Violence has gotten even worse since the cease-fire signed last May. 50,000 more people have been displaced, and July was the deadliest month for aid workers since the conflict began. There have been more rapes, more armed clashes, more raids and more people displaced from their homes.
After the jump is a powerful poem by one 17 year old who will be among those at a Rally on Sept 17th in New York (details to follow). It has been hard to stay hopeful about the horrors in Darfur, but this poem reminded me that we must not give up, and no matter how far away Darfur and the atrocities may seem, we must keep them close to our hearts and take action!
Vigil for Darfur
By Sabina Carlson
Hold up your candle if you are an angel.
Hold up your candle if the light of hope
dances and curls about your spine
like the breath of light
about the wick.
Or blow out your candle if you believe
that when
these flames flicker out
we will forget
the faces we now see before us:
the faces
of the hopeful,
and the memory of the abused.
Hold up your candle
if the people standing along side you
have become your wings,
and that
side by side
we fly
to a better place and time.
hold up your candle if you know that sound
does not travel
through air and wires but rather through the
chords
of our hearts and that we will never
be able to claim
that we could not hear
a single cry
because a deafening ocean
stood between us.
Hold up your candle if you remember
how the world forgot 800
thousand Rwandans,
hold up your candle if you have a hole
burnt into your heart
by the Shoah, the Great Fire,
the Holocaust
and hold up your candle if you can still see
the smoke
and taste the ashes.
hold up your candle
if you know
that tears
only feed
that fire.
and hold up your candle
if you refuse to let the world
sob itself to sleep, waiting for a wish,
because we did not listen to them,
because we did not burn with them,
because we did not tell them
“I am
going
to save you.
Here,
I am your miracle.”
For who
dares to say that miracles are simply
the dusted spines
of Bibles?
Friends, look
at the crying wings you stand
side by side with, listen to the heavenly
psalms of hope and hurt, feel your heart
rise
through the halo above your head
to join with a hundred thousand others
who will heal
this world.
hold up your candle
if you
are an angel.
This was beautiful and sad. I want to tithe this way-by helping with what little I have. It seems that it is things like this that puts our "tough" times in perspective. Please, keep showing us this, so maybe one person is moved. I am.
Posted by: Joe at August 14, 2006 05:39 PMThank you for doing what the mainstream press isn't, namely bringing attention to Darfur.
P.S. Are you ever going to be on Carlson's show again? That would be another opportunity to bring up the subject before a national audience.
Thank you Jack. The media has by and large dropped the ball on this so it is up to Citizen Hunters to get the word out. Link to the poem to your e-mail list. I have never been on to talk about Darfur which speaks to the pt., but have brought it up anytime I can remotely make a connection. Sorry I have not been as good at posting when I am on TV. It has been not tons of notice and the angel that posts the stuff up for me does have a life now and again. Plus, I am getting ready for a new show that will take me out of the country for a month and a half that is very exciting. Can't wait to share the news with you guys!
Posted by: Flavia at August 14, 2006 08:48 PMI wanted to mention that there will be an event to celebrate Darfuri culture and raise money for victims of the genocide in Philadelphia next Saturday, August 26th. It is the 1st Annual Philadelphia Darfur Festival, at from 2pm to 5:30 at the Arden Theatre, in Old City on 2nd St between Market and Arch. There will be Sudanese music, food, and dancing, along with activist networking, art and photography of the suffering in Darfur, and an energy-building drum circle to close out the festivities, so bring something to bang on. All money raised will go to the Darfur Human Rights Organization, a fledgling Philly-based 501(c)3 trying to help civilians in Sudan with medicine, counselling, food, and educational programs. Please help spread the word in any way possible. Thanks.
Posted by: Nathan Kleinman at August 20, 2006 02:04 PM