Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Yesterday I did manage to attend the Massachusetts Coalition to Save Darfur's rally at City Hall Plaza. It was a scorcher in Boston yesterday, but the temperature started to come under control later in the day and it was a beautiful evening.
The turn-out was decent -- I'm terrible at crowd estimates, but let's say there were about 500 people there when things got going. There was a clear mix of races and religions there. My perception was that the largest group was Jewish, but as I said, it was overall a mix.
I have put up a gallery with all my photos here. Go there for larger versions of the thumbnails below. I'm sure I've badly butchered some of the names below, so keep that in mind.
Rev. Gloria E. White-Hammond, co-Chair of the organization kicked things off:
"...This past February I made my first trip into Darfur, into Western Sudan and heard similar stories of woman who had experienced rape and brutal treatment at the hands of their offenders, and I promised that I would come back and do everything I could to help people understand their plight..."
"Our Place Theater" with a dramatic presentation highlighting the plight of women in Darfur:
"...Shortly after the rape the village was raided and burned. My oldest son Mansour was beaten and nearly died. I thought I'd never see him again, but he survived. He is strong. I am proud of him. He says he is the man of the family since his father was killed. He is angry, and sometimes dreams of revenge on the Janjaweed, but I tell him, 'You are too good to become like them. You would dishonor your father and our family to become anything like them.' I tell him we will have our day. Justice will come..."
(Much more in the extended entry.)
Jordanian Farah Siraj from the Berklee Women's Network sang a song:
Looong time local Boston TV-anchor Liz Walker was the celebrity MC for the event. She's been to Sudan three times:
"...We are here to change the world!...We believe that the situation in Sudan is wrong, and we are here to stand up and tell somebody it's wrong! It's wrong! It's wrong! That's why we are here..."
Rabbi Gershon Gewirtz lead the opening prayer:
"...When people are being ravaged, how can we plead ignorance? When people are being massacred, how can we relax in comfort? When people fear for their lives every minute of every day, how dare we sleep securely in our beds?..."
Kenyan Moses Ali Sakuda from the Church World Service:
"...In the last few days, we have heard that the situation in Darfur is getting better. Yet, according to our partners on the ground, in the last twenty-fours hours, according to the New Sudan Council of Churches and the churches in Sudan and some of the NGO's, we are told that the government, using helicopters and planes have been bombing villages in the last twenty-four hours. Men and women have been chased out of their villages...thousands of them have been forced across the border..."
From the American Anti-Slavery Group, Abuk Bak from Sudan:
"...In 1987 I was twelve years old. The Arab militia came and attacked my village and they killed many people, most men, and they took women and children..."
Rwandan genocide survivor, Earnest Rubi Zangoger (??):
"...On April 10, 1994, we found out that we were on the list of people who's house would be burned and who they'd kill afterwards. After finding out, our mom took us in one room, divided up what money she had and asked us to quickly leave the house, but in different directions...in case one is caught, the other people have a chance of surviving..."
Ken Sweder from the Jewish Community Relations Council:
"...When President Bush read a briefing memo about the genocide in Rwanda and the Clinton Administration's failure to act fast enough he wrote firmly in the column, 'Not on my watch.' Genocide wasn't going to happen while he was President and Commander-In-Chief. But President Bush, it is happening. It's happening now, today in Darfur. Your watch must be broken, so we, of the Massachusetts Coalition to Save Darfur, we are sending you a watch which works. We are sending you a watch to remind you of your pledge and to hold you to it..."
The watch:
Reverend Gerald Bell (?) of the Southern Baptist Church delivered the closing prayer:
"...If not now, when, if not me, who is going to do it?..."
A final song by the women of Berklee College:
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Rally to Save Darfur - Report with Pics.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.solomonia.com/cgi-bin/mt4/mt-renamedtb.cgi/4509
7 Comments
Leave a comment to: Rally to Save Darfur - Report with Pics
Comment Info and Policy:
1) You must have Javascript enabled in your browser in order to comment (blame the spammers). If you don't know what that is, you're probably fine.
2) HTML is on, so basic html should work. Raw links will be made auto-clickable, too, so even if you don't know html you can just paste in the link and it should work fine. Keep the "http://" in it.
3) Comments are generally unmoderated, which means I don't necessarily agree with the tone and tenor of everything posted. In fact, sometimes people post things they don't really mean just to make other people look bad. The internet is an anonymous place for the most part. That said...
4) I welcome you to post here. I'd love to have your input, agree, disagree or just offer a different data point, really. If I didn't want any participation, I'd turn off comments. Be aware, however, that this blog and the comments section exist for my entertainment. Therefore, I reserve ALL RIGHTS here, including the right to remove any or all comments on nothing more than a whim. Please don't even bother complaining. I'm the one providing the space and the free news and thought buffet. I don't owe anyone anything.
Anyone who posts here will be treated as my guest. That means I'm happy to be polite as a default, but if anyone is rude to the host they'll be unceremoniously shown the door.
It may pay to recall a famous line from the Tom Selleck magnum opus, Mr. Baseball: "Jack-san, you want Yoji's advice about the babes, you come to Yoji with respect."
5) Enjoy your stay!
Interesting post.
Do you have more information on the situation in Darfur (as well as the rest of the country)?
One place to start might be at this page maintained by the folks at iAbolish: sudanactivism.com
Thanks.
Eric Reeves, a professor at U. Mass., has made himself the leading American expert on and advocate for the oppressed of Darfur. www.sudanreeves.org
I thought Eric Reeves was a Smith College prof.
You are correct. Smith. My error.
Nations are being misdirected by dirty Policy to raise their voices in a matter nobody knows anything about it. Simply, it is not a matter of Killing our own people as everyone knows. Think about what is going on in the rest of the world to catch the very part of this story