Thursday's Thoughts: Genocide

Welcome to my new Thursday's Thoughts! I will use Thursdays to blog about my opinion on a popular media event, inform you about a social justice-y topic, blog a much needed rant, or just ramble about a topic I am interested in. I am not a political analyst, super smart consumer, blah blah. However, I am one passionate son of a gun - that has to count for something, right? If I need to be schooled on a topic, please do so - in a respectful manner.

Genocide

You may or may not know this about me, but I was a serious anti-genocide advocate in my undergrad. I was the president of the USF chapter of STAND, which is an amazing student-led anti-genocide org under the Genocide Prevention Network. What led me to this work? Well, I have to hand that award to Don Cheadle and his fabulous performance as Paul Rusesabagina (who I've met!) in Hotel Rwanda. Hotel Rwanda tells the story of one man's courage to save as many people as he could when genocide broke out in his country in 1994. (If you don't believe that one person can make a difference, you must watch this movie!) I walked out of the theater crying so hard that I could barely see. I was severely overcome with emotion, and that set me on the path to use my passion for good. Rwanda still holds a dear place in my heart, and I hope that one day, Todd and I can adopt a child from this country.

During my time with STAND, I was able to work with local refugees, educate our student body on the cause, and I learned a HELL of a lot about advocacy. Change will never occur unless there is NOISE surrounding the topic/event. WE HAVE TO SPEAK UP!

What is Genocide, and better yet, what is the Anti-Genocide movement?

I want to use this blog post to EDUCATE, because that is the first step. I figured the best way I can do this is share a paper I wrote for my Macro-level social work class. We had to choose a social movement and give the spiel. I was proud of this paper.

Other Resources

Learning Library

Past Genocides

Our Responsibility to Protect

Civilian Protection

Books

A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Powers: Samantha Powers is a personal hero for me and is one hell of a font of knowledge on genocide. This book educates us on all of the world's genocides from one of the world's best advocates for ending genocide.

Not On Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond by Don Cheadle and John Predenrgast: This book is quite powerful, as it discusses genocide from the view of 2 different people, and actor who has become invested in the cause (Don Cheadle) and a powerhouse in the anti-genocide arena (John Predergast). It also gives great ideas for advocacy!

Darfur Diaries

Media

Hotel Rwanda

The Devil Came on Horseback

Sometimes in April

Dafur Now

Frontline: Ghosts of Rwanda

Organizations

www.standnow.org

www.genocideintervention.org

www.enoughproject.org

Areas of Concern

Sudan

Burma

Democratic Republic of Congo

Afghanistan

Pakistan

Iraq

Somalia

Afterthought: Most people in the U.S. probably pass over these news stories and say "this doesn't effect me, why should I care?" I have a real problem with this. No, you don't have to dedicate your life to saving these people, or even dedicate time to an anti-genocide cause, but to not care that thousands upon thousands of innocent people are dying because of a tyrannical government is unacceptable. We've completely lost touch with the outside world and it breaks my heart to see so many young people with no direction, no passion, no life in them other than clothes, sex and video games. But then you have all the other young people who do care, and who have used their passion to seek change, like the youth I worked with. It's always a double-edged sword and we can't win them all. :)

Amazing Initiative to bring Education to girls in Sudan.

I met the creator of this program, a "Lost Boy of Sudan," back in Tampa during my anti-genocide advocacy days. He is pretty awesome and I'm so pleased his organization to bring education to the females of his country is moving full steam ahead. It looks like one of his team members is heading out to Sudan to make some dreams come true.

http://neseiblog.blogspot.com/

In case you need some perspective.

***DO NOT PROCEED IF YOU DO NOT WANT A SLAP OF REALITY***

If you start to think life isn't fair because you could not buy those stellar Christian Louboutin's that were on sale (because they still cost $585) or because you had to sit on the highway behind gramps going 40 miles an hour, read this.

"On one of the trips I took to Darfur with Samantha Power in late Spring 2004, we met a woman, Amina, cooking on the ground. She had fled her village during an attack. Her husband had been shot as soon as he left their hut. She had two of her children on her back and the other two in her arms as about Janjaweed chased her on camels. First they ripped her five year-old, Adom, from her, and when she stopped running and begged for her child, they told her they would shoot her. So she continued running away from her village that was up in flames. The Janjaweed then tossed Adom into the fire. He was screaming and calling her name, but she just kept runing. Despite her speed, her seven year-old, Asam Mohamed, was taken then and shot, once in his side and once in his back. She was never able to bury her children." - John Prendegrast, Not on our Watch, 2007, p. 80

I will admit that I have momentary lapses of the important things in life. I won't deny that I like little gadgets and video games and books and food, etc. I am an American and I am allowed these little pleasures (if I can afford them, that is - but that is an entirely different post). However, we really need to grasp reality in this country. Get our heads out of our asses and start taking notice at what is going on immediately around us, and off in the distance. We should all take part in making this world a safer, happier place.

