible, the prophets told the truth. They remembered the good ole days and what caused the good ole days. They saw the present hell and knew what was needed to return to the good ole days. And they saw in the future either destruction or a corrected course. We are at that point in Darfur. We see that it’s bad over there; we know we should stop the genocide, but the question remains as to what we’ll do about it. We can wear green wristbands and sign online petitions. But people are still being shot from the air and women are still being gang raped.

I encourage my readers to visit savedarfur.org and sign up for the email updates. And when they send those updates to you, don’t delete them. Read every word of them. It is sometimes difficult to find the real stories about Darfur in the American media. Iraq, gas prices and Angelina Jolie get more coverage. SaveDarfur.org does a great job of giving us the reality of the Sudan in hopes that we can do what little part we can to help end this thing. It is 1941 all over again. The words “Final Solution” have made their way to Washington, but nothing is being done. Today, on July 4, Independence Day, help liberate the Sudanese victims with your knowledge-turned-action.