On Sept. 17, along with seven other Fairfield students, I traveled to the East Meadow of New York City’s Central Park to take part in the Save Darfur rally, sponsored by the Save Darfur coalition.
We were in high spirits throughout the day (Honk if you want to end genocide!) – our mood contrasting with the graveness of the situation of the country we were rallying in support of.
Darfur, a region in Sudan, has been embroiled in a deadly conflict for more than three years. At the hands of the government sponsored “Janjaweed,” meaning “devils on horseback” in Arabic, at least 400,000 people have been killed.
Additionally, more than two million innocent civilians have been forced to flee their homes and now live in displaced-persons camps in Sudan or in refugee camps in neighboring Chad. More than 3.5 million men, women, and children are completely reliant on international aid.
According to The New York Times, 20,000 to 30,000 people joined us as we voiced our support for the beleaguered Sudanese. Many of these people donned light blue berets. An awkward fashion choice in most instances, these hats signified the need for the United Nations to deploy its peace keeping “blue helmets” to restore order to the devastated region.
The rally alternated between musical performances and speakers. Some of the speakers included former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, actress Mira Sorvino, and Ethan Rafal, a journalist who had been in a Sudanese prison only a month before.
Rafal, a twenty-something student, did not look all that different from me. I was pretty impressed with myself for making the short trip into Central Park until I listened to his stories about nearly losing his life in traveling to the depths of an unknown continent to expose genocide.
Taking part in the rally was inspirational and fun. It was heartening to be surrounded by people from such varied backgrounds who were all of like mind about this urgent issue.
I don’t think I will ever again be at an event where country music stars Big and Rich share the stage with Imam Talib Abdur-Rashid, of the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood. All of the speakers expressed the urgency of the situation, and they all congratulated us on our commitment to the cause.
However, I did not leave the event feeling very self-congratulatory. After the rally, I went to the Yankees game where the biggest concern was when the Yankees would clinch a playoff birth. As I cheered the Yankees, I thought of the people of Darfur, and I wondered if my voice would make any difference for them.
We have a lot more work to do. Visit savedarfur.org to learn about this dire situation. Call your elected officials. Don’t remain silent about the most horrific atrocities of the 21st century. Let us remember the promise humankind made to banish genocide from the planet in the wake of the Holocaust: Never Again. Never Again.
Leave a Reply