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Shereeza
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Connecting Darfur and Rumi
June 12, 2006 - 01:52 PM
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Rumi 2 Darfur- Film on Moulana Rumi and one on Darfur.
Scarborough, Ontario. 6/9/2006
The event opened with a video showing various human oppressions throughout the 1900's unto the present. Cambodia, Armenia, Germany, Darfur etc. It was a slideshow of pictures of atrocities (beheadings, hangings, beatings, famine etc) that took place in these countries at their respective times.
Facts were given specifically about Darfur by the young presenter, David Bergal. (www.projectequity.org):
-The militia group, the Janjaweed, carries out murderous acts on many of the indigenous people of Sudan. The Janjaweed is supported by the Sudanese government (for more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_conflict)
-75% of villages are burned to the ground
-He poses the question, how can we claim in the West that we're morally superior if we let this happen?
-2 Million Muslims are displaced
-he states that petitions are often thrown aside by leaders and government officials
-hand written letters on the other hand are held with more value
-its as if one hand writtten letter represents one thousand people.
-it takes a passionate and concerned individual to write a letter, and a passerby to sign a petition
-David Bergal urges you to educate yourself, create awareness, speak out and do something to make a change. Check out his www.projectequity.org website for more info and events being held.
There was then a tie-in to Rumi and his message of unity and love for mankind regardless of religion, race etc.
Tina Petrova spoke briefly about her inspiration from Rumi (poet - 1200s):
-she had a dream after a terrible accident
-Rumi told her in this dream to advocate the message of his poems to bring unity to people
-Petrova travels around the world talking about Rumi and his message.
-she showcased four major clips from her film called 'Rumi: Turning Ecstatic'
-we discussed how Rumi would have responded to the crises going on today, Darfur, locally etc.
-ideas brought up were: he would educate the people, speak honestly and from the heart, promote inter-faith respect and tolerance, he would set major goals and see them through instead of doing a few events to create awareness. He would create change within people's heart which would then manifest through their actions.
This was a great event that tied in Rumi's message of tolerance and love for others to creating awareness of the oppression of our fellow man and our need to make a change...
What will you do?
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Sue!
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Re: Connecting Darfur and Rumi
June 12, 2006 - 02:27 PM
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I feel that the crisis in Darfur and also in Sudan currently are like a modern day holocaust, yet it is being ignored by western and westernized countries. Isn't it rediculous that in the 1940's-50's we said we could never allow another holocaust yet now we turn our backs when we see fellow man in trouble?
So from now on, i'm referring to this crisis as a holocaust. Though the death toll has thankfully not reached the millions yet, it could get to that point if we dont force out governments to rise to action, NOW. Thats all.
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mnopq
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Re: Connecting Darfur and Rumi
June 13, 2006 - 03:16 PM
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bridgingthegap wrote:
I feel that the crisis in Darfur and also in Sudan currently are like a modern day holocaust, yet it is being ignored by western and westernized countries.
Precision: it is NOT being ignored by the West; it is being subtly manipulated for Western coutries to advances their cause!
Sudan is a oil-rich country...
Plus Sudan is not the only one country.. There was somehwere a thread about similar issues.. Countries such as Bangladesh, Sierra Leone, DR Congo, Ivory Coast, East Timur, etc are all having similar massacres....
Problem with humanity is that we never learn from our previous erros and keep on repeating them...But we repeat them not necessarily cause we are stupid but because we have our "plans" and our "agenda" to promote and implement, of course at the detriment of all others...
This post was edited on: 2006-06-13 at 03:17 PM by: mnopq
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Haylz
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Re: Connecting Darfur and Rumi
June 16, 2006 - 12:20 AM
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mnopq wrote:
Sudan is a oil-rich country...
Plus Sudan is not the only one country.. There was somehwere a thread about similar issues.. Countries such as Bangladesh, Sierra Leone, DR Congo, Ivory Coast, East Timur, etc are all having similar massacres....
This post was edited on: 2006-06-13 at 03:17 PM by: mnopq
Yes, this is true - that it is happening in other countries also - but not to the extent of the attrocities in Sudan - the situation is getting worse than better, and more focuse needs to go on this country.
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mnopq
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Re: Connecting Darfur and Rumi
June 16, 2006 - 11:37 AM
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Haylz wrote:
<br
Yes, this is true - that it is happening in other countries also - but not to the extent of the attrocities in Sudan - the situation is getting worse than better, and more focuse needs to go on this country.
DR CONGO
"The ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has claimed an estimated 3.3 million lives since 1998, mostly women, children and elderly according to the International Rescue Committee (IRC) report...."
http://www.watchlist.org/reports/dr_congo.report.php
SUDAN
"Sudan's 19-year-old civil war, waged mostly in the south of the country, is one of the world's longest-running wars; the conflict spread in 1986 to the central Nuba mountains and in 1995 to the east of Sudan. It is estimated that the war has caused over 2 million deaths either directly or indirectly by famine, illness and other threatening situations...."
http://www.watchlist.org/reports/sudan.report.php
BANGLADESH
"The number of dead in Bangladesh in 1971 was almost certainly well into seven figures. It was one of the worst genocides of the World War II era, outstripping Rwanda (800,000 killed) and probably surpassing even Indonesia (1 million to 1.5 million killed in 1965-66). As R.J. Rummel writes....we are still left with a death-toll that is 80 percent adult male (2.4 million out of 3 million)"
http://www.gendercide.org/case_bangladesh.html
This is to show that Sudan one of the most "recent" of these series of mass-killing cases with comparable number of estimated death to other similar cases...
H.
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Derek Halvorson
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Re: Connecting Darfur and Rumi
July 16, 2006 - 03:57 AM
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Genocides wouldn't happen if we didn't have cowards in the White House. I'm sorry to make this an American problem but the truth it is the only country that can act swiftly and decisively to end genocide. Ever since Mogadishu U.S. politicians have been terrified to risk soldiers to save victims of genocide. Their view is that they don't have many Sudanese or Rwandan constiuents.
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africanbee
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BBC: Darfur, New Killing Fields - Part 1
February 3, 2007 - 09:20 AM
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The New Killing Fields transcript
What follows is a transcript of BBC Panorama's "New Killing Fields", first broadcast on 11 November 2004 on BBC
One. NB: THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A TRANSCRIPTION UNIT RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT: BECAUSE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF MIS- HEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY, IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS ACCURACY.
The New Killing Fields
HILARY ANDERSSON: Millions swallowed up into the camps of the desert. This is the Sudan the world sees, but what are the horrors these people have fled? Darfur's real nightmare has been hidden.
KALIMA: They raped me. There was nothing I could do.
ANDERSSON: Tonight we travel through the frontlines to tell of a desolate countryside littered with graves, of a land of mass killings.
KALIMA: They grabbed my child from me and threw him on the fire.
ANDERSSON: We ask is the first genocide of the 21st century happening now as we stand by? We set off on a journey into the unknown. This is deepest Darfur. We wanted to reach the remote mountains of Jebel Mara where we'd heard rumours of killings. We moved out of government territory secretly and headed into the war zone.
HILARY ANDERSSON: Any minute now we're going to be effectively - although it's just countrified and you can't really tell the difference - but we will effectively be crossing from the government controlled part of Darfur into the rebel controlled part of Darfur and that's where we'll meet our people and move from there on into Jebel Mara.
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africanbee
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BBC: Darfur New Killing Fields Part 2
February 3, 2007 - 09:22 AM
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We saw armed men on the road. This was our first glimpse of Darfur's black African rebels. We stopped to negotiate access, they held the road from here.
Almost every African man and boy in this area has joined the rebels to fight Sudan's government. They're losing the battle. Darfur is being purged of black Africans.
We're picking up a bit of an escort here on our roofrack. I suppose they're going to escort us.
Our destination was a town called Kidinyir. To get there we had to pass through a dangerous area. There had been attacks near this road.
The commander we've just met is now worried about the safety of the road down to our destination because he says there's been some attacks on the road over the last few days, so he's just making a phone call to check what's happening and whether or not it's safe for us to proceed.
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africanbee
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BBC: Darfur: New Killing Fields - Part 3
February 3, 2007 - 09:24 AM
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Hour after hour as we drove, the landscape was eerily deserted. This was rich farmland. There were miles of fields unattended. We came across African families on the move. They were carrying all their possessions. They were fleeing an attack by the Janjaweed, the dreaded Arab militia backed by Sudan's government. The Janjaweed have been slaughtering the Africans here.
What happened in the attack?
MAN: They went back, they came to attack and they returned back.
ANDERSSON: How many... what's the situation in Kidinyir?
MAN: Six people were attacked, six people died as a result of an attack by Janjaweed in Kidinyir.
ANDERSSON: When?
MAN: Last night.
ANDERSSON: Last night. This raises the question of whether it's safe to go.
Eventually we decided to proceed. We were entering an area where the killers roamed freely. The Janjaweed militia have cast a shadow over vast tracks of Darfur. Where they are, there are no black Africans to be seen.
We reached the mountains of Jebel Mara, the ancient home of the African Fur Tribe that lends its name to Darfur. Some areas here have been cut off from outsiders for years. The killings here have never been documented.
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africanbee
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BBC: Darfur New Killing Fields - Part4
February 3, 2007 - 09:27 AM
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At our destination hundreds of women have gathered. They'd heard outsiders were coming. Everyone wanted to tell of what they'd been through. These women were all from the Fur tribe. Everyone here had lost members of their family.
ANDERSSON: Did she lose any children?
TRANSLATOR: Yes, six years
ANDERSSON: Boy or girl?
TRANSLATOR: boy, a boy
ANDERSSON: She lost one boy?
TRANSLATOR: One boy, yes.
TRANSLATOR: Seven years
ANDERSSON: In the school, or not in the school?
TRANSLATOR: In the house.
ANDERSSON: In the house.
TRANSLATOR: Hawa Musa Juma
ANDERSSON: Hawa Musa Juma
Their testimonies were overwhelming. There were no men here. Most had been killed or had joined the rebels. A huge number of these women had been raped. Almost everyone had witnessed an atrocity. We asked just the women who had had children killed to gather.
ANDERSSON: A girl or a boy?
TRANSLATOR: Boy
ANDERSSON: School?
TRANSLATOR: In the house
ANDERSSON: Musa Ismail.
ANDERSSON: Did she lose any children? TRANSLATOR: Six girls¿. She lost one boy. Two girls and one boy in school.
ANDERSSON: So she lost three children in the school.
TRANSLATOR: Mmm. Mmm.
ANDERSSON: After an hour we counted 80 children dead in Kidinyir alone and we hadn't counted them all. An evil had been unleashed on the black African population here, and there are hundreds of towns and villages like this in Darfur.
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africanbee
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BBC: Darfur New Killing Fields Part 5
February 3, 2007 - 09:29 AM
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This is Kidinyir, it's a place that's utterly silent now. Five times this place was attacked, each time it was the same. First the Janjaweed surrounded the town, then Sudanese government planes bombed from the air. This is the evidence. As people tried to escape, the Janjaweed moved in. They methodically torched the houses, they killed without mercy.
HAWA: They attacked us in the early morning. As usual it started with the plane and the bombing, then the men came. They were on trucks, camels and horses. The people in the village started to run in all directions.
KALIMA: The planes were bombing. I told the children to run, but men on horseback and in trucks had already entered the village. I started to shout to my husband to run from the house. They shot him as he stepped from the door. I went back to help him. My son was clinging to my dress. An Arab looking man in a uniform with military insignia stopped his car next to me. He grabbed my son from me and threw him into a fire.
ANDERSSON: Kalima's son was 3 years old. The men then turned their attention to her.
KALIMA: They raped me. There was nothing I could do. Nothing I could do.
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africanbee
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BBC: Darfur New Killing Fields - Part 6
February 3, 2007 - 09:31 AM
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ANDERSSON: Hawa was on the outskirts of town. She heard her father and her ten year old son had been killed and started running home.
HAWA: Five of the men surrounded me. I was paralysed with fear. I could not get away. I was trapped. They raped me one after the other. After this I tried to find my father and my son.
ANDERSSON: At Kidinyir¿s school, children were sitting at their desks. A young teacher, Hikma, was about to start class, then she heard the planes and the gunfire.
HIKMA: We saw the Janjaweed coming into the school. The children started jumping from the windows and running from the school. Others were running into the building. The Janjaweed killed two or three children in their classrooms, and were shooting at others as they ran away. One of the Janjaweed raped me while the others pointed their guns at me. During the rape I was still hearing gunfire all around me.
HADIJAH: I found the body of my 4 year old son by the hospital. I picked him up and went looking for my other two children. I found them dead inside the school. They'd been hiding in the corner of the classroom. There were lots of dead children lying in front of the school.
ANDERSSON: Hadijah and the other survivors collected the bodies of the dead. They dug pits, some big enough to hold ten bodies each.
WOMAN: We had to block our noses with cotton to stop the smell when we buried the bodies. For three days we were carrying the dead to bury them. Their blood dried on my body. There is so much sadness. God forgive me, it would be better to be dead.
ANDERSSON: Cataloguing the immensity, the cruelty, of what happened here begs enormous questions.
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africanbee
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BBC: Darfur New Killing Fields Part 7
February 3, 2007 - 09:32 AM
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Sudan's government says they bombed towns in Darfur to put down a regional uprising by the African rebels. But this attack is identical in pattern to many others in Darfur and the rebels are not the only targets.
If all of this, the ruthless and ongoing destruction of Kidinyir is just part of an attempt to put down a rebellion, then there are a lot of questions unanswered. Why were more than 80 children killed here, some of them shot at point blank range? Why were women targeted? The killing of black African civilians here in Kidinyir and across Darfur has been thorough, systematic and planned. So is this genocide?
In two years in Darfur it's estimated that tens of thousands of people have been kille. The estimates are still rising. The vast majority are black Africans. Summary executions of African men in groups of 60 to 70 have been documented.
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africanbee
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BBC: Darfur New Killing Fields Part 8
February 3, 2007 - 09:34 AM
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The attacks have a clear pattern. Government planes bomb while Janjaweed militia move in to kill on the ground. At least 400 African villages have been scorched, the livestock taken, their wells filled in so no one can return. In past cases genocide has been proven by evidence of a repeated pattern of attacks on one ethnic group, in other words, by the facts on the ground.
KALIMA: They said they didn't like the Fur people, that's why they wanted them all wiped out.
ANDERSSON: In many of the attacks we catalogued, Darfur's killers spoke of extermination. They called their victims inferior, haunting echoes of the slave trade that thrived here for centuries.
HIKMA: They were saying: "The blacks are slaves, the blacks are stupid, catch them alive, tie them up, take them away with you." They would say: "Kill them." They were terrorising our people.
ANDERSSON: It was the horrors of the Holocaust that led to the creation of the word 'genocide'. An international convention was drawn up in 1948 to ensure that nothing like this could ever happen again. To prompt early intervention genocide was not defined as mass extermination, instead it was defined as the deliberate attempt to destroy an ethnic group. The definition was worded to ensure future genocides were stopped before they reached this terrifying scale.
The Convention says that genocide is "the intention to destroy an ethnic group, whether in whole or in part" and "whether by killing or harming." When Darfur's killings were at their height in April, the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan was in Geneva to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda. Kofi Annan said the horrors of Rwanda had happened because the world failed to act.
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africanbee
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BBC: Darfur New Killing Fields Part 9
February 3, 2007 - 09:35 AM
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CAPTION: 7th April 2004
CAPTION: KOFI ANNAN United Nations Secretary General:
KOFI ANNAN: One of the reasons for our failure in Rwanda was that beforehand we did not face the fact that genocide was a real possibility, and once it started for too long we could not bring ourselves to recognise it or call it by that name.
ANDERSSON: Now, almost two years after Darfur's killing started, the UN says it still can't be certain if genocide is occurring there.
It was this that woke the world up to the catastrophe that was unfolding. By April, months of massacres had gone largely unseen, but a million people on the move were harder to ignore. Vast refugee camps emerged in Darfur and across the border in Chad. Whole sections of Darfur's black population had been burnt out of their homes. In this squalor they sought salvation but death stalked them here.
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