The 20th Century provided filmmakers with countless stories of heroism in the face of tyranny, hope in the midst of despair, and courage in the presence of brutality: Schindler’s List, Hotel Rwanda, The Killing Fields... The list can go on and on.
Hollywood has impeccably documented man’s cruelty to man in the 20th Century.
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As we begin the second decade of the 21st century with Sudan at the brink of a return to civil war and genocide, I’m reminded of a “Great Crime” at the beginning of the 20th century.
The Armenian genocide foreshadowed all other crimes which took place in the 20th Century: indiscriminate killing, the wholesale massacre of men, women and children, forced deportations, the systematic destruction of a population based on ethnicity, organized killing in the service of ideology. The Armenian genocide, the “Great Crime,” was the first milestone on the road into a century of genocide, democide, and war.
January 9, 2011 will be remembered as an important milestone in the 21st Century. If the planned date for a referendum on independence for Southern Sudan becomes a return to war and mass slaughter and enslavement of defenseless refugees, women and children, we have to ask what hope we have for our century.
Will the indiscriminate killing of women and children, wholesale massacres, forced deportations, systematic destruction of populations based on ethnicity, organized killing in the service of ideology become a part of Southern Sudan’s history or a part of all of our future?
With the referendum days away, Khartoum has upped the ante and begun bombarding refugees from the air and is attacking helpless civilians with HIND helicopters. The attacks are being aimed at voter registration points and are designed to incite fear and panic to disrupt the referendum. Over 15,000 Southern-Sudanese have been displaced by the most recent attacks and are in desperate need of aid. Thankfully groups like Persecution Project Foundation (PPF) are on location to provide help.
The Human-Rights Education and Relief Organization (HERO) has teamed up with actor and producer Eduardo Verasegui (founder of Manto de Guadalupe foundation) in effort to aid The Persecution Project Foundation in their life saving work in Darfur and Southern Sudan.
As a few small NGO’s battle in the most remote and dangerous parts of the world to care for the displaced refugees, only one voice has managed to capture the world’s attention– George Clooney. Since 2005 Clooney has made repeated visits to Sudan and brought worldwide attention to the situation in Darfur and Southern Sudan.
Celebrities are often told to shut up and sing, but I am grateful to Clooney and Verastegui for risking their lives to leverage their celebrity status