Holocaust Memorial Day: Hollow Words Mock The Victims of This Century’s Genocide in Sudan

Last week marked holocaust remembrance day. While the words, “we must not stand by” tumbled off the airwaves, President Al Bashir of Sudan was planning the next move in his genocidal long game. The grand words, as hollow as the trees in which persecuted children are forced to take refuge.

The Darfur genocide is the first genocide this century. 13 years in and there’s no end in sight. Never before has a genocide been identified as such, then allowed to pursue its brutal course unabated and unfettered by the UN’s intervention.

The shocking truth is, that not only has the UN stood by during the Darfur genocide, it stands accused of prolonging it. Make no mistake, the UN, in concert with the US, the UK and others, is trading the lives of black Africans for misguided self-interest. Darfuris have long been the sacrificial lamb slain at the altar of political expediency.

Emtithal Mahmoud, a Darfuri survivor, won the prestigious individual world poetry slam in the US for her poem, “Mama”. I share her words, her story, in the hope that you will be moved to do something practical to help those children who did not get away (e.g. write to political editors in the media, your MP, church groups). Their fate lies in our hands.

The following is an extract from “Mama”

Woman walks into a warzone and has warriors cowering at her feet
My mama carries all of us in her body,
on her face, in her blood and
Blood is no good once you let it loose
So she always holds us close.

When I was 7, she cradled bullets in the billows of her robes.

That same night, she taught me how to get gunpowder out of cotton with a bar of soap.

Years later when the soldiers held her at gunpoint and asked her who she was

She said, I am a daughter of Adam, I am a woman, who the hell are you?

The last time we went home, we watched our village burn,

Soldiers pouring blood from civilian skulls

As if they too could turn water into wine.

They stole the ground beneath our feet.

The woman who raised me

turned and said, don’t be scared

I’m your mother, I’m here, I won’t let them through.

My mama gave me conviction.

Women like her

Inherit tired eyes,

Bruised wrists and titanium plated spines.

The daughters of widows wearing the wings of amputees

Carry countries between their shoulder blades.