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Jewish World Review June 24, 2005 / 17 Sivan, 5765 On Darfur, here's your action list By Leonard Pitts, Jr.
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
I guess I had it coming.
A week and a half ago in this space, I shared my anger and frustration over America's silent indifference to the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. The column ended with a challenge: give a damn.
I couldn't tell you how many e-mails I received in reply that said, "OK, I give a damn. Now what?" Or, "I'm just one person. What can I do?"
My favorite was from a lady who wrote: "On one hand, the article is well written and valid. On the other, it feels like it is simply an opportunity for you to vent and transfer your feelings of guilt onto the reader, for now you can feel you have taken action and it is the reader's fault things are as they are. ... Giving a damn doesn't mean anything if it isn't backed by actions. Your article doesn't give the reader any avenue to proceed."
I'd be more offended if she wasn't right. One of the dirty little secrets of scribbling opinions in newspapers for a living is that, on moral issues, you get to feel like you've done your part when all you've really done is your job.
Not that there isn't value in a columnist trying to rouse and shape public opinion. But it can be an easy out. And those who lack that out are always left asking the same question: "What can I do?"
By the same token, though, I think people overdo the "I'm just one person; I'm helpless" routine. Especially in light of two facts: (1) We are fortunate enough to live under a representative government that, in theory and often enough in practice, responds to our concerns and, (2) the Internet gives us more information and personal power than our forebears could have dreamt.
Truth is, we are the least helpless people on earth. So "I'm just one" simply doesn't cut it. Martin Luther King Jr. was just one. Lech Walesa was just one. That guy who blocked a tank in Tiananmen Square was just one.
The death toll in Sudan stands at 400,000 and rising. The United States has provided humanitarian aid, but has declined forcefully to press Sudan — a putative ally in the War on Terror — to stop the massacre. Earlier this year, the Senate passed a resolution — The Darfur Accountability Act — requiring sanctions against Sudan. The White House killed it. American news media have covered all this with a fraction of the energy and attention they accorded the Michael Jackson trial.
What can you do? Here are a few suggestions:
Inform yourself. An excellent place to start is by reading the work of columnist Nicholas D. Kristof, whose ongoing eyewitness accounts of this atrocity have been nothing short of heroic. Google Nicholas, (plus) Kristof, (plus) Sudan.
Inform others. Make it a topic of conversation in your classroom, your lunchroom, your synagogue, your mosque or your church.
Demand coverage. I did a computer search for newspaper references to the Darfur Accountability Act. Know how many hits I got? Eighty-nine. And many of those were just reprints of Kristof's columns. Let this newspaper's editor and your favorite cable news outlet know that this story matters to you.
Pray, if you're the praying kind.
Demonstrate, if you're the demonstrating kind.
Most of all, refuse to witness in silence. Give a damn.
Ask yourself: What would I have said had I been there more than 60 years ago, had I seen 11 million children, women, men — Jews and others — being herded into Hitler's gas chambers or fed into his ovens? What would I have done?
Whatever it is, say it now. Do it now.
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Comment on JWR contributor Leonard Pitts, Jr.'s column by clicking here. © 2005, The Miami Herald Distributed by TMS |
Mitch Albom | |||||||||||
