Conversation Point

In This Moment

Stopping the Impossible

World War II ended more than sixty years ago. Its veterans are now as old as their World War I predecessors I remember from Armistice Day assemblies designed to hold our young minds still on the fact that these conflicts were real. They involved sacrifice, huge loss, and human triumph over a seemingly insurmountable enemy. But it was this second War to End All Wars that held the most horrific of secrets, revealed as Allied troops liberated German concentration camps. The secret was the Holocaust, a measured, intentional plan to destroy the people deemed unworthy for inclusion in Hitler's definition of a perfect world. If the British had not been able to hold off a steady flow of German air raids, if thousands of ordinary people had not hidden their Jewish friends and neighbors, and if the United States had not entered the war, the world would surely be a different place today. The simple fact is that Hitler most likely would have succeeded, and we would not be safe.

We would would know what the people of Darer feel tonight.

Darer is located in the Western section of the African nation Sudan. African Muslims living in this region are facing annihilation by pro-government troops and Arab militias. "Ethnic cleansing," a term with which we have become all too familiar in recent years, is being used again to describe this first genocide of the twenty-first century. People driven from their homes and off their land are now being stalked, then raped and murdered by their tormentors each night as they try to gather wood for campfires to cook food for their children, the ones who escaped with their lives. Their siblings were not all so fortunate. Between 200,000 and 400,000 people are already dead. Those camped on the border of neighboring Chad also face the soon-to-arrive rainy season. Their journey is far from over, and home is only a distant memory.

The rallying cry since those World War Ii death camps were discovered has been two fold: "If we had known we would have done something," and, "Never again."

We now know, and we must act. As ordinary citizens, as people of faith living in a country that claims a moral stand on individual rights, we must do more than was done for the people of Germany, the people of Cambodia, and the people of Rwanda. We must act before this time of mass killing escalates further. We must act before this slaughter becomes a distant, irreparable memory. We must "remember the days of old, consider the years long past; ask your father, and he will inform you; your elders, and they will tell you (Deuteronomy 3:27)." We must remember, and we must take these memories and be empowered by them, outraged by them, and we must act. We must act, out of faith in God, and love for our sisters and brothers who need us.

"Stop Genocide" rallies were held across our nation this past Sunday, April 30, urging the Bush administration to take stronger action to end the violence in Sudan's Darer region. Thousands of people converged on Washington to add their support. The rallies have passed, but the need has not. We can still let President Bush, who clearly stated that another genocide would not occur on his watch, know that we want to help the Sudanese people who are suffering. We can tell our friends, notify our congresswomen and men, our senators and let the White House itself know that what is happening in Africa is wrong, and that it must stop.

We see all too clearly the hatred that has bred this violence, but let us also "see what love the father has given us that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are (I John 3:1)." Let us see this love, and act on it.

Until next time, God's blessings.

posted by Cory L. Kemp @ 8:18 PM