Not on Our Watch

by Don Cheadle

  People cannot be expected to care about or act upon something they are unaware of. As these numbers attest, it is not enough to assume the mainstream news media will reach the greatest number of citizens or that they will convey the urgency of a situation. From the smallest gestures, such as talking with a friend, to larger-scale efforts, such as sponsoring a public forum, raising awareness is the key to ending the crisis. It is the first, critical step to affecting change.

  And not everyone can be an Eric Reeves, dropping everything to dedicate his every waking moment (and probably a large portion of his agitated dreams) to the people of Sudan. Postcards, green wristbands, banners, op-eds in local papers, flyers, and speaking with friends about events in Sudan are all effective means of getting the word out and activism up. Remember: even small gestures can have great significance. For instance, Eleanor Kumin, a 17-year-old living in the Washington, DC, area, convinced her family to buy Save Darfur wristbands and information cards and hand them out at their annual December party. ‘The family felt so good about what they were doing that they have been handing out bracelets to friends at every opportunity since,’ Eleanor explained.

  Sometimes, those small actions inspire larger movements.

  Action Begins at Home

  Larissa Peltola demonstrates perfectly that you don’t need a Ph.D., an influential post in the White House, or even to have finished elementary school to make a difference. This ten-year-old Los Angeles resident has been an advocate for Darfur and other human rights issues for the past five years. Larissa is growing up with the unusual after-school playground of Amnesty International’s offices, where her mother, our friend Bonnie Abaunza, works as director of Artists for Amnesty. Bonnie was responsible for our meeting at a premiere of Hotel Rwanda. When she first overheard her mom working tirelessly on human rights cases, Larissa was scared and upset, but she thought, Wow, I need to tell everyone about this so we can make a difference. Larissa has been creatively working to ‘make a difference,’ from writing her papers at school on Darfur and reading them in front of her class, to holding garage sales and selling her massive Barbie collection to raise money for Darfurian refugees. With the wisdom of optimism, Larissa says, ‘You just have to stand up for what is right and fight for what you believe in. No matter how young you are or old you are, you can make a difference if you put your heart into it.’

  When Beverly Collins received a severance notice from her former employer several years ago, her first thoughts were not of how to find a new job, but of her passion for painting pictures, especially of women. It was this same passion that compelled her to paint images of Darfuri women. ‘As I looked at their faces when I was beginning to paint them, I saw the hurt and the atrocities put upon them,’ she says. Having only seen images of the brutality occurring in Darfur sporadically through newspapers and media, Collins felt an urge to tell people about what was going on. She now shows her exhibit, ‘The Invisible Women of Darfur,’ hoping to ‘inspire viewers to help with the cause.’

  For Melinda Koster of Pomona College in Claremont, California, it began with bread and a simple note. Stunned at the lack of discussion about Sudan on her campus, she and fellow student Ellie Winkelman began ‘Challah for Hunger,’ a weekly fund-raiser selling home-baked challah bread for the price of writing a letter about Darfur to a government official. The success of ‘Challah’ led to similar groups forming at the other five Claremont colleges. This, in turn, led to a T-shirt campaign. More than 25,000 shirts have been sold nationally online already. Since late 2004, students at the Claremont Colleges have sold over 2,000 shirts on campus—raising more than $8,000 for refugees in Darfur. Not satisfied with just motivating her fellow students, Koster coordinated with four other friends a ‘Road Trip for Sudan’ to raise awareness among high school students and average citizens, to gather signatures for a petition, and to fund-raise throughout California. The ‘Road Trip’ has inspired efforts at other universities across the country.

