Bob Herbert, Op-Ed Columnist for the NYT had another gut wrenching, heartbreaking column yesterday. Both he and Nicholas Kristof continue to write about the horror in Dafur, but as Herbert says, the real problem these days is overload. There is a danger that even the most decent of people can grow numb to the unending reports of atrocities occurring all around the globe. Mass rape, mass murder, torture and the institutionalized oppression of women – no one wants to hear about it or read about it.
It’s all too easy to focus on the other things in the world – a ballgame, a graduation, the ballet, a trip to a fun place, happy visits with friends and relatives and the tendency to draw an impenetrable psychic curtain across the worst that the world has to offer is surely understandable. But as Elie Wiesel has cautioned, it’s a tendency that must be fought.
The stories that are told by women in Dafur are so horrendous, the atrocities so unthinkable no one wants to hear them. But Mr. Wiesel has warned us so eloquently about the dangers inherent in indifference to the suffering of others. Stories of atrocities on the scale of those coming out of Darfur cannot be told too often. As he said in a speech at the White House in 1999, “It is so much easier to look away from victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes.”
But indifference to the suffering of others “is what makes the human being, inhuman”, he said, adding: “The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees – not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity, we betray our own.”
Go to Darfuriwomen.org. The header says it all -- They Spoke. We Listened. You Respond. Their Voices Must Be Heard.
Sylvia's world in thoughts and pictures
I miss you Sam!!
I miss you Sam!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What Can I Say?
I'm interested in almost everything. Use to like to travel, but it's too expensive now. I take Tai Chi classes, swim, volunteer in a Jump-start program for pre-schoolers. I'm an avid reader and like nearly everyone these days I follow politics avidly. I'm a former teacher and Special Projects Coordinator for a Telecommunications company, Assistant to the President of a Japanese silicon wafer manufacturing company. Am now enjoying retirement -- most of the time. I have two daughters, one son-in-law and two sons scattered all over the country. No grandchildren.
6 comments:
it does becoming overwhelming
which is when I always try to take a deep breath and remind myself that I would want people to speak out for me
and then I do what I can, the best I can
thanks Sylvia for always being a voice for the world
"...in denying their humanity, we betray our own". Wow. We'd all be better people, if we took those words to heart--about everyone.
Thanks, Sylvia. A difficult post and topic, but so vital. The world is full of heartbreak.
We all need to keep reminding each other and keep supporting each other to make the world a place where all are safe and have enough. Thanks for this, sylvia!
This was an important post, Sylvia. There are celebrities like Richard Gere and others who have tried to call attention to injustices and actually been belittled for it. You're right that unless we learn about these inhumanities and try to correct them, it will continue forever.
Sylvia, we both read the same op-ed pieces and I agree with you and with Bob Herbert. Sometimes the horror is so terrifying that we want to shut it out and not think about it.
I am reminded of the famous quote about the Holocaust ending with "there was no one left to speak for me." We must all speak for the victims of man's inhumanity to man.
Hi Sylvia,
I think that despite the tragedies that befall many Americans, we are a country that is immune to the day-to-day horrors that are committed against others of our species.
Mass rape and murder are incomprehensible in America; and yet they happen in Darfur. I have come to realize that evil has no race, color or ethnicity. It is an act which sickens and disturbs me.
Please look at If it's not murder, what is it? I would urge all your readers to cry out against the atrocities which take place in Darfur.
U
Post a Comment