May 1, 2006
JACKSONIANISM IS COLOR BLIND:
Rally decries Darfur killings (Amy Doolittle and Arlo Wagner, 5/01/06, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
Religious organizations, political groups and foreign nationals led thousands of people in a rally yesterday on the Mall to urge U.S. leaders to help end the widespread killings in Sudan's Darfur region.
The rally brought together an unusual coalition of about 160 Catholic, evangelical, Muslim and Jewish organizations and Democratic and Republican lawmakers to help stop what many have called "a genocide."
"This issue crosses every religion, every race, every age," said Rinat Manhoff, 28, who came with about 200 people from Temple Micah in Northwest. "And now there is no excuse for the world not to do something about it."
Divisions Cast Aside in Cry for Darfur: Mall Rally Highlights Growing Concern (Sudarsan Raghavan, May 1, 2006, Washington Post)
Clutching signs that read "Never Again," thousands of protesters from across religious and political divides descended on the Mall yesterday along with celebrities and politicians to urge President Bush to take stronger measures to end the violence in Sudan's Darfur region that the United States has labeled genocide.They wore skullcaps, turbans, headscarves, yarmulkes, baseball hats and bandanas. There were pastors, rabbis, imams, youths from churches and youths from synagogues. They cried out phrases in Arabic and held signs in Hebrew. But on this day, they said, they didn't come out as Jews or Muslims, Christians or Sikhs, Republicans or Democrats.
They came out as one, they said, to demand that the Bush administration place additional sanctions on Sudan and push harder for a multinational peacekeeping force to be sent to Darfur.
They're all just Americans and that means advocating a unilateral moralist crusade in some country whose only offense is not having the regime or respect for human rights that we require of them.
MORE:
Action needed on Darfur (The Scotsman, 5/01/06)
[L]ast night, as the deadline set by mediators for a deal passed, the two main rebel groups said they would not sign the agreement as it stands. [...]The lack of action by the international community to address this on-going humanitarian crisis has been shocking given the moral duty to intervene in situations where a government turns on its own people in such a blatant and horrifying way.
So it is now the responsibility of the United Nations and the African Union to keep up the pressure on Sudan to ensure the rebels' fears that the government will not live up to its promises do not come true.
Nope. Just the Anglosphere. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 1, 2006 7:17 AM
Norman Geras has the goods.
The only remaining hope for the people of Darfur have is to immediately declare themselves in favor of Israel's destruction.
The only question is whether they will be able to make such a declaration in time, and sufficiently convincingly.
Posted by: Barry Meislin at May 1, 2006 7:55 AMWe should move all the Palestinians to Sudan. They'll have lots of room, and they can kill as many Sudanese as they want. Plus, they'll finally have oil. They can repay the Arab world for all the love they have been shown for the past 60 years.
Posted by: ratbert at May 1, 2006 11:07 AMrat:
Close--we should have made the Jewish Homeland in Uganda as was bandied about.
Posted by: oj at May 1, 2006 12:01 PM Heck, OJ, if we're wishing for ponies, the Jewish homeland should have been A & L(those two border states the French and Germans kept fighting over).
But that would have been a little too Just.