Obama Commemorates Holocaust, Issues Call to Action
“We gather today to mourn the loss of so many lives, and celebrate those who saved them; honor those who survived, and contemplate the obligations of the living.”
So began President Obama’s poignant remarks at the Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Days of Remembrance ceremony yesterday in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. Surrounded by Holocaust survivors and rescuers, members of Congress, and activists, the president highlighted the theme of this yearly event: What You Do Matters.
"Today and every day we have an opportunity as well as an obligation to confront these scourges, to fight the impulse to turn the channel when we see images that disturb us or wrap ourselves in the false comfort that others sufferings are not our own."
When we look back at these darkest hours of modern history, we often focus on the combination of elements that made Europe in 1933-45 or Rwanda in 1994 combustible. The individual decisions that led people to commit unspeakable acts on such a wide scale are more difficult to grapple with because they inevitably require a level of self-reflection. “No one is born a savior or a murderer -- these are choices we each have the power to make… [N]o one can make us into bystanders without our consent.”
The president recognized individuals who refused to stand by when they saw humanity at risk, and instead chose to stand up. He paid tribute to five men and women who provided safe havens for Jews in Poland during World War II, subjecting themselves to personal danger to protect others. “Your presence today compels each of us to ask ourselves whether we would have done what you did. We can only hope that the answer is yes,” President Obama said.
Today, as unprecedented and ever-growing numbers of activists are compelled to join movements calling for attention to crises, President Obama’s words ring true. “If we have the courage to heed that ‘still, small voice’ within us, we can form a minyan [quorum] for righteousness that can span a village, even a nation.”
Whether in the midst of a crisis or its aftermath, silence is “evil’s greatest co-conspirator,” the president said, a lesson that is salient today, for, as he reminded us, “Evil has yet to run its course on Earth.” Someday, when Darfur has found peace, a new human tragedy, in another corner of the world, will demand our attention. How will we respond? What will it take for the international community to learn to prevent genocide, rather than just pick up the pieces in its wake?
“[W]e have the opportunity to make a habit of empathy; to recognize ourselves in each other; to commit ourselves to resisting injustice and intolerance and indifference in whatever forms they may take -- whether confronting those who tell lies about history, or doing everything we can to prevent and end atrocities like those that took place in Rwanda, those taking place in Darfur. That is my commitment as President. I hope that is yours, as well.”
As we commemorate 60 years since the Holocaust and remember numerous human tragedies since, it’s clear that the world needs President Obama to champion “Never Again” and, this time, make it count.
Clicke here to view the entire ceremony and here to read President Obama's full remarks.
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I guess what President Obama forgot to say...
U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer commemorates Armenian Genocide
26.04.2009 01:20 GMT+04:00 l
/PanARMENIAN.Net/
U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer issued the following statement to commemorate the 94th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide:
“Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the 94th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
Ninety-four years ago today, the Ottoman Empire -- now modern-day Turkey -- began the systematic destruction of the Armenian people. Armenians were driven from their homes and villages, marched to their deaths in the deserts of the Middle East, and slaughtered in cold blood. Before it was over, approximately 1.5 million Armenians lost their lives in the first genocide of the 20th century.
Recently, the Armenian and Turkish governments announced important progress toward achieving the full normalization of relations between their two countries. I support this effort, and am hopeful that this process will lead the Turkish government to finally acknowledge the irrefutable truth of the Armenian Genocide, and also to greater peace and prosperity for the people of Armenia.
As President Barack Obama has said, “The Armenian Genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence. The facts are undeniable.” There is no need for further study or debate, because we must never legitimize the views of those who deny the very worst of crimes against humanity.
On this solemn anniversary, we remember those who were lost in the Armenian Genocide, while honoring the survivors and their descendants who have done so much to make America and the world a better place. I am personally grateful that so many of those individuals have chosen to call California home.
We also take pause to acknowledge that such crimes are continuing today. There is perhaps no more fitting example than the genocide that is raging in the Darfur region of Sudan.
Since 2002, the Sudanese government has attempted to exterminate the African Muslim population of Darfur with horrific acts of brutality. Villages have been burned to the ground, innocent women and children slaughtered by helicopter gunships, and rape has been used as a tool of genocide. What happened to the Armenians is genocide. What is happening today in Darfur is genocide, even though the government of Sudan denies this.
