c. 2006 Religion News Service
WASHINGTON _ Rabbi David Saperstein cried “Never again.”
Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop of Washington, said “Now is the time.”
And Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention asked: “If not this, what? If not now, when? If not us, who?”
The three religious leaders joined politicians, humanitarian workers, entertainers, athletes and other faith leaders in denouncing the ongoing violence in the Darfur region of Sudan during a major rally on Sunday (April 30).
Organizers say the crowd of more than 50,000 was one of the largest ever assembled to push for the end to ethnic killing in Darfur, but officials agreed that talk is not enough, and religious leaders said they would lead an interfaith effort to push for more action.
That included an announcement by Saperstein, director of the Washington-based Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism, of a new coalition that will visit every embassy of countries belonging to NATO and the African Union, as well as Russia and China, to press for an end to the violence.
Saperstein will lead the effort with leaders from the Southern Baptist Convention and the National Council of Churches.
“It is clear that if we are to succeed in addressing the human disaster in Darfur … it has to be done with international cooperation,” Saperstein said after the rally.
“It staggers the moral imagination to try and understand how people can let the people of Darfur starve to death.”
The coalition is also asking the governments to donate more money to the World Food Program to ease the hunger crippling the region. The United Nations’ agency has had to severely cut back on food donations due to a shortage of funds.
The overwhelming support from across the religious spectrum may be surprising, but the situation in Darfur is so dire that many groups have set aside religious and political differences to end the violence.
The Save Darfur coalition, comprised of more than 160 organizations, includes several religious groups on its executive committee, including the American Jewish World Service, the American Society for Muslim Advancement, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National Association of Evangelicals.
The rally’s religious speakers reflected the interfaith unity: from the Rev. Al Sharpton to the Rev. Richard Cizik, the vice president for government affairs at the National Association of Evangelicals; from Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel to Zainab Al-Suwaij, executive director of the American Islamic Congress.
The Jewish presence was a dominant one, evident by several demonstrators wearing yarmulkes and waving signs in Hebrew, and by the speakers’ roster. Many Jews at the rally cited the Holocaust as the predominant reason why they feel a strong solidarity with Sudan.
“I have an 11th Commandment to teach the world what hatred can do … and that God created us all,” said Nesse Goldin, a Holocaust survivor who spoke at the rally. “And this is the most important thing that people should understand.”
The three-year-conflict has primarily been portrayed as a battle between the Arab-dominated Islamist government that has supported _ or at least allowed _ Arab “Janjaweed” militias to rape and slaughter non-Arabs. Hard numbers aren’t concrete, but the numbers of those killed have topped 300,000, according to the coalition.
“In Muslim (tradition), when you kill one person, whether it is a Muslim or not, you have killed all of humanity,” said Laila Jones, a 29-year-old Muslim graduate student who attended the rally.
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The event was such a religious unifier that leaders from one excluded group, the Council of American-Islamic Relations, were upset they weren’t invited to speak.
Neither were coalition members of the Islamic Society of North America, the Islamic Circle of North America, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, and the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, CAIR officials said.
“It is unfortunate that the Save Darfur Coalition chose not to list any mainstream American Muslim groups in the rally program,” CAIR executive director Nihad Awad said in a statement. “This disturbing omission calls into question the coalition’s true agenda at the rally.”
Chuck Thies, the director of the rally, responded that the coalition worked closely with the American Society for Muslim Advancement to find speakers, and that there wasn’t enough time to allot to everyone.
“Not every Jewish group was represented, not every Christian group was represented, not every humanitarian and advocacy group was represented,” Thies said. “What we tried to demonstrate with our program, and what we did demonstrate, was diversity and inclusion.”
JL END LEVY
