Postcards from the Imagination

To call your attention to the genocide underway in Darfur. Not because I want to wag my finger at anyone, but because I watched a film on PBS this evening called Sometimes in April, about the Rawandan genocide. It was a devastating reminder of just how important it is that we keep an eye out for one another. So, if you've not already done so perhaps you could drop by DarfurGenocide.org and send a letter to President Bush urging him to act.

Admittedly, it's not much, but it's is how these things work. PBS shows a film to heighten awarness, people like me mention it to the people we know, and hopefully there's enough of a bump in public pressure to move our leaders. I know how difficult it is to feel effectual as a mere cog in that wheel, but as Auden famously wrote:

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.