Staring out at a crowd measured in the tens of thousands, radio talk show host Joe Madison set the tone for Sunday’s rally in Washington, DC, to stop the genocide in Darfur.
“This is not about Democrats; this is not about Republicans,” said Madison, serving as the rally’s master of ceremonies. “This is not about conservatives; this is not about liberals. It is not about blacks, it is not about whites, it is not about religion. It is about genocide.”
The effort to stop that genocide — a slaughter of some 300,000 African Muslims by militias backed by Sudan’s Arab government — drew Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and a disproportionate number of Jews to the packed lawns between the United States Capitol and the Washington Monument.
They cheered the political and religious leaders who addressed the rally, demanding that the United States, the United Nations, and the African Union act forcefully to end the rape and slaughter in Darfur.
With the genocide in Darfur topping the Jewish community’s national agenda, an unmistakable Jewish presence ran through Sunday’s rally. Organized by the Save Darfur Coalition, a collection of 150 faith-based advocacy and humanitarian aid organizations initiated by two Jewish agencies, the roster of speakers included Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel; Ruth Messinger, president of the American Jewish World Service; and Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
Those behind the Save Darfur Coalition say Sunday’s rally aimed to galvanize a multinational peacekeeping force to stop the attacks and ensure that humanitarian aid be delivered.
Madison, a radio talk show host known as the “Black Eagle,” observed that President George Bush had written the words “not on my watch” in the margin of a briefing paper about Rwandan genocide.
“I urge President Bush and the leaders of the world — please, move this genocide from the margins of your reports to the center of your consciousness.”
In a keynote address, Wiesel made explicit the link between recent genocides and the Holocaust.
“In Rwanda we could have saved 600,000 to 800,000 men, women, and children, and we did not, and the world should be ashamed for that,” Wiesel said. “We are here because in Darfur, families are being starved and uprooted, children tormented and slaughtered in the thousands, and the eyes of the world remain indifferent to their plight. We refuse to be silent. Remember, silence helps the killers, never the victims.”
Wiesel, describing Darfur as “the world’s capital of human suffering,” said, “Not to urge our government to intervene in any manner is to condemn us on grounds of immorality. Darfur deserves to live.”
In his remarks, Saperstein recalled the iconic 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“We, as Jews, whose people have been the quintessential victims of ethnic cleansing and genocide, join with this magnificent rainbow of people with conscience, to speak of ongoing nightmares,” he said. “I have a nightmare today that because of the world’s apathy and indifference, more villages will be scorched, more wells poisoned, and 100,000 more Darfurians murdered. I have a nightmare that thousands more women will be raped as a calculated weapon of war. Will you let that happen?”
The crowd roared back, “No.”
James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute in Washington, said he was proud to be part of a multiethnic coalition. “Our generation has shown the ability to inflict great pain and cause enormous suffering. But at the same time, we have demonstrated the ability to reach out with compassion. We have witnessed unspeakable tragedy — the Holocaust and Hiroshima. There was Cambodia and Rwanda and Sarajevo.” He called on the crowd to “support the suffering and the vulnerable and demand an end to injustice.”
New York political gadfly and perennial candidate the Rev. Al Sharpton also picked up on the multiethnic theme.
“We are here today because the world needs to see people of all races, all religions, and all political parties and backgrounds come together and say, ‘Despite our differences, we will not remain separate when in the face of genocide in Darfur,’” said Sharpton. “We cannot sit comfortably in our homes knowing that anywhere in the world innocent blood is being shed.”
Messinger, a prime organizer of
the rally, said her organization was “committed to help the people who languish in refugee camps, the victims of a genocide the world continues to ignore. We are determined to engage with all of you to stop this genocide.”
She thanked the audience for their commitment. “Each and every one of you has become an up-stander who takes responsibility to make change and pursue justice. I call on you to shun silence and embrace activism. Keep speaking out and continue to move toward a world that should be — a world without genocide, a world where rape is no longer a weapon, a world where people are not left to starve, a world that makes real the promise ‘never again.’”
As he looked out on the massive crowd, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) remarked, “What a magnificent sight.”
Noting there was “so much want, so much conflict, so much cruelty,” Obama said, “We can’t always tell who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. We are sometimes tempted to withdraw to our own private lives. But this is not one of those times. We know what is right and what is wrong. The slaughter of innocents is wrong. Women gang-raped while gathering firewood is wrong. Silence, acquiescence, and paralysis in the face of genocide are wrong.”
‘We care in NJ’
New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, an outspoken advocate for the people of Darfur since the time he served as a U.S senator, urged the crowd to applaud his state for a 2005 law requiring the state treasury to divest an estimated $1 billion in pension funds from companies doing business in Sudan.
“We care in New Jersey. We had the first divestiture law. We are standing up against genocide in Darfur every day. There can be no ambivalence. There can be no excuse for 300,000 lost lives and one million displaced. We say no. We cannot stand by while the blood of our neighbor is shed.”
Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), a Holocaust survivor, said the rally-goers “came out to tell the oppressors, ‘We shall no longer mourn this genocide. We shall stop it.’”
Flanked by a bipartisan delegation, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she and other members of Congress from both parties “traveled to Darfur and saw the people in refugee camps. Now, today, because of you, the eyes of the world are on those refugee camps, and the eyes of the world are on all of us to see what we will do about it.”
Noting that “some of us agree with the president on nothing — but we agree on stopping genocide in Darfur,” Pelosi urged the administration to implement a part of the Darfur Accountability Act that calls for sending a special American envoy to Sudan. “We believe that will signal that stopping the genocide is a priority for the United States of America.”
Rep. Frank Wolfe (R-Va.), one of the congressional visitors to Darfur, joined Pelosi in urging the Bush administration “to do as much as we can do. We need a special envoy to focus on this like a laser beam.”
One of the first members of Congress to press the issue of Darfur, Democrat Donald Payne of New Jersey’s Dist. 10, asked the crowd: “How would you like to see the fires, see scores of men and women and children being killed, being brutalized, being raped — their cattle being killed, their water being poisoned, their crops being destroyed?” he asked. “This must stop now.”
Perhaps the most eagerly anticipated speaker of the afternoon was actor George Clooney, who, along with his father, Nick, a former television news anchor, returned from a fact-finding tour of Darfur less than a week before the rally.
“The U.S. policy on Sudan, the United Nations, and the world’s policy are failing,” said Clooney. “If we turn away, then we will have history to judge us. My father and I are proud to stand with you, and we will stand with you until this travesty has ended.”
Nick Clooney told the audience that the Darfurians “are all by themselves — thousands of people hanging on by the most gossamer of threads. They cannot think or plan beyond water for tomorrow, shelter for tomorrow, food for tomorrow, and rudimentary medical help for their children for tomorrow. But the Sudanese government has not only deserted them but turned loose those brutal and bloodthirsty bullies of the new century — the Janjaweed.
“The Darfurians are determined people, fiercely proud. Now they are dependent on the kindness of strangers,” he said. “All they want to do is go home in peace. First and foremost, they want protection. There is nothing we can do for them if they are dead, and they are dying every day.”
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