THE CRISIS IN DARFUR | RABBI DAVID STERN

Our tradition commands, “You shall not stand idly by while your neighbor bleeds.”

From the Study of Rabbi David Stern

By now you have seen them: the colorful pins that people are wearing at Temple, around Dallas, across the country. They are called Dolls for Darfur. Sometimes the dolls adorn pins. Sometimes they adorn the outsized postcards sent to our senators and representatives in Washington – each postcard studded with hundreds of dolls, each doll representing one of the hundreds of lives lost each day as a result of genocidal violence in Western Sudan. Each doll sent, each pin purchased or worn, each pin made by our own volunteers, represents the men, women and children whose lives have vanished into the darkness of mass graves and the fire of burning huts. But the dolls are bright and colorful, because commitment and hope shed a stubborn light.

Under the leadership of our congregant Julie Silverman, Temple Emanu-El began the Dolls for Darfur project late in the spring, and it has now become a national project of the Reform movement. Our volunteers at Temple are sending doll-making kits and educational and advocacy materials to congregations and organizations across the country. We have tried to act quickly because the crisis is so dire, and because this is one case where compelling advocacy – moving our government to play an even more active role in resolving the crisis – can actually save lives. For the past two years, the government of Sudan has conducted a scorched earth attack on rebel groups in Darfur, supporting and sponsoring militias known as the Janjaweed in a horrific and calculated campaign of slaughter, rape, starvation and displacement. The Janjaweed are systematically eliminating entire communities of tribal farmers. Villages are being razed, women and girls raped and branded, men and boys murdered, and food and water supplies targeted and destroyed. Victims report that government air strikes frequently precede militia raids. The militias have targeted specific ethnic groups, and have been known not only to drive villagers into displacement camps, but then to target the displacement camps themselves. In recent months, the government forces have encircled the camps and denied access to UN aid agencies and other humanitarian groups. Estimates vary, but a conservative count seems to be that at least 200,000 people have died as a result of violence or malnutrition related to the siege, and more than a million and half people have been forced to flee from their homes

Darfur is bleeding. People are dying. Atrocities take place on a daily basis, the perpetrators acting with total impunity. The published pictures tell the story – an emaciated infant in a refugee camp that aid cannot reach; a toddler wearing an orange top and shorts with blue sneakers – murdered in a village raid; a skeleton with hands still bound above its head, clothes still pushed to its knees.

Making or wearing a pin is only the beginning of what we can do. Dolls for Darfur, unlike a lot of vogue wrist-band buying efforts, is not primarily a fund raiser for relief. It is an advocacy effort designed to promote and provoke actions that will save lives. Specifically, the goal of Dolls for Darfur is the passage of the Darfur Accountability Act by the U.S. Senate (S 495) and its counterpart in the House of Representatives (HR1424). (In Texas, as of this writing, Senator Hutchison has signed on as a co-sponsor of S 495; Senator Cornyn has not.) Each bill has bi-partisan support, and together they call for a UN Security Council Resolution that would urge targeted sanctions against the government of Sudan, the establishment of a military no-fly zone over Darfur, and perhaps most important, a larger and stronger African Union force to combat and quell the violence of the Janjaweed militias.

This is not some eternal, endemic and hopeless problem. This is mass murder, taking place right now, that will end either because the family of nations ends it or because there will be no tribal groups left for the Janjaweed to kill. The atrocities in Sudan today do not continue because of a lack of information, or even a lack of recognition, but because of a lack of will. Our actions can save lives. Wear a pin. Send a postcard. Go to www.dollsfordarfur.org or call Rabbi Goldenberg’s office and learn how you can become part of the solution. Our tradition commands, “You shall not stand idly by while your neighbor bleeds.” Whether we heed that command is up to us.