Travesty, Politics, comments and Darfur is still Dying.

We got a couple of comments which irritated me. Not the comments themselves but the facts behind them. It’s rare enough to get comments over here, not that this isn’t read it’s read quite a bit actually considering, but comments are rare.

The truth is what is there to say.

We didn’t know.
What can we do?
It’s a shame.
We have to stop this now.

I believe this has all been said before, from the outset of this genocide and in regard to genocides of the past.

History has taught us nothing because it has not prevented anything. To repeat history shocks no one; it is expected, or so it seems.

The two comments one from Sweden, where the commenter stated they never hear about Darfur, and one from the US where the commenter said that it was not in the news much here and many people still didn’t know about Darfur.

I know quite well people are more interested in pop-culture than politics and certainly more interested in pop-culture and new gadgets than humanitarianism, but it is shocking to think that people in this country do not know what is going on in Darfur. It is no less shocking to know that so few care.

I read the Coalition for Darfur for awhile before starting my own blog on Darfur. I figured what could it hurt. I felt that if a couple more people familiarized themselves with the situation and the history of Darfur because of posts and links to the Coalition blog on my personal blog – maybe a few more could be familiarized with it in a separate blog.

When I started reading about Darfur there did not seem to be all that much in the news about it. The Coalition for Darfur blog fed up a little news here and there and kept everyone caught up, they were alone in this and if not for them maybe there would still be very little out there in the land of blogs pertaining to it. It seemed for some time that no one cared though, despite their best efforts.

Things news wise picked up, another treaty was forthcoming, some celebrities decided to get on the bandwagon and that is always good for some air time. There were a few protests, and groups like STAND were getting more active, not nearly as active as one would think students would be because frankly the lack of interest in humanitarian affairs by people my age still astounds me, but there was more activity, fundraising, letter writing and divestment campaigns.

There are things being done to help the refugees, but with a situation continuing where no one can get it, where people are in danger and where the government of the same country in which the travesty is occurring is less concerned with it’s own people than we are it seems hopeless, and the continuation of this travesty seems inevitable.

The NYT has a columnist who travels and writes about Darfur routinely; sadly his column is locked behind a subscription wall so there is limited access to his writing at least for the general public.

The presidential election in this country is almost two years away, yet the dominant topic in the news is who will be the candidates. “What is Hilary wearing”, “is she really a bitch”, “will women vote for her”, “will men”. “Can Obama be the first African American president”, “he spoke to the camera at the winter meeting not to the people”, “she spoke to the people”, “he was against the war from the get go” “she voted for it”…blah blah blah…btw “he dresses well”, “she wore a purple suit” and then there’s Edwards.

Two years away, in the meantime women are still being raped hundreds of thousands of family’s remain displaces, many of the men have been murdered, ethnic cleansing or genocide whatever the term of the day is continues, and children suffer, children starve, children die.

“I think Hilary wore a Navy Blue suit at the meeting today. She has a really nice smile and is quite charming when she wants to be.”

It is a shame these same politicians do not advocate giving up some of there press time, or better yet insist on giving up some of their press time to the things in the world which are so, so wrong.

I have almost two years to look at their well fed, power hungry faces. I don’t need that long.

I am ashamed of them all.

I think, unless George Clooney dances naked in front of Congress declaring his support for whichever candidate speaks of Darfur, we will not hear again of it for some time in the main stream media.

As I sit here listening to Chris Matthews lament on how women politicians these days dress sharp, look good and he only has two or three suit he wears I will close off this rambling post.

Keep writing to your congressional representatives.

Keep divesting where you can.

Boycott and suggest to others a boycott of the Beijing Olympics until China takes a very active role in getting their tyrannical dictator friend to save his own people.

Write to the Secretary – General of the UN, tell him what you want.

Write to leaders in other countries.

Do not say no one here knows.

TELL THEM.

And if they choose not to hear you, tell them again.