Lost In Sudan

This is my new wife for President Bush. May God grant him many fertile women with firm bodies and an election victory without problems in Florida.

-As quoted in a recent Economist by a young warrior (only his first name, Thuapon, is given) in southern Sudan, where George Bush is seen, according to The Economist, as the primary architect of peace between the battling factions of the north and the south . I’m humbled by how little I know about Sudan, Africa’s largest country. Even more distressing is what little I do now know about the country has come by way of the current humanitarian crisis (see Samantha Powers’ excellent New York Times op-ed piece here) currently ravaging the country, where over a million black Africans have been displaced or trapped (without basic resources) and over 30,000 slaughtered in the region of Dafar. It’s pretty complex and, as the Economist article points out, little understood given the countries inaccessibility and intense poverty. And the current slaughter in Sudan is one of “two separate but related civil wars” pitting Arabs against Christians (hence America’s interest) and pagans in one war and Muslim against Muslim in the other.

But the real question is this: What does it mean now that I am informed with this information? The simple answer, though one that leaves me feeling somewhat helpless, is to write my representatives and echo some of the things Powers offers in her piece. Seems like as good as place as any to start.

May God grant George Bush an election landslide defeat the likes of which this country has never seen. May CNN gain access to that list of 47,000 felons who are to be purged from voter roles in Florida, too.