Darfur Genocide

"Today we know what is right, and today we know what is wrong. The slaughter of innocents is wrong. Two million people driven from their homes is wrong. Women gang raped while gathering firewood is wrong. And silence, acquiescence and paralysis in the face of genocide is wrong."
--Barack Obama 7/31/2006

Addressing the genocide issue at the Washington DC Rally for the Darfur Crisis

The Genocide in Darfur has been one of the most shameful atrocities ever committed in history. When the genocide in Rwanda occurred in 1994, the stunned witnesses of the event remembered that a half century prior to the genocide we had vowed "never again...", but the mass murderings repeated, similar to the Holocaust. Our mistakes, the essential flaws in society bloomed once again, causing the deaths of millions of innocent citizens. As a global community, we have failed to learn from our past mistakes. Is this not the reason for mandatory universal education children are exposed to about historical events as part of our school curriculum? So we can learn from the errors made in similar situations in the past, and never repeat them?

This is the reason why I believe that the party that should feel the burden of the deaths in the Darfur Genocide are the international communities who failed to resist. Of course many other parties are to blame including the Rwanda government, the Janjaweed, etc. But we knew that there was a problem, international communities simply took into consideration what they would benefit from not intervening (e.g. China and Russia). Even the United States did not acknowledge the fact that we need to help the situation in Darfur. As a nation, the US has the resources to help Darfur, yet when the people were in dire need of help, we were not there trying our best to provide support. Personally, I am utterly shocked by the lack of leadership and will to help those in need displayed by many international communities . I hope this never occurs in the future.

--Because we said "Never again".

The last two weeks have been busy as usual. Homework, tests, projects, quizzes, etc. In English, we had to write an argument essay and take a position on how TV affects the emotional and intellectual development of children and present quotes from sources we had researched online. Other than schoolwork, I had heard coverage about President Obama's recent trip. I think it is great that our president visited the troops in Iraq and how he is trying to repair relationships with foreign countries that may have been damaged by our former president. However, it was shocking to see the European headlines about President Obama, which were quite negative. So far I believe that our leader is doing his best, and hopefully we will all experience the 'change' we know President Obama stands for.