This is a movie I need to go see. It is showing Oct 12-17.
I know what’s happening in Darfur. Just as I knew what was happening in Rwanda in 1994. And yet, for the most part, I choose to ignore it. My excuse in '94 was that I was finishing school that year and heading off to college and I didn't pay much attention to news. It's no excuse at all of course and I have since read a lot about what happened there and it makes me sick. And yet, 13 years later, albeit for different reasons, as the same terrible atrocities are happening again in a forgotten corner of Africa, I find myself reacting much the same way. A cursory read of the newspaper, a brief mention among friends and co-workers. This time I added a subscription to Doctors Without Borders.
But the truth is I don't really need to care about it. It doesn't impact my day-to-day life in any way and it's unlikely to affect anyone I care about. But I have a 4 year old niece and I might one day have kids of my own - and I sometimes wonder about the day they come home from school after a history lesson and ask “where were you during the genocide in Darfur?”
Going to see the movie won't change what I am doing - essentially nothing - it won’t make me give up my job and go work for an NGO. But maybe, just maybe, it will cause me to pause for a moment and appreciate all that I have. Maybe it will remind me of how fragile human life is and that no matter how strong and in control of my life I feel right now, it doesn't take much for it all to disappear. And maybe it will cause me to care just a little bit more about the people around me. And by doing so, spread a little bit of humanity...
I read something the other day that went like this... "Christianity sounds like a great religion. We should try it sometime".
