Darfur

A friend recently co-authored an op-ed piece on Darfur, Sudan, that was published in The News & Observer from Raleigh and in the Contra Costa Times. The piece is reproduced in full in a post , "'Hotel Rwanda' Morally Implicates Us All," at a website that keeps track of what's happening in Darfur, Sudan: Passion of the Present.

The op-ed piece encourages people to watch the movie "Hotel Rwanda" in light of the current situation in Darfur. The authors point out

what is most important about the film's depiction of recent history -- namely, that genocide is a moral issue that implicates us all.

Preventing and ending it is our task as moral agents, a task that cannot be outsourced to diplomats or saints.

To place genocide in the moral realm acknowledges that it results from the intents, decisions and choices of people. While a variety of choices culminated in the 1994 genocide, the Clinton administration, when confronted by the facts, chose not to stop the bloodletting. [...]

"Hotel Rwanda" also can inform our actions in the present. In fact, Rwanda has much to teach us with regard to the current massacre in the Darfur region of Sudan, where an estimated 70,000 Darfurians have died and another 1.8 million have been internally displaced by government-sponsored militia.

The authors, Tiffney Marley and Tammy Williams, both from Duke University, lay out how ordinary U.S. citizens can respond and then exhort churches to take action.

As active Christians in the church community, we especially urge churches to prioritize genocide as a "pro-life" issue. It is ironic that some congregations in our own black church tradition who observe Black History Month have neglected to address black-history-in-the-making in contemporary Africa.

Please read the full article and respond.