This post is a response to a global call by AllThings2All for a Darfur Genocide Collection ... the collection will appear there on Monday, 22 May, mark your calendars to visit the Collection and get inspired to join our challenge. The following is my submission to the collection. (updated: 5/16 - Catez at AllThings informs me they're up today!)
"The worst was not that I was beaten but that I was forced to respect people who were criminals."
— Dachau concentration-camp survivor Arthur Haulot. From Joshua M. Greene's excellent Beliefnet article "The Unbelievable and the Believer," about devout Presbyterian William Denson, who prosecuted Nazi war criminals. (HT: Dawn Patrol)
At one time I believed the UN might be on the doorstep of declaring the Sudanese situation "genocide." In fact I hoped for as much in my February 2, 2005, post. My sincere hope was that the UN would refer the matter to the International Criminal Court, even though I gag at the thought of the ICC.
Since then, with continued revelations of UN corruption and duplicity, and with Coffin Anon's public ineptness, I have become convinced it won't happen in my life time. I'm more convinced the only country which will ever be officially accused of genocide will be the United States of America.
I hate it when people play the race card as Johnny C. and O.J. did with regard to crime, or Muslims do when the War On Terror is mentioned; but, that said, I have a deep disquieting and ugly feeling in my gut color has a role in this tragedy.
That the global community helped tsunami victims as it did, concurrent with Sudan's acts of genocide, implies to me the South Asian people weren't considered truly "people of color" ... somehow I heard an undercurrent of "they're more like us." Whereas the absence of a global response and outrage to the plight of the Darfurians seems to say "They're not our kind; you know what I mean?"
What's the American MSM doing about this holocaust? According to Scott at Slant Point he found a single write up of a student "protest" against the "genocidal crimes being committed in Sudan" in Central Park, NYC, the first week of May. And Scott informs us the writer had the gall to call it a "rally" rather than a "protest" even though it was publicly promoted as a protest.
What about funds to support some global effort to stop this slaughter? Apparently there are plenty. Eric, at Sudan: The Passion of the Present, offers up this little tidbit of news from the Sydney Morning Herald ...
As Christians, the problem we have concerning this deplorable situation is that the Lord Himself painted us into a biblical corner:
To the extent we do unto the least of these we do likewise unto Him! How many voices of Jesus have been lifted from the dust of Darfur and been carried around the world to ears deaf to His cry for these people?
After doing a little research I was shocked to discover how little the Southern Baptist Convention is doing to aid these poor people; I was even more shocked at how much we were doing for tsunami victims in South Asia.
Almost a year ago Southern Baptist relief agencies were quoted as saying ...
I don't care about a man's politics on an issue like this; I care if he cares about Darfurian children dying by the tens of thousands!
I don't care about a man's religion on an issue like this; I care if he notices the world spent a whole week flapping their lips about the 60th Anniversary of the Holocaust while thousands of innocents were dying because of where they were born or who they were born to!
I don't care about a man's nationality or race on an issue like this; I care if he cares about the evil that is present in a people who would storm refugee camps in the dark of night, guns blazing, killing anything that moves.
I care about whether or not he cares about injustice!
This world and this generation are without excuse on this one ... Nazi and Rwandan atrocities aside ... no excuse!
SBC//Baptist Press ...
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SBC//International Missions Board ...
Since then, with continued revelations of UN corruption and duplicity, and with Coffin Anon's public ineptness, I have become convinced it won't happen in my life time. I'm more convinced the only country which will ever be officially accused of genocide will be the United States of America.
In 1948, the United Nations drafted an international definition of genocide in the hopes of preventing another Holocaust. The convention determined that “genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; or Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” If the UN declares a group guilty of genocide, member countries are bound to act. Strangely enough, however, in February 2005, the UN reported that the Khartoum were not guilty of committing genocide. They instead found that crimes against humanity and war crimes were taking place in Darfur. (HT: Sudan: The Passion of the Present)Jim at Stones Cry Out labels this an apocalypse of darkness ... the picture this paints in my head shows time circling its innocent victims, like flies over a putrefied carcass as the world holds a banquet nearby.
