Sudan…..Now…..No time to ask when….

This won’t be a long post because I feel there are plenty of other people who are doing a better job of explaining the evils of Omar al-Bashir (may his name be erased) and his ilk against the people of Darfur and the continued genocide against non Arabs/Afro-Arabs in Sudan.  While al-Bashir has reportedly stated that, “Talk of Arabs killing Blacks is a lie, the government of Sudan is a government of Blacks, with all different ethnic backgrounds. We’re all Africans. We’re all Black.” It is clear that the sympathies of Sudan are decidedly the opposite of this decidedly Pan-African view–and that not 10,000 as the Sudanese government has reported, but between 200-400,000 human beings have lost their lives as a result of war, sexual assault, starvation, and outright ethnic cleansing.  Who would cavalierly say that 10,000 people is an acceptable loss, or even the loss of one human life?  One human life being lost anywhere is an excuse to raise our voices and say, “Enough!”

Source: Wikipedia–Public Domain, US Govt.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Darfur_report_-_Page_2_Image_1.jpg

Each day we have multiple voices telling us about conflicts and struggles around the world. It is hard to keep up with all of the violence, terror, hardship, heartache, disease and misery caused by humanity’s indifference to itself.  My soul aches when Africa suffers because Africa is the common home to all Black people.  The continent sits like a beating heart at the center of the globe…and when it is low, so are all of us of African descent, everywhere.  We have long been the victims of political and cultural intrusion in the Mother Continent, but when those conflicts begin to manifest as a self-sustained virus long after the colonizers and slavers have left–we have a problem–the same problem that has infected the Black world all over….How do we cease doing to ourselves what was done to our Ancestors by oppressive, angry, injust people who didn’t like us just because of who we were?  To some extent, al-Bashir is right.  Most of Africa from top to bottom bears the mark and blood of the Africoid.  (What some people used to call Negro…)  Therefore the fact that he alludes to so few of apparently–his own—people dying and suffering at the hands of other “Black,” people makes his comments, and the resultant abhorent lack of concern even more deadly, sinister and callous.

George Clooney, Benjamin Jealous and others did a heroic thing yesterday in Washington D.C. by protesting in front of the Embassy of Sudan.  People are starving, people are hurting, and the food situation in Darfur is dire to say the least.  I am so tired of watching my people die—so I am going to put my money where my mouth is and donate to relief efforts and I am going to tell you–to do the same–now…whatever you can, however you can, and get the word out there.  Healing the world, tikkun olam should be the greatest issue to trend from day to day…please remember that “everything that happens to us occurs for the sake of someone else, and everything that happens to others occurs for our sake….”

Please see the links below for details on how you can get involved, make a difference and save human lives TODAY:

Learning:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/14/world/africa/sudan-clooney/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/05/31/sudan.violence/index.html?iref=allsearch