  Colleen Connors decided to take the message to commuters. She had followed the situation in Sudan for some time, but at first felt that ‘such a big issue can make people feel so small. I wanted to do something but couldn’t figure out what that was.’ It was on a drive near her home in Bethesda, Maryland, that she realised how she could help. When she saw a banner outside a synagogue that read ‘Save Darfur,’ she says, ‘I almost crashed my car.’ It was at that moment that she decided that ‘every house of worship should have that banner. Anyone from a mom in a minivan to our congressional representatives works and lives in the area. It could reach a lot of people,’ she notes. Her logic—when someone sees the banner but doesn’t know what or where Darfur is, they will try to find out. Her initial goal was modest: get a banner up in as many synagogues and churches in the DC area as possible. Through the Internet, interest outside the Beltway grew. Now she is working with several organisations, including Save Darfur, selling hundreds of banners across the country that read, ‘A call to your conscience: Save Darfur.’

  In October 2005 when a group of students heard that the government of Sudan had hired Robert Cabelly, from the lobbying firm C/R International, for $530,000, they decided to take action. One Sunday afternoon they visited the neighbourhood where Cabelly lives and went from house to house leaving flyers for Cabelly’s neighbours letting them know whom their neighbour was representing. A month later, students held a bake sale outside his office to help raise money for C/R International and Cabelly so they would no longer have to represent the government of Sudan to earn a living. While the students did not quite raise $530,000 with their baked goods, shortly after the bake sale Cabelly stopped representing the Sudanese government.

  Many Sudanese have played a significant role in raising Americans’ awareness and understanding of the crisis in Darfur. John’s friend Omer Ismail is a human rights activist from Darfur. He has co-founded two organisations—the Sudan Democratic Forum and Darfur Peace and Development (http://www.darfurpeaceand development.org/home.php)—which encourage dialogue and action on democracy, peace, and human rights in Sudan. When the situation in Darfur began to deteriorate in 2003, Omer went into overdrive. He devoted himself for two full years to raising awareness and testifying about the atrocities being perpetrated in Darfur for panels, student organisations, the United Nations, and the US government.

  Seven Deadly Sins of Human Rights Advocates

  Beware of the Seven Deadly Sins of would-be human rights advocates like us. We can get pretty sanctimonious, long-winded, and overzealous. So here are some things to avoid when you are trying to make your case, whether to a politician or to a group of people you are trying to educate.

  1. Don’t be too boring! Advocacy is not like an academic conference. We need to think through how to make our presentations stand out. Tell a story, tell a joke, make what you have to say interesting. Don’t paint in black-and-white; paint in colour!

  2. Don’t be too long-winded! Most of us who get involved in advocacy could hardly be accused of being shy. We often tend to drone on just a little too long about the issues that fire us up. Zero in on the main points and be concise!

  3. Don’t be too unilateral! We often just make long presentations or speeches at our meetings and events. We need to focus on interaction with our interlocutors or audiences. After initial presentations, engage people by asking questions. Be interactive!

  4. Don’t be too complex! We often overload our message by telling everything of interest about our subject in all its glorious complexity. Pick the highlights. Make a few simple points!

  5. Don’t be too unstructured! There’s often so much to be said about our topics that we have the temptation to just blurt it all out in a stream of consciousness, sort of like hurling mud (or any other similar substance) against a wall and hoping it sticks. Instead, it is important to make a tight situation report and then present a focused set of recommendations. Make it flow!

  6. Do
n’t be too random! To a government policy maker or any audience, we need to remain focused somewhat on what our own country and our audience can do. So make sure you focus your audience or interlocutor on the two or three most important things the government can do, and how that person or group can help make it happen. Be focused!

  7. Don’t be too touchy-feely! We have to match our advocacy agenda to the big picture. We can’t just rely on the ‘because it’s the right thing to do’ argument, or simply hope that for humanitarian reasons people will respond. We also have to connect our issues to larger national interests and what politicians and citizens care about. For example, if our longer-term counterterrorism agenda is being undermined by the way in which our own country pursues this agenda in the short term, we need to shout that from the rooftops. If our promotion of freedom is going to be a central objective, then we need to demonstrate how these freedoms are being undermined and not promoted by our counterterrorism policies. Be relevant!

