Angelique Stevens, an assistant professor of English at Monroe Community College who teaches literature of the Holocaust, cites the notorious genocides in Bosnia, Darfur and Cambodia as a reminder of why people need take action to prevent such violence.
It’s not enough, she says, to simply vow not to allow genocide to occur again.
"When we say never again, there’s work we have to do," Stevens said. "Right now, we could stop what could happen, which is atrocity and war."
She said political pressure is needed to ensure that genocide does not occur when Southern Sudanese decide in a Jan. 9 referendum whether to form a separate country.
"Imagine how much a war costs," Stevens said. "Billions of dollars and lives lost. During the last civil war in Sudan, 2 million died and 4 million were displaced."
That three-decades-long civil war ended when the Muslim-dominated government and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement signed a peace agreement in January 2005 that also established the 2011 referendum. With the referendum days away, political observers are watching nervously to see if the referendum results will be accepted peacefully.
Yet lasting peace takes work, as Pope Benedict XVI pointed out last year.
"If peace is to plant deep roots, concrete efforts must be made to diminish the factors contributing to unrest, particularly corruption, ethnic tensions, indifference and selfishness," the pope said during the Sudanese bishops’ ad limina visit to the Vatican in March 2010, according to Catholic News Service.
In the six years since a peace agreement was signed, many people in Sudan have been working to stabilize and rebuild the country. They have been aided by many parishioners from the Diocese of Rochester, who have supported efforts by Catholic Family Center and its partners to resettle Sudanese refugees, including the "Lost Boys" — young men displaced by violence and atrocity.
One of the "Lost Boys," Salva Dut, has mobilized local and national efforts by starting a charity called Water for Sudan, which drills wells in Southern Sudan.
Several parishes have funded entire well projects, including St. Louis Parish in Pittsford and a joint project between Our Lady of the Americas Parish in Rochester and St. Joseph Parish in Penfield. In recent weeks, several parishes in the area also have published items in their bulletins educating parishioners about the tenuous peace in Sudan, and referring them to Water for Sudan for more information.
The story of the charity also has been chronicled in local author Linda Sue Park’s new book, which tells a fictionalized account of how Dut came to the United States and started Water for Sudan.
Dut was inspired to start the charity after learning that his father had become ill drinking water contaminated with parasites. Park said after becoming friends with Dut, she wanted to be able to share his story with others.
"It occurred to me that if I wrote a story, I could tell many people at once," she said.
She said she hopes to educate younger readers about Sudan so that they will remember what they have learned when they see the country on the news and develop an awareness of what it’s like to be someone else.
She said she, like many others, is watching the referendum closely.
"I always want to think that peace is possible, but I do know that people who are more knowledgeable than I are very nervous, so that makes me anxious too," Park said.
