Better World Books August Book Drive Days 17 and 18

"My son was six months old, and I was holding him in the middle of the night reading an article by Nicholas Kristof about Darfur. The column described a young boy who had been killed because of his ethnicity, and looking down at my child, I realized that this was not acceptable, that it was not right that my son should be 'safe' while another boy was not."
Leslie Thomas, an upstander profiled in The Enough Moment by John Prendergast and Don Cheadle

That really just sums up my feelings perfectly. Why should my child be safe while another child suffers? Why should we think that a child's life is somehow less precious because of their location? When will we all  take "what if that was my child?" one step further and say "that IS someone's child and this is not okay!"

I decided to join two days into one blog post as the books I read yesterday and today were not only by the same authors, but dealt with the same topic. Yesterday's book was Not on Our Watch : The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond and today's choice was The Enough Moment: Fighting to End Africa's Worst Human Rights Crimes. Both books are written by John Prendergast and Don Cheadle and both are hard reads emotionally, but will leave you not only inspired, but determined to say "enough" yourself to the continuing crimes against humanity in Darfur.

Darfur is a region in western Sudan which has been under attack since 2003 by the Jangaweed, armed and supported by the Sudanese government. That's right. The Sudanese government is committing atrocities on its own people and the world powers have been woefully slow to act. In an area the size of Texas, an estimated 300,000 people were murdered by the Sudanese government in a span of two years and almost 3 million people have been displaced from their homes as a result. They have nothing but scorched land, poisoned wells and dead bodies to go back to. And although these crimes were first labeled a genocide in 2004, it still continues today.

You will read about babies being bayoneted or set on fire in front of their mothers,  those mothers then killed themselves or repeatedly raped and then left to die. Men and children being systematically lined up and murdered and the few survivors fleeing for their lives with the memory of seeing their family slaughtered and their home destroyed. As I said, these are not easy reads, but they are necessary ones.

But you will also read about those who have escaped, vowing to make a difference and trying to save as many of their fellow Darfurians as they can. You will read about brave souls standing up to the Sudanese government and shedding light on their crimes and you will read about people from the rest of the world that decided "Never Again" and "Not on My Watch"  meant just that. People from all walks of life and all ages, coming together to stand with the people of Darfur and becoming upstanders rather than bystanders.

Some of the names of these people will be familiar to you. Names like George Clooney, Madeleine Albright, Angelina Jolie, Big Kenny, who have used their celebrity status or position of power to get the word out, raise money for relief efforts, and press world leaders to do something. Others have names you might not recognize (such as Awatef Isaac and Reverend Mike Slaughter),  but their stories are ones that you will never forget.

And both books have way after way for you to get involved and plenty of tips on how to be the most effective in your fight for human rights. To learn more about the crisis in Darfur, I  suggest you check out http://www.savedarfur.org/ and http://www.enoughproject.org/ . These sites also have ways that you can help and inspiring stories of people who have made a difference and continue to do so.

And you can start being an upstander simply by purchasing your books from http://www.betterworldbooks.com/ . Each purchase not only helps fund library and literacy projects (including some in Africa), but they also donate a book for each book purchased from their website.