The Situation in Darfur

I am only one. But still I am one. I cannot do everything. But still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. -Edward Everett Hale

This morning is it my distinct pleasure to share this portion of our worship service with our fellow church member, Becky Dill. Becky, in case you didn't already know it, is one of our terrific youth advisors, a job for which, I am well informed, she receives no remuneration other than the unquestioned satisfaction of working with a group of our First Religious Society teenagers. That fact alone should qualify her for a role in our service this morning--she's definitely earned it!--but actually that is not why Becky is here with us today.

Along with her obvious commitment to our (admittedly wonderful) kids, Becky is also passionate and committed to the cause of alleviating suffering in that part of Sudan known as Darfur. It is that passion and commitment that inspired me to ask her to take part in the service this morning. It is an appropriate subject for this late October Sunday which has traditionally been observed in Unitarian Universalist churches as "United Nations Sunday." And it is a reminder of our duty to promote our Unitarian Universalist sixth principle, "The goal of a world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all."

When Becky approached me about a year ago about the possibility of holding a service focused on the situation in Darfur--a situation which has already been declared a genocide--I had to put her off because all of our vacant Sundays had already been spoken for. However, I promised her that I would try to make a Sunday in this church year available for her to talk about this cause which is so near and dear to her heart.

But I want to tell you that this morning's service , while it will provide you with some information about the situation in Darfur, or at least with some information about where you can find out, I think is really more about what makes Becky tick. What is it that makes a person want to make a difference in the world? Why dedicate oneself to a cause--to any cause? Why get involved? Isn't the situation hopeless anyway? And, God knows, we are all so busy.

I think that the recent political maneuverings in our Congress about whether or not to declare the Turkish killing of over a million Armenians in the early 20th century a "genocide" should make clear to all of us that this is an issue not only of tremendous emotional, but more importantly, of tremendous moral significance. Given what happened in Europe later in that century, we all should have some idea of why it is important that we speak out in such profound matters of human rights.

We all know that there are many causes worthy of our investment of our time, talent, and treasure. Many of us are already committed to one or more of those causes. What is important, as the little quotation on your orders of service makes clear, is that each of us do something. What that something is, is perhaps less important than the fact of its being done. We must do something. Moreover, we say it is our religious obligation to get involved.

In closing this little introduction to Becky, I just want to reiterate how much I admire her willingness to be a person who does something. She is an inspiration to me, and I trust that she may also be an inspiration to you. Thanks, Becky, for being an example of a committed religious person.

The Rev. Harold Babcock

Darfur is a region of Sudan which has been long inhabited by multiple tribal groups. The three largest groups are described as African-Muslim. These groups coexisted with Arab-Muslim tribal groups and evolved a complex but functional system of sharing resources and resolving conflicts over hundreds of years. The Islamist government of Sudan, led by President Omer al-Bashir, a general who achieved power through a military coup, has engaged-for decades-- in policies designed to advance the power and status its Arab-Muslim citizens. The government has exploited and fueled ethnic tensions between so-called African-Muslims and Arab-Muslims in Darfur as a part of this process to gain control of the region. As in South Sudan during the 20-year civil war, the government's chosen means of increasing regional control involves systematic rape, the burning of villages, and the merciless and indiscriminate killing of unarmed civilians; those who survive can never go home. The scope of the humanitarian crisis is beyond reckoning; the disregard for human life and the brutal violence perpetrated on innocent civilians are unbelievable. I will leave literature in the vestibule for those who are interested in learning more about the crisis in Sudan and how we can be effective in our efforts to stop this genocide and prevent future genocides. Also, on November 18th, the Social Action Committee, will be showing the film "Ordinary Heroes," which I have seen (actually, last year we watched a portion of it at Youth Group) and can recommend highly. It is an account through interviews, photographs and documents of the incredible efforts undertaken by the Reverend Waitstill and Martha Sharp during the Nazi occupation of Europe. The film also connects their activism to the current efforts in Darfur, notably by the UUSC and others in our church community. We have a great deal to be proud of.

For me, the service today is not about explaining the situation in Darfur. It is about the situation in my heart when I struggle against my own cynicism to do what I can, what I must, especially when I am faced with what seems utterly beyond the reach of anyone's efforts. The genocide of the Darfuri people-and that is my unapologetic term for what has been occurring over four years-- is something that compelled me to pay attention. Once I learned of it, it became impossible for me to ignore.