Choose what it is you care about and DO SOMETHING. The world (and the planet, for that matter) is counting on you.

Obama's People

So, after the glorious inauguration yesterday, I was browsing though the New York Time's special magazine edition - Obama's People. I came across a face I am all too familiar with: SAMANTHA POWER!!!!!!

I'm a big fan of Samantha Power (she's Irish!). She is a top foreign policy expert from Harvard, and to be more specific, she is a genocide expert. Her fist book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide; is a book I have referenced many times while writing papers in my undergrad. It is a seamless account of all the genocides since Armenia, and how the U.S. was or was not involved.


Anywho, this probably means nothing for any of you. However - I feel like this is a HUGE step in the right direction for Darfur and the countless other human rights atrocities that are occurring around the globe. This, to me, shows that Obama is genuinely concerned about these stupid violent acts.


My Human Diversity teacher also shared with us that he has worked with Barack and Michelle in Chicago. He wanted to give us his opinion on our new President, and the best thing he could say about the man was that he genuinely listens. Can you imagine a President that listens to his people??


WOOHOO!

Scream Bloody Murder

SET YOUR DVRs!!

(CNN) -- They share a deep sorrow: an idealistic American who tried to protect the Kurds of Iraq, a Canadian general who refused to follow orders in Rwanda, a French priest who fought for the soul of Cambodia.

CNN's Christiane Amanpour traveled to the killing fields of Europe, Africa and Asia for "Scream Bloody Murder."

Each one tried to focus the world's attention on the world's most heinous crime: genocide. Each time, they were shunned, ignored or told it was someone else's problem.

To understand why, CNN's Christiane Amanpour traveled to the killing fields of Europe, Africa and Asia for a two-hour documentary, "Scream Bloody Murder."

Having reported on mass atrocities around the world, this time Amanpour traced the personal accounts of those who tried to stop the slaughter.

The yearlong CNN investigation found that instead of using a U.N. treaty outlawing genocide as a springboard to action, political leaders have invoked reason after reason to make intervention seem unnecessary, pointless and even counter-productive. Map: See the locations featured in the documentary »

December marks the 60th anniversary of the U.N.'s Genocide Convention, when -- in the aftermath of the Holocaust -- the nations of the world pledged to prevent and punish future attempts to eliminate ethnic, religious and national groups. Read the 1948 Genocide Convention (pdf)

"The Genocide Convention should have stopped genocide, but it didn't," said Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel. Intervention is a daunting challenge, he believes, because of a tendency to minimize accounts from refugees and victims. "It's better not to believe, because if you believe, you don't sleep nights. And how can you eat? How can you drink a glass of wine when you know?" See images from locations in the documentary »

1970s: Cambodia

Father François Ponchaud was a Catholic missionary in Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge guerillas -- communist revolutionaries -- seized power in 1975. They expelled all foreigners from the country.

But working from France, Ponchaud gathered refugee accounts and monitored radio broadcasts to document the slave labor, torture and executions the Khmer Rouge were using to kill one-fourth of Cambodia's population.

He published his findings in a major French newspaper and wrote a book, "Year Zero." But even so, Ponchaud tells Amanpour, "No one believed us."

1980s: Iraq

CNN found that intervention is often weighed against political and economic costs.

Declassified U.S. government documents show that while Saddam Hussein was gassing Iraqi Kurds, the U.S. opposed punishing Iraq with a trade embargo because it was cultivating Iraq as an ally against Iran and as a market for U.S. farm exports.

According to Peter Galbraith, then an idealistic Senate staffer determined to stop Hussein from committing genocide, the Reagan administration "got carried away with their own propaganda. They began to believe that Saddam Hussein could be a reliable partner." Read once-secret U.S. documents

1990s: Bosnia

Even extensive news coverage may not lead to intervention.

During the violent breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the media reported on the Bosnian Serbs' ethnic cleansing of Muslims: the siege of Sarajevo, the concentration camps, the use of rape as a weapon of war.

It was like watching "a color remake of the black-and-white scenes we'd seen in World War II," said U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke, whose Jewish grandfather fled Germany when Adolf Hitler came to power.

Holbrooke was an early advocate for a U.S.-led military operation against the Bosnian Serbs.

"I took a stand that I believed was correct," he told Amanpour. "I didn't think it was so controversial."

But it would take three years -- and the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica -- for Holbrooke to make his case within the Clinton administration.

1994: Rwanda

In Rwanda, where Hutu soldiers and militias massacred their Tutsi countrymen, the Clinton administration tried to avoid characterizing the ethnic slaughter as genocide.

