Saving Darfur April 30, 2006 Washington, D.C.

You know, I think we Americans are a very fortunate bunch. We do our fair share of complaining, be it about politics, leadership, or lack thereof, about the price of gas and the lack of good public transportation outside of the major cities, about religion in the public domain, too much, too little, about the right to smoke cigarettes and the right to breathe air without second hand smoke, about too much censorship, too little censorship, about too many immigrants, not enough immigrants, about too high taxes, too few social programs. We Americans, as my grandmother might have said, "have what to complain about." But we are lucky all the same. We go to bed at night without fear of our neighbor turning against us, as they did in the former Yugoslavia where the Croats, the Serbs and the Muslims turned against each other, and in Somalia where the clashes occurred between the Hutus and Tutus, and in Ireland where Protestant and Catholic neighbors turned one against the other.

The United States continues to be a work in progress where a huge number of heterogeneous people live, if not side by side, in close proximity and remain united as Americans, be they Black, White, Jewish, Christain, Muslim, Hindu, be they descended from Italy, Germany, Puerto Rico, Nigeria, Poland, Roumania, Egypt, Israel, China, Japan or the Puritans who came over on the Mayflower. We do not see things eye-to-eye and we do fight amongst ourselves, but so far the plan, put in place all those years ago when the founding fathers sat and wrote our Constitution, has continued to work. We do not have ethnic wars. We do not have one group murdering, rapeing and systematically eliminating another group, without fear of reprisal. We live in a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-religious society and though we may not always celebrate the differences, we do always tolerate them and remain one people under the Constitution.

On Sunday, April 30th, I went with some friends to the Rally in Washington DC to "End the Genocide in Darfur." It happened to come at the same time as the large rallies and marches in NYC and around the country regarding Immigration and this, I believe took away some of the thunder of the Darfur rally. Still, it was a memorable day and one which I believe had some influence on our leaders, as can be seen by the actions that were taken shortly after the rally. As of May 5th, a final agreement between the Darfurian rebel armies and the genocidal government of Sudan was reached. The US government had a major role in this plan. And many thousands of Americans had a role to play, as well, in their outcry against the genocide. Let us pray the peace plan is carried through.

I hope these pictures tell the story of the day...

To see all of the pictures of the Rally in DC on behalf of Darfur, click here.