Genocide is only possible when people avert their eyes. Any effort to deal with genocide -- in the past, present or future -- must begin with the truth. By acknowledging the truth of the Armenian Genocide, we can end the phony debates and strengthen our ability to stand up against mass killing today.”
Some reminders to President
Some reminders to President Obama...
Source: 3generations.org
ADAM Darfur
Adam Moussa was born in Bindi See in West Darfur. Since 2004 he and his family have been dislocated to a refugee camp in Chad. His translations and interviews for "The Devil Came on Horseback" provided some of the most powerful testimony for that film and the entire movement to publicize the on-going genocide in Darfur. This interview was filmed in a refugee camp in Eastern Chad for the award-winning documentary, The Devil Came on Horseback.
video: http://www.3generations.org/stories/stories-details/articletype/articleview/articleid/11/categoryid/7/adam-moussa.aspx
UMSHA AND ZEYNEP Darfur
Umsha, 15, and Zeynep, 20, are sisters from southern Darfur. They have four brothers and four sisters, and Umsha has two children. In their village, they grew millet, tomatoes, yams and onions. They had 100 cows, 150 goats, 10 donkeys and 3 horses. The janjaweed came on camels and horses at one in the morning. The family heard helicopters and guns. The janjaweed burned the houses. Their fire came from matches. They caught people and killed them. They took animals and killed them. They took children and killed them. They took human beings and killed them. They took some children away. The ones who couldn’t walk they killed. They shot their father. They shot their brother. Umsha and Zeynep hid in the trees with their husbands. Nothing was left.
There was nothing left. They left their home. They walked for five days, carrying their baby. More than 100 walked together. They found water, but no food. They stopped at a makeshift camp and stayed until government soldiers came. The government soldiers burned the camp. The government soldiers beat the refugees. The government soldiers killed two refugees. The government soldiers maimed three boys. The government soldiers forced the living into lorries, and took them to a government camp.
The camp is better, Umsha and Zeynep say. They are in a tent, but they have no bed. They have one blanket to spread over all of them, and no bowl or bucket. Just dishes, too flat to hold water.
AISHA AND ZAINEP Darfur
Aisha and Zainep are sisters from Donkey Desera in south Darfur. In Donkey Desera, theirs was a farming family, with four donkeys, seven goats, and one hundred chickens.
They used to sell their goods at the local souk. One morning, they woke up to the sound of donkeys screaming. It was 5 am. They heard men enter the village on camels, they heard them setting fire to the houses and farms. They heard helicopters, they heard them dropping bombs. They heard gunfire, and they fled. They couldn’t see their attackers. They hid behind an abandoned well. There was nothing left of Donkey Desera.
Zainep walked to Nyala, capital of South Darfur with four of her children and two of her husbands’ nieces, but without her husband. The children were 5, 7, 10, 13, and 15 years old. They had no food or water. They all had diarrhea. They all were cold. They saw police along the way, but the police ignored them. They saw many burned out villages and dead people along the way. They walked like this for five days.
They arrived at an IDP camp to find just thirty-two others had made it there from Donkey Desera. Aisha made it to the camp later. They were releieved to be reunited. Donkey Desera had been a village of 500 people. There was nothing left of Donkey Desera. Remebering life in Donkey Desera, Zainap said, “I was full, I had everything I needed. Now we are hungry. Before the camp we were very, very hungry.”
When they arrived at the camp, they had nothing. Worldvision gave them clothes – one hand-out in 6 months. They each have 3 changes of clothes now. They all sleep in tents in the camp, on the floor. They each have a blanket, but no buckets, and no kerosene lamps. Aisha shares her tent with six children, and Zainep with three. There is not enough food in the camp, and the children are hungry. The sisters said that meat, milk and fruit are finished in the camp—for these, you must walk two hours to Nyala, you must buy them in the souk, you must have the money to buy them. To cook, you must have firewood, which you can also buy in the souk, but if you don’t have money you must go outside the camp and forage for wood. There is no wood left.
Aisha and Zainep won’t go home because they fear the janjaweed. They long to rebuild their lives, and to do so, they would need to feel safe, and they would need a donkey and a plough.
But he didn't call it a genocide
Worth mentioning, no, that Obama reneged on his campaign promise to call the Armenian tragedy by its rightful name--a genocide?
This sort of uncritical, not to say adulatory, coverage of Obama makes me wonder whether Enough is capable of independent advocacy at a time when one of its founders is said to be up for a job in the administration.
--David Aronson