I hate it when people play the race card as Johnny C. and O.J. did with regard to crime, or Muslims do when the War On Terror is mentioned; but, that said, I have a deep disquieting and ugly feeling in my gut color has a role in this tragedy.
That the global community helped tsunami victims as it did, concurrent with Sudan's acts of genocide, implies to me the South Asian people weren't considered truly "people of color" ... somehow I heard an undercurrent of "they're more like us." Whereas the absence of a global response and outrage to the plight of the Darfurians seems to say "They're not our kind; you know what I mean?"
What's the American MSM doing about this holocaust? According to Scott at Slant Point he found a single write up of a student "protest" against the "genocidal crimes being committed in Sudan" in Central Park, NYC, the first week of May. And Scott informs us the writer had the gall to call it a "rally" rather than a "protest" even though it was publicly promoted as a protest.
What about funds to support some global effort to stop this slaughter? Apparently there are plenty. Eric, at Sudan: The Passion of the Present, offers up this little tidbit of news from the Sydney Morning Herald ...
The international medical relief agency Médecins sans Frontières is tracking down hundreds of thousands of donors worldwide to its Asian tsunami appeal and offering them their money back.The world community comes together for Tsunami relief while this goes on. And this for the victims of a natural disaster but what of the victims of this murderous outrage?
Hundreds of Australians have asked for $93,000 of refunds after the charity told them it had four times the €20 million it needed to fund its response to the Boxing Day disaster. They refused the charity's offer to redirect their donations to lower profile crises such as in Sudan or the Democratic Republic of the Congo. One of the Australian donations handed back was for $50,000.
The charity's president, Rowan Gillies, said it was ethically compelled to contact every donor of the excess €83 million ($138 million) and offer to redirect their money or return it.
In Australia, the charity closed its tsunami appeal after only three days, to try to avoid this kind of oversubscription. But it still raised $2.5 million, three-quarters of which cannot be used in the tsunami zone. Philippe Couturier, the executive officer of the charity's Australian branch, said: "We have never before had to turn down funds and we've never before offered people money back. It's an administrative nightmare."
As Christians, the problem we have concerning this deplorable situation is that the Lord Himself painted us into a biblical corner:
Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.'[Matthew 25:34-36]
After doing a little research I was shocked to discover how little the Southern Baptist Convention is doing to aid these poor people; I was even more shocked at how much we were doing for tsunami victims in South Asia.
Almost a year ago Southern Baptist relief agencies were quoted as saying ...
As many as 350,000 people could die of disease or malnutrition this year in what the United Nations has identified as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.(See below for articles by Southern Baptists.)
I don't care about a man's politics on an issue like this; I care if he cares about Darfurian children dying by the tens of thousands!
I don't care about a man's religion on an issue like this; I care if he notices the world spent a whole week flapping their lips about the 60th Anniversary of the Holocaust while thousands of innocents were dying because of where they were born or who they were born to!
I don't care about a man's nationality or race on an issue like this; I care if he cares about the evil that is present in a people who would storm refugee camps in the dark of night, guns blazing, killing anything that moves.
I care about whether or not he cares about injustice!
This world and this generation are without excuse on this one ... Nazi and Rwandan atrocities aside ... no excuse!
It is time to accelerate the diplomatic, and if necessary, the military, action. Even the slightest progress has us pitted once again against France, which wants to do nothing on its own.----------------------
SBC//Baptist Press ...
7/23/04 "'Genocide' taking place in Sudan, Congress declares in resolution; 30,000 'murdered'"Nothing newer than these, and nothing to report prior to that.
7/9/04 "Southern Baptist relief workers reach out to refugees in Sudan"
5/28/04 "Despite Sudanese peace plan, humanitarian crisis & threat of ethnic genocide loom"
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SBC//International Missions Board ...
7/12/04 "Southern Baptists reach out to Muslim refugees in Sudan" (This page has a set of prayer needs and an address for contributions for general relief in Sudan. The question I have is how much goes directly to Darfur?)I counted no less than eight articles on tsunami relief since 2/2/05 but not a single mention of Sudan or Darfur by the IMB.
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