Darfur: Living With The Knowledge

This morning I got out of bed and thought about skipping church. This morning a 12 year old boy was maimed for his genes. Yesterday, I was tired so I took a nap. Yesterday, a woman was raped right next to her dead husband. It was her genes. Darfur is so far away and their reality is even further. Hundreds of thousands have been brutally killed. Many were young boys. It is a genocide. It is a hate crime. It is Cain killing Able.

I’ve been reading about Darfur for close to a year. There are shows, albums and newspaper headlines dedicated to the slaughter going on. I have tried to live with empathy for the struggles going on in the region. I even made my middleschool computer class make posters and write an article using Microsoft Publisher and Word. Most of them couldn’t pronounce the Country’s name and a few were bored and frustrated with the project. Yet, I still feel guilty that I haven’t done anything about it and I don’t really feel their struggle.

I suppose this describes most of us. Horrible acts such as genocide does not resonate within us. No matter how hard we try and want to, our lives continuously revolves around our own segment of the world. This truth was probably easier to swallow before the internet and live news broadcasts, but it is something that we have to face. How do we handle knowing about Darfur, which is located halfway around the globe, and continuing to live in our world?