posted December 11, 2007
 David Cook |
Mary is a black Christian woman living in the south of Sudan, the largest country in Africa. She is also a refugee. She is also a torture victim. She is also a rape victim. She is also a mother who had to bury her own children after they were burned to death.
Mary lives in the southern hell that is Darfur. Omar Al-Bashir, the Herod-like dictator in the north, is waging a campaign of directed ethnic cleansing _ a genocide _ against his citizens in the south. They are black African and often Christian; he, fueled by a bin-Laden-ish madness, wants a pure Arab Muslim state.
So Bashir created the death-eaters known as the Janjaweed, an armed, horse-riding militia whose name translates into ''devil on horseback.'' A long time ago, Mary was kidnapped by Bashir's army, and kept as a sex slave. She gave birth to the sons of the soldiers, and soon was pregnant again, yet this time, she birthed a daughter. Looking into her daughter's eyes, she envisioned a different life, and knew she had to escape.
One night, Mary stole away with her newborn daughter and her toddler son, tucked under each arm. She ran as fast and as far as she could, through the entire night, through the dark African desert. When the sun rose, she thought she was safe.
And then she heard the hooves.
Mary and her two children _ her infant daughter and toddler son _ hid in the bush as the Janjaweed approached. They circled their horses around her, and tossed a torch into the bush, in an attempt to burn them alive.
It worked. The last thing Mary remembers is holding her two children in her arms as they burned to death. The Janjaweed stood by and watched.
Mary awoke, somehow spared. A team of Christian missionaries found her, and tried to take her to safety. First, though, she had to do the unthinkable: take her bare hands and bury the burned bodies of her two babies.
This is one story. There are 400,000 dead people in Darfur because of Bashr's genocide. Multiply Mary's story by 400,000. Or by two million, which is the number of refugees displaced by the violence.
I know of this story because of a remarkable and graceful man named David Johnson. David is a former English teacher from Charlotte, North Carolina, who decided to truly live life by descending into Darfur. He had taught about genocide, and read works from the Holocaust, and months ago made the supreme act: he risked his life in order to stop the Darfur genocide. Smuggled in on a Russian cargo plane from Kenya, David carried his camera and notebook, and documented the stories of people living in the refugee camp.
These are people who are incredibly strong and beautiful and even joyful, David says. They are also starving, frightened and water-less to the point they must dig ten feet in the ground to find mud-water to drink (and we want to build a water park in East Ridge.)
David met Mary, and chronicled her life in his book Voices of Sudan. The book is a beautiful and haunting collection of the people he encountered in Darfur. The book is available at major booksellers and on his website www.silentimages.org, and David has refused to collect one cent in profits. All proceeds from each book go back to Darfur, into building water wells and bringing food to people who do not have any.
David's website is excellent, even linking to a scorecard for US politicians, grading them on how they have responded to the genocide. (Want to know Lamar Alexander, Zach Wamp or Bob Corker's grade? Actually, it's so frustrating, so lacking, you probably don’t.)
There are other ways to stop the genocide as well. Divestment is a strategy that calls on businesses, portfolio planners and investments to remove financial support from the Sudanese government. Currently, Franklin Templeton, JP Morgan, Chase, Fidelity, American Funds, and Vanguard are all being asked by their shareholders to divest their holdings out of Darfur and Sudan. Most frequently, these funds have invested in Chinese oil, which brings us to our next strategy.
China, which hosts the 2008 Olympics, is an underground supporter of Sudan, blocking any UN action because they are trading partners. Most of the Sudanese oil goes to China. International public pressure is being placed on China and its hypocrisy. How can you economically support genocide while hosting an Olympics, whose slogan is One World, One Dream?
Doctors Without Borders is one of the most powerful and pure aid groups on the planet; financially supporting them goes a long way.
If you are looking for a gift this season, one that reflects hope and peace and witness amidst tremendous violence, David's book is the answer. It is also the answer, the antidote, to our tremendously biased mass media, which chooses the trivial, the idiotic, the Hollywood news, over the things that matter.
On his first night back in the States, after spending days and weeks inside the eye of a genocide, David watched CNN from the airport on his layover. The top news story that day, the news story that the major networks devoted hours and hours to?
Brittney Spears and her shaved head.
The next news cycle covered the father of Anna Nicole's baby.
Imagine if every night, the news covered the genocide, never letting us forget. Imagine if every night, the news reminded us that by sundown each day, 30,000 people die from things that can be prevented.
David titled his book Voices of Sudan for that very purpose: to give a voice to the voiceless.
After the Holocaust, when the mass graves were uncovered and the gas chamber doors opened, and the stick-men living in concentration camps were fed and clothed and embraced, the world vowed: never again.
It is happening again. And David Johnson is trying to make it stop.
Please help him, and Mary, this Christmas.
(David Cook is a former journalist for the Chattanooga Times-Free Press. He currently teaches American history at Girls Preparatory School and can be reached at dcook7@gmail.com)
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