Wonderland or Not

Famous through no fault of their own the peo­ple of Dar­fur are wai­ting for our help. Have been wai­ting for years. Like the Arme­nians Mas­sac­red in 1915 – 1916 by govern­ment of the Otto­man Empire, the Jews exter­mi­na­ted by the Nazi’s, the Cam­bo­dians slaugh­te­red or star­ved to death by the Khmer Rouge, the Tutsis killed by Hutu mili­tia in the Rwan­dan Geno­cide in 1994, we con­ti­nue to say never again, yet poli­tics con­ti­nues to trump life, it takes pre­ce­dent over genocide.

On 9th Decem­ber 1948, the Uni­ted Nations Gene­ral Assembly adop­ted the Con­ven­tion on the Pre­ven­tion and Punish­ment of the Crime of Genocide.

It had taken five years from the time Raphael Lem­kin first published his idea of ‘geno­cide’ for it to become defi­ned as a supreme inter­na­tio­nal crime, in one of the most potent legal and poli­ti­cal docu­ments of the post-war inter­na­tio­nal order. Yet sixty years later, geno­cide has recu­rred on the inter­na­tio­nal agenda from Cam­bo­dia to Bos­nia and Rwanda to Dar­fur, and inter­na­tio­nal poli­ti­cal and legal action to ‘pre­vent and punish’ it remains very limited.

Poli­tics trum­ping huma­ni­ta­ria­nism over and over again.

Please join the Save Dar­fur Coalition’s “Be A Voice For Dar­fur” post­card cam­paign, ADD YOUR VOICE. This cam­paign seeks to ensure that Dar­fur is a top prio­rity for President-elect Obama, who has already pro­mi­sed “uns­tin­ting resolve” to end the Dar­fur Geno­cide. Their aim is for for no less than 1 million post­cards to be emai­led and snail-mailed to President-elect Obama within his first 100 days in office. With your help, we can draw desperately-needed poli­ti­cal atten­tion to the ongoing geno­cide in Darfur.

You’ll find a blog­ger too­kit here.

When you write about it let us know either in the com­ments or via the con­tact form. We are collec­ting links to those who write about this cam­paign and add their voice even as they encou­rage others to do so.We will post the links at the end of the week at Dar­fur: An Unfor­gi­va­ble Hell on Earth.

For Facebooker’s:

Face­book Cau­ses and Save Dar­fur just launched their new peti­tion appli­ca­tion for the cam­paign. The new Face­book peti­tion will be a gamechan­ger for cause-based social media mar­ke­ting. If you’re already using Face­book Cau­ses, you can access and sign the peti­tion here . (As an incen­tive, Save Dar­fur is offe­ring a free t-shirt to anyone who rec­ruits 100 signatures.)

You may right click, view selec­tion source, and copy and paste this whole post in full to your blog if you would like with no lin­king necessary.

Cross-posted at Should Be Famous.

Peace