Your Email:

Friend's Email:

Note: (optional)

Subject:

Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/29025/full/29025/we-cannot-remember-one-genocide-and-ignore-another/ <br /><br /> <b>We cannot remember one genocide and ignore another</b> <br /> Friday, April 21, 2006 | by <p>gerri miller </p> <br /><br /><p>As a child, I wondered how the Holocaust could have happened. How could the world stand by and allow a genocidal maniac to kill 6 million Jews ... to decimate a people? Today, I ask myself the same question about Darfur and of a world that, again, is just standing by.<br /><br /> The Holocaust raises both political and moral issues. Looking back, many of us would like to think that we would not have stood by as innocent people were murdered. We believe that we would have stood up for the victims of the Holocaust. We tell ourselves we would not have been bystanders. We hope that we would have chosen, instead, to be witnesses.<br /><br /> The bystander is different from a witness. A bystander remains silent. He or she does nothing. The witness acts.<br /><br /> I urge you to be a witness. April 30 has been designated the Day of Conscience for Darfur. At 1:30 pm, we will rally for Darfur in Crissy Field in San Francisco. Earlier, between 10 a.m. to noon, we will link hands in a vigil along the east sidewalk of the Golden Gate Bridge in solidarity with the people of Darfur. I encourage you to join us at one or both events. You can pre-register for the vigil and learn the details of the day at <a href="http://www.OurPledge.org">www.OurPledge.org</a>. .<br /><br /> In August 2004, j. had a cover story describing the genocide in Darfur, and raised the question “What is the Jewish response?” It was incomprehensible to me that genocide was taking place and so little was being written about it in our newspapers. And so, many of us did respond. We joined the S.F. Bay Area Darfur Coalition. We began a grassroots movement called “Dear Sudan” which has grown and spread to communities all over the country. We became witnesses.<br /><br /> The genocide in Darfur — what some have called “Rwanda in slow motion” — has continued unabated for more than three years. Since breaking out in early 2003, more than 400,000 people have died and 2.5 million civilians have been uprooted.<br /><br /> In July 2004, the U.S. Congress called the atrocities in Darfur genocide. Jan Egeland, head of U.N. humanitarian operations in Sudan, has called Darfur the “world’s worst humanitarian disaster” and added that security has collapsed, endangering humanitarian operations and the lives of over 300,000 more people.<br /><br /> It is our duty not only to be witnesses to the genocide in Darfur but also to confront others with the choice they face and the responsibility required of them. We may feel helpless to stop the genocide in Darfur. The geographical and cultural distance between us and the people of Darfur may seem like an insurmountable impediment. But we are not powerless.<br /><br /> After two years of lobbying by ordinary citizens, a national grassroots movement to end the genocide in Darfur has persuaded President George W. Bush to reverse his foreign policy toward the region. Now we need to encourage Bush to exert strong moral leadership. He must urge NATO to send a multinational humanitarian force to Darfur to protect 2.5 million innocent civilians uprooted by the genocide.<br /><br /> But the United Nations wants to delay any multinational force until the Sudanese government, which is conducting genocide against its own people, offers its consent. The insatiably murderous regime of Sudanese President Omar al Bashir will never agree to such a plan. It is the responsibility of the international community to end the genocide.<br /><br /> We cannot afford any more delay. It is time for the United States and the world community to act. Every day 500 people in Darfur die from violence, hunger and disease. My friend and colleague, Tim Nonn of Dear Sudan, put it this way. “When a person is having a heart attack, you don’t call the doctor’s office to make an appointment — you call an ambulance. The United Nations wants to make an appointment before it sends a civilian protection force to Sudan to stop the genocide. Darfur doesn’t need an appointment. Darfur needs an ambulance. Now.”<br /><br /> As witnesses to genocide, we will stand for peace. A short period of silence during the vigil will symbolize the voicelessness of the victims of genocide in Darfur. At Crissy Field we will raise our voices so that they are heard in Washington and around the world.<br /><br /> Elie Wiesel said, “Let us remember: What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor but the silence of the bystander.”<br /><br /> <br><br /><br /> <b>Gerri Miller</b> is the founder of Dear Sudan, Love Marin. Information and pre-registration for the vigil are available at <a href="http://www.OurPledge.org">www.OurPledge.org</a>. </p> <p> </p>

Please enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below: