It's time to raise a little hell over Darfur

Karen Cumming -- The Hamilton Spectator

I'm too young to have been one of those iconic demonstrators of the 1960s. You know the ones I mean. The hippies who wore tie-dyed bandanas, smoked marijuana and famously flashed the peace sign at those anti-Vietnam war rallies. I was just a toddler back then.

Protest? I was too busy with my Pablum. Sadly, I didn't march on Washington with Martin Luther King Jr., I didn't burn any bras at a women's liberation rally and, no, I didn't hang out with John and Yoko at that infamous bed-in in Montreal.

The thing is, though, I would love to have been old enough to do all those things. What a roller-coaster ride it would have been -- watching history unfold from a ringside seat, raising my voice and raising a picket sign all at the same time. Doing something to make the politicians listen and the people care. Changing the world one rally at a time.

The trouble is, I'm a "tail-end-of-the-boom" Baby Boomer. My generation was born too late to protest anything but the fashion offences of the 1980s: big hair, shoulder pads and those dreadful bow-tie blouses. In fact, there's nothing that's ever really moved me to show up at a protest rally until now. Until Darfur.

It all started last summer when I read a book called Not on Our Watch. Written by Hollywood actor Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda) and celebrated activist John Prendergast, it details the pair's journey to Darfur and their desperate bid to convince Western politicians to stop the genocide happening there. They weren't alone. Hollywood heavyweights George Clooney and Matt Damon have also been driving forces behind the fight to raise awareness and help save lives.

The problem? The Arab Sudanese government is systematically exterminating the non-Arab people of the region of Darfur in western Sudan. Murdering, pillaging and raping without conscience or care. It is a massacre of epic proportion.

Feeling a twinge of deja vu? Think Rwanda. Think Armenia. Think Auschwitz. How does the old saying go? "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it."

Well, guess what?

We're repeating it. Again.

So Not on Our Watch, the book that I bought as a summer read last year, has weighed on my mind for months now. It's kept me awake at night, and I've asked myself what I could do. So I did what any of us could do. I bought a GO train ticket and trekked to Nathan Phillips Square on Sunday, for the The Fifth Global Day for Darfur rally.

A few thousand of us were in the crowd. We bought buttons, signed postcard petitions, shivered in the cold, listened and learned ... learned from some truly compelling speakers who took the podium. People such as Sergeant Debbie Bodkin of Waterloo regional police. Bodkin has been interviewed on national television a number of times now, telling profoundly moving tales of her work in Darfur with the United Nations and the U.S. State Department. She saw heart-wrenching things there, and now shares heart-wrenching stories. London North Centre MP Glen Pearson was one of a number of politicians in the crowd, introducing the three children he and his wife have adopted from Sudan.

To the dismay of many, this rally has become an annual event. A genocide that should have been stamped out by the international community as soon as the smoke started to rise continues to burn out of control. Make no mistake, it is a wildfire, and hundreds of thousands of utterly innocent people are being devoured by the flames.

Meanwhile, another piece of the puzzle is China. With the Olympics only months away, accusations are flying, and China is at the centre of the controversy yet again. Critics charge China is supplying Sudan with the weapons being used to carry out the slaughter. The Sudanese government is hell-bent on seeking out and destroying its victims with Chinese guns.

We have to stop it.

This disgraceful killing spree has carried on for five years now. Five years.

Sitting in our safe-and-sound Canadian homes wearing "Save Darfur" ribbons and coloured plastic bracelets isn't going to do the trick.

The only thing that will stop this is your outrage, your voice, your call to action.

And, to help you out, rally officials have set up a toll-free number you can dial to get your opinions straight to the prime minister. 1-800-GENOCIDE.

Really: 1-800-GENOCIDE.

Hey, I may never have been to an anti-Vietnam war rally. I may never have heard Martin Luther King Jr. give his I Have a Dream speech. I may never before have waved a picket sign.

But I'm doing it now.

With all due respect, folks, it's time to raise a little hell.

There's no time to waste.