The Joke of Genocide
Despite publicity from George Clooney, his dad, the entire staff of ER, I Heart Huckabees and a year-old episode of Boston Legal -- Sudan simply does not matter.
Last Sunday, Jodie and I participated in a Boulder rally and march to end the genocide in Darfur. Five hundred of us, so few the event was held on the pseudo-friendly Pearl Street Mall rather than at the State Capital.
The next day, over 75,000 marched for Immigration rights and many more participated in the Day without an Immigrant Boycott. I'll leave immigration issues alone for another day. While I am reassured that so many can come together for human rights, I am bewildered over the lack of concern for human lives.
What is more, Jodie and I found ourselves hard pressed to find anything motivating from the speakers and coordinators of the event. The speeches were the same that we heard the year before. The actions by our government have remained essentially the same. Unmotivated.
I find it ironic that Darfur's genocide began the month before our invasion of Iraq. Our pledges of freedom, democracy and a life without fear have left one nation in a state of civil war. Our denial of any real assistance has left another in the bloody grip of genocide.
And yet, when the images and the history and the urges for action appear on our media, they come delivered by Oprah, not George W. Bush. Whatever hopes we have for those slaughtered by their government are taken from a context in which they could be given the urgency they deserve and placed on fictional scripts, re-enacted by Hollywood actors.
Will this month of Thursday night geno-tainment lead to a mass mobilization for Americans? Or will we be listening to the same tired speakers next year, wondering why it is only 500 of our neighbors have the conscious to care?
~Lila
Because Responsible Citizens Clean Up After Their Government
http://goodusgov.org/
Last Sunday, Jodie and I participated in a Boulder rally and march to end the genocide in Darfur. Five hundred of us, so few the event was held on the pseudo-friendly Pearl Street Mall rather than at the State Capital.
The next day, over 75,000 marched for Immigration rights and many more participated in the Day without an Immigrant Boycott. I'll leave immigration issues alone for another day. While I am reassured that so many can come together for human rights, I am bewildered over the lack of concern for human lives.
What is more, Jodie and I found ourselves hard pressed to find anything motivating from the speakers and coordinators of the event. The speeches were the same that we heard the year before. The actions by our government have remained essentially the same. Unmotivated.
I find it ironic that Darfur's genocide began the month before our invasion of Iraq. Our pledges of freedom, democracy and a life without fear have left one nation in a state of civil war. Our denial of any real assistance has left another in the bloody grip of genocide.
And yet, when the images and the history and the urges for action appear on our media, they come delivered by Oprah, not George W. Bush. Whatever hopes we have for those slaughtered by their government are taken from a context in which they could be given the urgency they deserve and placed on fictional scripts, re-enacted by Hollywood actors.
Will this month of Thursday night geno-tainment lead to a mass mobilization for Americans? Or will we be listening to the same tired speakers next year, wondering why it is only 500 of our neighbors have the conscious to care?
~Lila
Because Responsible Citizens Clean Up After Their Government
http://goodusgov.org/
posted by Lila Schow at
10:22 PM
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