Blissful Ignorance

You know how sometimes you are somewhat ignorant to an issue, but it's your choice to remain so? That's me with regard to the situation in Darfur. I try to read the BBC's news site because it expands my scope of the world news. I've pretty much given up on network news to learn anything worthwhile about things outside the U.S. While touching, I don't think the human interest story about the victory of a little league team is something I need to know.

I've seen the headlines regarding the genocide taking place, but couldn't bring myself to read much past the lead paragraph. It's too much. Too much to think that people are being treated in this manner.

Last night, I was watching 60 Minutes. They had a story called Searching for Jacob. It followed Scott Pelley on a trek to Sudan to find the schoolboy, Jacob, whose schoolbooks were discovered in what remained of his village in Darfur. His things were being held at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C.

Along the way, they focus on the refugee camp and the stories of others; how they came to be there. The stories are horrific. In a camp of 25,000, there is one doctor, Ashis Brahma. To say he's ill-equipped is an understatement. His statement was the most haunting from the report:

This is bad. They go to the villages, and they burn one village after the other, then when the people come out they catch the women and gang bang, they rape them not one guy, no 10, 15 then they carve up the men and throw them in the drinking water to make sure that this place will never ever be used again. And you’re telling me the people in America don’t know this or don’t want to know this. Maybe its too much to know but that’s what’s happening right now and its happening all over again," Dr. Brahma says. "I’m sorry to say I’m going to sit here with you in two years time and I’m gonna tell you the same sad story. People will say, 'Ich habe nicht gewusst,' which is German for 'I didn’t know.'

I'd encourage anyone to watch the video, linked to above. It provides some background information and you can find out if they did, indeed, find Jacob.