Over time, taking action became the only remedy for me, as I began to suffer from almost excruciating empathy for the victims . . . but I started to take some ownership for stopping the genocide, and once I did, I felt liberated, relieved and empowered. I realize, now, after a couple of years of intense activism for Darfur, that I feel particularly compelled to act by the issue of genocide . . . and I have for years. It just never occurred to me to take it on . . . it is so huge, and frightening, and bleak. So why do I feel so personally affronted by the existence of genocide? As far as I know, I have no descendants who perpetrated or survived a genocide. I think that they mainly planted potatoes . . . the Irish ones, anyway.

I credit a book for sparking the development of my passion for understanding the impact of the Holocaust. I started reading Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl, in 1977, the winter before I turned 12. I was a sad, lonely girl in those days. My father had died only a year and a half before, and in the haze of complicated grief and single parenthood, my mother took us from our home in Needham, to a new life-with a new almost-father -- in Gloucester, MA. It may as well have been a foreign country. We lived on top of a steep hill paved with a road called -- of all things -- Skipper Way Terrace. Our neighborhood was really in a gated summer community that people passed on their way to Wingaersheek Beach: in the summer, a guy would sit in a surprisingly imposing little shack and check off your name on a clip-board before you could come in. In the winter, there was no need for him-no one lived there, except for us and a few odd households (and I mean odd), and no one was banging at the gate to gain entrance to a frozen private beach. So, we didn't really live in Gloucester, we lived in Siberia.

I remember walking the beach sometime in late fall, maybe November, when the trees were bare and backlit by that gray-white sky of winter. I was so depressed that I could not see the beauty in it . . . but I know I loved it there, I walked the beach every chance I got. This particular time, I came across the earthly remains of a seagull. The bird appeared to have been slammed, mercilessly, into the unyielding frozen sand by the high winds of a recent storm, and I could see that its neck had broken. I cried for it, right there, because it was alone, abandoned, cold, forgotten, and dead. That is how I felt in those days. I felt I did not matter.

Somehow, I ended up reading Anne Frank's Diary that winter. I know it was a copy from Fuller Middle School. Having learned of the Holocaust a few years earlier, in conversations with my grandmother after she took us to see the "Sound of Music," I was drawn to the book. In reading it, I became utterly attached to Anne; I wanted to will her back to life so that we could be real friends. She was not a sad, lonely girl. She was a spirited, brilliant, witty girl who liked herself very, very much, and managed to piss off her parents on a regular basis. She was consummately human-that is, flawed-and would write honestly about her shortcomings. She suffered the comparisons to her "perfect" older sister, Margot, and found them irritating, but did not think the comparisons were valid. She was simply misunderstood by those around her.

She was excruciatingly honest-not only in her diary-but, at least according to her accounts of life in the Annex, with everyone, and particularly so with those who seemed antagonized by her very existence. Mrs. Van Daan, for instance, whom she wonderfully brings to life in the diary, seems generally offended by this cheeky, too-smart girl. We recognize Mrs. Van Daan instantly as the dominating, needy and narcissistic personality in the group who says absurd things like "I too have an unassuming nature, much more so than my husband." Anne was so clever, and funny, and full of fire, and I longed to have her courage and belief in herself. As I turned the pages that revealed so much truth to me, I found it unbearable that she would succumb to the will of the Nazi regime.

She led me to understand that our humanity connects us all. And her despair at the apparent abandonment of the Jews by the world, at the inhumanity she feared awaited her, caused her to question the very existence of goodness and meaning, of God. Yet she then concluded: "I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting on confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the suffering of millions, and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again. In the meantime I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out (Diary of a Young Girl, pp 263-264)."

After liberation, Anne's father, Otto Frank, who alone among his family survived the death camps, courageously elected to publish her diary so that we could know the immeasurable worth of one life, among millions . . . so that the unimaginable could be made real for us, so that we could comprehend the staggering loss it is to our humanity when genocide occurs. Ghandi once said, "All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family, and each one of us is responsible for the misdeeds of all the others. I cannot detach myself from the wickedest soul."

Anne's words led me to that undivided, invisible family and helped to alleviate my sense of alienation and abandonment when I was 11. I am grateful to have found another piece of this family here with you, in this welcoming place. I continue to be reminded of the oneness of humanity when I see so many examples of loving, committed action happening right here. It is my sincere belief that somehow Darfuri survivors know they have not been abandoned, in spite of all of the evidence to the contrary, and that they too are a part of this family called humanity.

Thank you.

Becky Dill