abduction, mud and art

argh.

the atrocities in darfur continue. it's now been horrific 5 years.

and nearly 5 million people need help. someone recently asked me if it was really genocide happening there. does it really matter? it's just a fuckload of human lives being destroyed.

and the international community (the UN really) still doesn't seem to get it. month's after the UN promised more help -- troops, resources -- the effort languishes. apparently military leaders have resorted to reading self-help books to keep morale!

"Every day there is a hijacking, an armed robbery or staff getting abducted. This time last year we'd talk about it – have you heard so-and-so's been hijacked?' – now it's quite mundane, it's just daily life." - Alun McDonald, Oxfam's Sudan Information Officer

last year i stewarded at Glastonbury, the UK's biggest (and wettest!) festival. i was privileged to drive a couple oxfam staff to the event, one of them being Lokuju, oxfam humanitarian officer. a thin, soft-spoken, kind-hearted man, with deep dark black skin, lokuju was coming along in order to describe to the 1,500 stewards how similar the situation at glasto -- that is, 150,000 people trying to survive in tents and mud -- was to the camps for internally displaced people in western sudan and the refugee camps in chad. i found it quite a powerful parallel to draw.

to leave you on a lighter note, if you're in NYC this month, i would definitely check out “Roy Lichtenstein: Girls” at the Gagosian Gallery. i find his work simple but very thought-provoking.