God sleeps in Rwanda

The Fainter and I went to see God Sleeps in Rwanda at the Holocaust Museum the other night and I've spent the last two days kind of processing the very idea that we were sitting in a HOLOCAUST MUSEUM watching a film about genocide that happened only 12 years ago and that there is a genocide going on RIGHT NOW in the Sudan. Sometimes I think we say we'll never forget and then we do, because it's happening somewhere else to people who aren't us and whom we have no real connection to. What I find incredible is how no one in the international community acted. Could someone somewhere have done something to stop the machete-killing spree? Who knows? It's impossible to second-guess, but to have done nothing at all...

The film itself is more uplifting than you'd think it'd be. It's about women in Rwanda, what happened to them during the genocide, and then how they've managed to move ahead and not only that, gain greater rights and equality in Rwandan society than they've ever had before. As someone pointed out on Tuesday evening, it's a tragic irony that nearly a million people had to die in 100 days in order for women to make these strides for it wouldn't have happened otherwise.

If you have a moment, you can send an email to your congress person about Darfur. If you go to savedarfur.org, they have a form letter and all you have to do is fill in your name and your zip code and they'll send off the email. It'll take two minutes of your time. The one good thing here is that President Bush has recognized what's happening in the Sudan as genocide; President Clinton never acknowledged that in Rwanda until many years later. So while we have the President's attention, go ahead and fill out the email and maybe this time we can do something.