More Darfur

Last time I wrote about the new TV spots from saveDarfur.org, which I found so moving. They presented Americans speaking for the "400,000 killed" who can't speak for themselves. Since then, that spot has been on a lot, and even though I know it's coming with the first deep chord before the first image, it moves me every time. For some reason I am particularly moved by the last face. A grandmotherly type says that the world hasn't done anything about it, someone else repeats "anything," and then a boy, junior high age maybe, dressed like a suburban white American kid, wearing glasses, looks at the camera and repeats, simply, "anything." That anything grabs at my gut every time.

Today I saw a new spot--the same format, but this time featuring Africans talking in the same terms about the fate of their loved ones, and it is also very powerful. George Clooney, who has been to the refugee camps on the Chad side of the border, said on Charlie Rose Thursday that the key to ending this ongoing genocide will be diplomacy, not necessarily the imposition of UN troops. But in either case, it will be people making this an issue, demanding attention to it, that will put the pressure on, and create the constituency for those who must put their political power and will behind insisting on a solution.

So the message is the same. Sign the petitions, write letters. Buy the bracelets and t-shirts saying SAVE DARFUR and wear them. I have and am, and I'm giving them as Christmas gifts. Those words must be part of everyone's perception, because of the two or three things this generation is going to be held most accountable for, Darfur is one. Genocide is happening, affecting millions of people. We can't say this time we didn't know. We do know.