“WASHINGTON (AP) — Thousands of people joined celebrities and lawmakers at a rally Sunday urging the Bush administration and Congress to help end genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region.
“Not on our watch!” the crowd chanted as a parade of speakers lined up for their turn on a stage on the National Mall, the Capitol serving as a backdrop.”The personal motivation for a lot of us is the Holocaust,” said Boston-based Rabbi Or Rose of Jewish Seminarians for Justice. “Given our history and experience, we feel an obligation to stand up and speak out.”
If I am not mistaken the last time I saw Or Rose was about 15 years ago on a basketball court, but that is neither here nor there. What I know for certain is that I feel as an obligation as a person, as a father and as a Jew to speak out about Darfur.
What I know is that Africa is the forgotten continent. It is a place which is perpetually in trouble in large part because the world just doesn’t care. There is a lot of lip service paid to the problems there, but very little action.
It is my wish and my hope that in the days that follow we will see real action taken by the global community to try and improve the situation in the Sudan. The lack of inaction now is just shameful and sadly unsurprising.
Canadian politicians are going to debate the issue this evening. At least some MPs want the legislature to ask the United Nations to intervene.
“Inaction” is definitely the issue. The United Nations sounds like such a great idea in theory. But whenever there’s a real crisis, they seem incapable of acting.
This is the latest test case: is the UN prepared to walk the walk?