So, I finally watched Hotel Rwanda last night. It's one of those movies I've been wanting to see/dreading because I know how sad it is. And man, is it sad. Beyond the fact that it's about the brutal murder of a million innocent civilians, it's also about how people in the West--and around the world--turned a blind eye to the genocide in Rwanda, just as we did in Kosovo and just as we're doing now in Darfur. It's heartbreaking that people in Africa called out, begging the U.S. and other nations for help, and we did not help them. How could we have been so callous?

And, you probably all know, we're doing it again. The conflict in Darfur has been going on since 2003, and we still haven't sent a U.N. or U.S. force in to stop it.

Today, I made a small attempt to speak out by writing my U.S. senators, representative and the U.S. Secretary of State, asking them to turn their attention and resources towards stopping the killing in Darfur. I feel like it probably won't help, but, it's better than doing nothing.

There are more people I can contact (and you can too). Here's a list:

Secretary Rice
http://www.state.gov/

Head of African affairs at the State Department, Jendayi Frazer
http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2004/06/24/”mailto:

U.N. Secretary General
inquiries@un.org

U.S. mission to the United Nations
usa@un.int

President Bush
president@whitehouse.gov

You can also write letters to the editor and/or simply contact your local paper and ask them to give the crisis in Darfur comprehensive and constant coverage.

Maybe this won't do anything, but I think it's better than ignoring the problem. For a while now, I have read articles about or thought about the crisis on Darfur, done a little Internet research and then kind of given up without doing much. Maybe it's silly that a movie has energized me to pay closer attention to what's happening in Darfur, but who cares. Silly or not, it's not a bad thing to start putting more effort into trying to end a genocide.

It's so easy to pretend that terrible things aren't happening all over the world--or get bogged down by how many terrible things are happening all over the world. But, I have come to the conclusion that I should always try to help rather than give up. I hope some of you agree.

I'll let you know if I find any other ways to speak up about Darfur.

UPDATE: Here's an interesting editorial about the conflict in Darfur from the LA Times. It's a bit old though, and their coverage since this piece has been fairly minimal. I think I'll send them an email.

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