At Last! We can do something.
September 22, 2006 at 8:54 am
Ever hear of awful stuff going on and feel powerless because you think you can’t do anything that will make a difference?
Well, that happens to me all of the time. . .
Like last night for example. There I was nursing a nice full bodied red after a rather shitty day, when I caught an interview on Prime Time with Jan Egeland, that great humanitarian. He was speaking about Darfur and his words really frightened me. For anyone who doesn’t know what’s going on, essentially, the Sudanese government through its Sudanese armed forces and Sudanese government-backed militia known as “Janjaweed” have been fighting two rebel groups in Darfur. The stated political aim of the rebels has been to compel the government of Sudan to address underdevelopment and the political marginalization of the region. In response, the Sudanese government’s regular armed forces and the Janjaweed - largely composed of fighters of Arab nomadic background – have targeted civilian populations and ethnic groups from which the rebels primarily draw their support – the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa. At the moment it’s fairly critical - it sounds like they’re surrounding refugee camps and are about to systematically wipe out the people there.
As Jan Egeland said last night, it could be another Rwanda. The first mass genocide of the 21st century. In terms of numbers of people, we’re talking the population of Ireland.
Could you imagine how hard it would be on your family to be forced out of your home and have to walk to, say, Donegal, for example just to find shelter and safety of sorts? In our case, we wouldn’t be facing drought and extreme heat, but rain, mud and storms. Imagine you’ve managed to move your family to Donegal and have existed in a shelter for the last 8 or 9 months. . . your wife and daughters have been raped and there’s nothing you can do. And now the Government has you and your people surrounded and is shooting at you. After all that, you’re just going to die anyway. Imagine if the Government forces got so trigger happy that they shot every single last one of you? The whole of Ireland wiped out in one mass trigger happy violent bloody go?
That’s what’s facing Sudanese people at the moment.
Carnage happened in Rwanda in 1994. We’re now seeing films, plays and books coming out about the subject. It was brutal, tragic and we all shake our heads and say “never again”. Never again should mean never again.
So what can you do? Don’t just hang your head, do something about it. You’re online, get busy, sign up to this site and be active. You can read about what’s going on, keep up to date via the blog, and sign your name to petition the powers that be to get off their asses and do something.
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