According to an internal memo, the State Department worried that under the 1948 Genocide Convention, using the term "genocide" could force the U.S. "to actually 'do something.'"

The head of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Rwanda, Canadian Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, begged for additional troops. Instead of reinforcements, Dallaire got an order to withdraw completely. He would not leave Rwanda.

"I refused a legal order," he told Amanpour, "but it was immoral." His tiny U.N. force was not enough to stop the slaughter of more than 800,000 people.

2003: Darfur

Some human rights advocates consider Darfur, the western region of Sudan, to be the scene of the first genocide of the 21st century.

The atrocities in Darfur grow out of a civil war between rebels from Sudan's African tribes and the country's Arab-led government.

In 2003, when the rebels attacked government outposts in Darfur, a U.N. human rights monitor warned that in the "escalating conflict," Sudan's government may be "engaged in ... ethnic cleansing aimed at eliminating African tribes from Darfur."

At the time, world attention was on Iraq, where the United States was fighting to overthrow Saddam Hussein. The early warning on Darfur "disappeared into a big hole," according to Mukesh Kapila, then the U.N.'s top official in Sudan.

Even when the U.N. Security Council put Darfur on its agenda, it took more than three years to authorize a robust peacekeeping force.

"There was no lack of information," says activist Eric Reeves. "There was a lack of will to stop genocide."

In July, the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court accused Sudan's president of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, charges Sudan denies. Read the ICC prosecutor's charges (pdf)

How will history judge the world's response to Darfur?

"It will applaud the young people ... who believe in solidarity," says Wiesel. "It will certainly criticize the leaders of the world."

And the next time somebody screams bloody murder to stop a genocide, will anyone listen?

Brooke Fraser

Last night, the topic in Human Behavior class was empowerment, so professor asked what empowered us. I told him my drive for educating ppl about genocide, however that is expressed in behavioral terms. The turning point for me was seeing the movie Hotel Rwanda. After class, Sharon told me about Brooke Fraser, a New Zealand songstress who visited (and continues to visit every year) Rwanda. She met a man there who urged her to meet an orphan named Albertine. Albertine touched Brooke deeply, and they asked her to tell the world about what she saw in their country. She made the promise, and released an album named Albertine, named after the sweet orphan. The title track shares the name, and the song is beautiful

ALBERTINE

I am sitting still
I think of Angelique
Her mother’s voice over me
And the bullets in the wall where it fell silent

And on a thousandth hill
I think of Albertine
There in her eyes what I don’t see
With my own

Rwanda

CHORUS
Now that I have seen
I am responsible
Faith without deeds is dead
Now that I have held you
In my own arms
I cannot let go ‘til you are

I am on a plane
Across a distant sea
But I carry you in me
And in the dust on, the dust on my feet

Rwanda

CHORUS

Bridge
And I’ll tell the world
I will tell them where I’ve been
I will keep my word
I will tell them, Albertine

CHORUS

I am on a stage
A thousand eyes on me
I will tell them, Albertine
I will tell them, Albertine

The video

The lyrics "now that I have seen, I am responsible" are so inherently true across all social issues. It is our job to educate other about injustices. We can't turn a blind eye. We have an obligation to humanity to try...

SO GET WITH IT! Help Darfur, the DRC, Burma, Iraq - and countless others!
STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition
Genocide Intervention Network

Vote for Adam Sterling for the Teen Choice Awards!

Adam Sterling, founder of GI-Net, has been nominated for a Teen Choice Award (airing August 4th on FOX and hosted by Hanna Montana) for his work with the Sudan Divestment Task Force, which is a project of GI-NET. The winner – which will be selected through online voting – will receive $90,000 for their organization!

Please help GI-NET win $90,000 by asking family and friends that are between the ages of 13-19 to vote for Adam Sterling and GI-NET at: www.teenchoiceawards.com/dosomething. You can vote once a day per email address until August 1st (and please forward this message to your friends and family).

Because you are officially required to be 13-19 to vote, if a year before 1989 or after 1995 is selected for date of birth you will not be able to vote.

Over the past few years, GI-NET has raised over $500,000 for civilian protection in Darfur and our membership has grown to over 50,000 people around the world. Through our work with the Sudan Divestment Task Force at least 25 states, 19 major U.S. cities, and 59 universities have adopted policies restricting their Sudan investments. Last year, our movement spread overseas, with ongoing targeted Sudan divestment campaigns in 18 countries. All of the major presidential candidates have divested their personal holdings and we even got President Bush involved when he signed the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act of 2007!

Thanks again for your continued support and taking the time to help GI-NET win $90,000 by asking family and friends that are between the ages of 13-19 to vote for Adam Sterling and GI-NET at: www.teenchoiceawards.com/dosomething.