A global call to action
Jeffery Sachs joined the Forum via satellite from Columbia University in New York to talk about poverty and famine in other parts of the world and how the interconnected world can help those plights. The media is crucial in making the West understand this interconnectivity, how a tragedy in one part of the world affects the whole world. With this understanding, the West would be more willing to help.
Second, the media needs to help people find solutions to these problems in developing regions. The spirit and ingenuity are there, but these people still lack the resources to produce the basic necessities of life. We also need to connect these people to the world by helping them build the necessary infrastructure.
One start is the cell phone. This technology has helped connect people in imaginable ways and will continue to do so.
One comment had to do with the generalities in which we in the West speak. Africa is not one homogenous culture but we tend to treat it that way. And who is this “we” that is always mentioned when referring to the West. Who is it actually that’s going to help?
Sachs responded by saying that he has been all over Africa and he finds hunger everywhere. Lumping all of the cultures and countries under the general term Africa is thus not degrading, it merely simplifies our conversation.
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Genocide Indeed.
by Sogol Assadbeigi
The Arab Janjaweed militias recruited from local Arab tribes, backed by the Government of Sudan, have bombed and killed the black, Muslim non- Arab population of Darfurians. The Sudanese government while publicly denying its support to the Janjaweed militias has joined forces and arms in the atrocities, destroying their crops and poisoned their water supplies. Now they’re preventing life-saving food and medicine from reaching them. Over two million people have been driven from their homes and face hunger and disease while the remaining are beaten, raped and terrorized. Since the strife started in 2003 one thousand people are dying every day and over 400,000 have been estimated dead already and the death poll may reach an excruciating 1 million.
Over 130 countries, including the US, Canada, the UK and most other EU countries have signed an International Convention committing them to act to prevent genocide anywhere in the world. Thus many governments are not identifying genocide in Darfur and refute all claims.
In 2004, the U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell travelled to the devastating refugee camps in Western Darfur and found that the government is evidently and directly involved in committing the genocide. In addition to the Bus Administration, many others, such as Senator John Kerry also denounced it as a genocide.
Time is precious more than ever now. In a matter of months an entire generation of people is about to be whipped off of the face of the planet through starvation, disease and murder and all we are left with is a devastating memory. Together we must urge our government leaders to take the necessary actions to stop genocide and build an independent judiciary in Darfur.
Calls to action for human relief for Africa (say Ethiopia, the Soudan, Uganda and the like) have been made at one time or another in past years and decades. Commendable as it may be, just how is this going to help more ?