  Another activist from Darfur is Dr Ali Ali-Dinar, the outreach director for the African Studies Centre at the University of Pennsylvania and the president of the Sudan Studies Association. Dr. Francis Deng, a former representative of the UN Secretary-General on internally displaced persons and Ambassador from Sudan to the United States, is also a powerful voice for ending conflict in Sudan. Like Omer, they have worked tirelessly to draw attention to the brewing crisis in Darfur through public speaking, conferences, and the media.

  Simon Deng knows how harsh life in Sudan can be. Simon was nine years old when slave raiders supported by the government captured him in southern Sudan and gave him to a family in the north. Simon was a slave for three and a half years. The family forced him to perform gruelling physical labour, beat him regularly, and forced him to sleep with their farm animals. Having lived through these horrors, Simon was not surprised when he learned about the genocide in Darfur. And he was determined to do something about it.

  Simon was already well known in the early part of this decade for speaking out about southern Sudan as a strong advocate for the rights of the Sudanese people. ‘I have spoken at rallies in front of the United Nations, in Washington in front of members of Congress, and at events all across the US,’ he told us, ‘yet the problems facing Sudan continue. It is for this reason that I decided that something out of the ordinary is needed to really raise awareness.’ Simon decided to lead the Sudan Freedom Walk, a 300-mile march from New York City to Washington, DC. He began in New York City on 15 March 2006, and many people walked with him as he made his way down the East Coast. He stopped in towns and cities along the way to speak about the crisis in Darfur, and local newspapers ran stories about his trek. When he arrived in Washington in April, Senators Sam Brownback and Hillary Clinton, along with Representatives Donald Payne and Betty McCollum, joined him in a rally outside the Capitol.

  One person really can make a difference.

  Bill Andress helped found Sudan Advocacy Action Forum, and he spends about six hours a day working on Sudan-related issues. Andress became involved in Sudan when he heard a pastor from Sudan, Ezekiel Kutjok, who was touring and talking about the situation in southern Sudan. Andress realised someone had to do something, and he partnered with Bobbie Frances McDonald to start an advocacy group. Their group has about 2,500 members, half of whom are Presbyterian. Monthly they release a situation report, and once every six weeks they ask their group to do something active such as sending letters to congresspeople or the president. Andress explains, ‘Our strategy is very simple: pray, act, and give.’

  Andress is motivated to devote his life to this because of his religious beliefs. ‘After hearing about Sudan, I woke up at 3am day after day after day, worrying about nobody doing anything about it. That was ignorance speaking. I thought nobody was doing anything about it, but I was certainly not doing anything. I can imagine facing St Peter and him saying, “You didn’t do such and such,” and me responding, “I didn’t know,” but not “Yeah, I didn’t want to.”’Andress believes the atrocities in Sudan are relevant to all. ‘Even if you’re not Christian, if you have a faith at all, I think every faith requires a level of humanity. This is not just a Christian issue, it is more broadly a humanitarian issue, and this country needs to stand for what’s humanitarian.’

  The American Islamic Congress (AIC) was also motivated by religious beliefs to help the people in Darfur. ‘Protecting and defending human rights are the foundation of Islam,’ explains Jana El-Horr, DC program director of AIC. ‘This message is not true only for Arabs or Muslims, but for all of humanity. That is why it is important to have interfaith dialogues and understanding.’

  To foster such communication, AIC asked interfaith communities to lead a fast in October (during Ramadan) and break the fast together to raise funds for and awareness of Darfur. AIC also forwards newsletters from different Darfur-related organisations to its 4,000-person database, and in conjunction with the al-Khoei Foundation, AIC is trying to meet with all Muslim or Arab ambassadors to the UN to press for more action in Darfur. ‘We are impartial politically. We are looking at the human rights issues. There are people dying for over three years, and no one is doing anything.’

