The images from Sudan are horrific: wounded, starving, diseased adults; skeletal, dying infants. Some people have referred to this as “ethnic cleansing,” and the U.S. called it “genocide.” Since 2003, an estimated 400,000 Africans have been massacred by the state-sanctioned Janjaweed (“men on horses”), many of them through savage torture. Many men had their eyes poked out. Countless women were raped, and if they refused, their arms and legs were broken. Children were mutilated while others perished from famine and disease. Two million people have been displaced from their homes and villages.
As youngsters, many of us could not fathom how the world remained silent as six million Jews were taken to their deaths. How was it that even among many Jews apathy prevailed? How, we wondered, could anybody go to sleep at night knowing that tomorrow another 12,000 Jews (as was the number in 1944) would be gassed?
But human nature knows all too cruelly how to detach. One of the tragic ironies of life: As many of us get ready to enjoy a serene weekend, in Darfur others will brace for rape, torture and death.
Auschwitz and Darfur
The images from Sudan are horrific: wounded, starving, diseased adults; skeletal, dying infants. Some people have referred to this as “ethnic cleansing,” and the U.S. called it “genocide.” Since 2003, an estimated 400,000 Africans have been massacred by the state-sanctioned Janjaweed (“men on horses”), many of them through savage torture. Many men had their eyes poked out. Countless women were raped, and if they refused, their arms and legs were broken. Children were mutilated while others perished from famine and disease. Two million people have been displaced from their homes and villages.
As youngsters, many of us could not fathom how the world remained silent as six million Jews were taken to their deaths. How was it that even among many Jews apathy prevailed? How, we wondered, could anybody go to sleep at night knowing that tomorrow another 12,000 Jews (as was the number in 1944) would be gassed?
But human nature knows all too cruelly how to detach. One of the tragic ironies of life: As many of us get ready to enjoy a serene weekend, in Darfur others will brace for rape, torture and death.
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