Never Again?

There is a calamity every bit as horrifying and hideous as any in the bloody history of genocide in the 20th, now 21st century. The events in the Darfur region of the Sudan continue only because too few join the outcry against the mutilation, rape, and murder of thousands upon thousands of human beings.

After World War II civilized people everywhere joined the cry or moral outrage, “Never Again!” Sadly, it is happening again. And maybe too far away for many to care. Further even than the genocide in Bosnia it is happening in the Sudan, a country many Americans would have trouble locating on a map. It is occurring in a country with little current economic value to the U.S., so it doesn’t occupy the headlines every day. It doesn’t affect the price of gasoline so we can forget about it most of the time. And sadly, it is happening to black people. Because blacks are a minority in this country, a smaller number of Americans have family members who are affected. Darfur struggles to stay in the news even as Darfuris struggle to stay alive.

Rape, physical mutilation, torture, starvation, and fear make up the fabric of the lives of over two million people. And it goes on. And on. “Never Again!” has turned into “Not Again!.” And it goes on day after day after day, rape after rape, mutilation after mutilation, death after death.

And it will continue until enough good people say it must stop or until all the people are gone.

Never again or not again, and again, and again…