Blog
--
You Are Not Alone
Wednesday, October 24, 2007 - Post/View Comments: View Comments
Sifa Nsengimana
Co-Chair, Massachusetts Coalition to Save Darfur
Boston, MA
For five years now, we have been trying to stop the genocide in Darfur. What started as a small movement of caring people has grown into a global movement of anti-genocide activists. This is a movement which common sense should tell us is unnecessary. How can genocide even occur? It should be a Latin word that is banished to obscurity in history books.
After the violence in Darfur was declared to be genocide, survivors of the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda almost lost hope. April 2004 marked the 10th anniversary of that dreadful, gruesome time in our lives, and as we saw Darfur unravel, most of us wondered whether the apologies of the world had been only lip service.
Then the movement rose, and so did our spirits. We pray, advocate and work on behalf of the less fortunate, not always realizing that this feeds our souls perhaps even more than it helps those we speak for. Let us raise Tents of Hope for the human race and build hope for future generations!
Hope is doing the right thing regardless of the outcome. The presence of Tents of Hope throughout the world might not stop the genocide in Darfur, but they will stop lonely deaths. Hope is knowing that even if death comes at the hands of a Janjaweed, someone, somewhere, is praying for and thinking of you. You are not alone.
Hope is what my family lost when all the Westerners pulled out of Rwanda. Hope is what I have for Darfur and a genocide-free world. And with your hope, and their hope, and our collective hope, we will once more unite humanity with its truer spirit.