  Interfaith Action

  As a way of encouraging awareness, many Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and other religious organisations have organised prayer sessions or incorporated Darfur and the refugees into their services. Through meditation and/or prayer, you can deepen compassion for others, and that compassion can help bear witness to and end the suffering of others. As the Dalai Lama said, ‘The true expression of nonviolence is compassion. Some people seem to think that compassion is just a passive emotional response instead of rational stimulus to action. To experience genuine compassion is to develop a feeling of closeness to others combined with a sense of responsibility for their welfare.’

  In the Darfur campaign, prayer and meditation have been exceptional tools for reaching out to large numbers of people. These are mostly carried out within congregations, but much more could be done to promote interfaith efforts and alliances. One weekend in July 2005, through the advocacy efforts of the Save Darfur Coalition, the United States Congress recognised a National Weekend of Prayer and Reflection for Darfur. Across the country 350 communities of faith focused their prayers on those suffering in Sudan. In April 2006, Save Darfur helped organise a ‘Week of Prayer and Action for Darfur’ for communities of faith, where over 800 religious institutions participated. The Save Darfur Coalition (www.savedarfur.org) has a congressional network that you can sign up to be a part of that will send updates about how the religious community can be involved in education and advocacy efforts.

  The organisation offered suggestions for incorporating Darfur into a sermon, homily, D’var Torah (which is a brief explanation of the weekly Torah reading), or Jumuah Khutbah (the Muslim Friday prayers) and provided sample prayers on its website for institutions that participated in the effort, such as the following:

  A Prayer for Overcoming Indifference

  I watch the news, God. I observe it all from a comfortable distance. I see people suffering, and I don’t lift a finger to help them. I condemn injustice but I do nothing to fight against it. I am pained by the faces of starving children, but I am not moved enough to try to save them. I step over homeless people in the street, I walk past outstretched hands, I avert my eyes, I close my heart.

  Forgive me, God, for remaining aloof while others are in need of my assistance.

  Wake me up, God; ignite my passion, fill me with outrage. Remind me that I am responsible for Your world. Don’t allow me to stand idly by. Inspire me to act. Teach me to believe that I can repair some corner of this world.

  When I despair, fill me with hope. When I doubt my strength, fill me with faith. When I am weary, renew my spirit. When I lose direction, show me the way back to meaning, back to compassion, back to You. Amen.

  Naomi Levy

  Amy
Butler, the senior pastor at Calvary Baptist Church, not only got her DC congregation to hang up Save Darfur banners, she also committed to mentioning Darfur in her service every Sunday one fall. She sees intentionally praying for the people in Sudan and empowering her congregation to take action through donation, letter writing, or prayer as worth pushing the comfort zone of many Baptists who have a strong belief in the separation of church and state. ‘All of us can agree that this is something that we never want to see happen again. We all need to raise our voices and say this is wrong.’

  Robert Kang of The Church in Bethesda and his co-pastor April Vega were feeling overwhelmed by what they read about Darfur. It really hit home for them when they read a Washington Post article about a 14-year-old Darfurian girl who was raped. Learning about the plight of raped women in Darfur—the cultural implications of a raped woman being seen as a damaged or dirty woman—was overwhelming. ‘I remember being so struck by that that I actually took it to church and gave a talk on Sunday regarding it. I don’t know what the exact point of the talk was, but I just wanted to make the story heard and known. I knew if this had happened to my neighbour in this city, people would have been all over it, but here was a distant woman and no one was doing anything about it. What can we do?’ he wondered. ‘This little insignificant church?’

  Then he heard of five outdoor prayer services being held by his old church, Cedar Ridge Community Church, where Brian McLaren is the pastor. Inspired, Kang and Vega joined these efforts hoping that it would bring attention, media coverage, and people to join in prayer. For the services they partnered with Rabbi David Saperstein, director at the Religious Action Centre, and in this way were able to bring together a large interfaith community to discuss the situation in Darfur. More important than large numbers of participants were the stories shared, the passion of the people there, and the link of interfaith unity that was created.