on our watch

(source: bbc news)

In the margin of a report on Rwanda, the US president scribbled, 'not on my watch'. An admirable sentiment but one that seems increasingly futile as the Darfur crisis spirals downward. We cannot be too harsh however on the inept president because the collective world has largely ignored Sudan. Indeed we tend to ignore the whole of the African continent.

Africa makes it onto our news and nature programs but there is a shocking lack of TV fiction about Africans. Through the news, we get the facts, through the nature programs we build pictures of the continent but we do not have a sense of Africans.

Good fiction connects us with people as people. The only TV show to address Africa and some of its concerns is ER and for that it is to be commended. It does not present a through analysis of the Darfur situation but it does show us African's as 'real people'.

Only when we connect with people from far off lands as 'real people' will we begin to work on making sure there are no additions to the genocide list that currently ends; Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur.


For more information ...
darfur crisis
oxfam darfur press release