(Photo credit: One Million Bones)
By Faith J. H. McDonnell (@Cuchulain09)
The IRD is a founding member of Act for Sudan, a bi-partisan alliance of activists who advocate for an end to genocide and mass atrocities in Sudan. This weekend, June 8-10, Act for Sudan is co-sponsoring an unprecedented event to demonstrate the enormity and devastation of genocide. Lives lost in such places as Sudan, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, and Burma will be represented by one million handmade bones, displayed on the National Mall.
One Million Bones describes itself as “a large-scale social arts practice” which means they “combine education, hands-on art making, and public installations to raise awareness.” The organization provides genocide education adapted for every grade of school. As the name suggests, the art-making consists of providing people with the opportunity to create “bones” that represent and honor victims of genocide and mass atrocities, as well as those who are still fighting to survive in those regions of conflict. Public installation of the bones serves as both a memorial and a visual petition to those who have the responsibility to protect the innocent.
Over the past three years, One Million Bones has done two preview installations to prepare the way for this weekend’s installation on the National Mall. The first took place in Albuquerque in August 2011. 500,000 bones were installed at that event. Another 500,000 bones were installed at an event in New Orleans in April 2012. Students, artists, activists, and church members from around the United States and around the world participated in the creation of the one million handmade bones to be installed on the National Mall. I created a bone during a Sudan/South Sudan advocacy conference in Des Moines last year.
One Million Bones founder and TED Fellow Naomi Natale, actress Robin Wright, Holocaust survivor Eva Kor, former U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Sudan Dr. Mukesh Kapila, Enough Project founder John Prendergast, Carl Wilkens, the only American to remain in Rwanda during the genocide, and many other human rights leaders as well as international musicians, will join hundreds of activists from around the United States at the National Mall during the Saturday, Sunday, and/or Monday events. The bone laying and an evening program will take place on Saturday, educational workshops and a candlelight vigil on Sunday, and on Monday activists will move to Capitol Hill for advocacy.
If you are able, please attend One Million Bones. You can learn more about this powerfully moving project and sign up to volunteer at the Washington D.C. installation at www.onemillionbones.org. You may identify yourself as a member of the Act for Sudan team, if you would like. If you can’t come for all three days, you are welcome to participate whenever you can. View the schedule here.
Each bone represents a call to action, a story, a voice. (One Million Bones)
Comment by Dean Allen on June 4, 2013 at 10:21 am
Sudan? That’s some place in Africa, right? With all due respect, there are serious problems HERE that should be of a lot more concern to Americans. How about scattering your million bones in the deserts of the American southwest to deter further invasions by undocumented criminal aliens? Alternatively, you could take your million bones to the HQ of Planned Parenthood and let them represent the millions of babies murdered by abortion here in the USA. I have ten more examples, but you get the point! Sudan? As they say up north, Gimmie a break!
If a couple of folks who live across town from you get into a drunken brawl, are you going to rush across town and get in the middle of it? Not if you have wisdom & discretion.
Sudan is not a neighbor, political or military ally, and I cannot think of any thing of strategic importance we buy from, or sell to, them.
Your weird protest with fake bones comes across to be as a bunch of liberals wanting to be do-gooders, looking for a cause, with way too much time on their hands. Thank God, at least this project for Sudan is not wasting any of our tax dollars.
Comment by Faith McDonnell on June 4, 2013 at 10:59 am
Wow. You obviously have not been around the Institute on Religion and Democracy very long, Mr. Allen, or you would know that we have been advocates for human rights and religious freedom in Sudan/South Sudan for about two decades. You may also not know that since its inception, IRD has worked as defenders for those who are persecuted for their faith all around the world — whether the countries were neighboring, political or military allies, or not. I will let others respond more to your comments which manifest quite a lack of knowledge about Sudan and quite a lack of common humanity about victims of genocide.
Comment by Binky on June 4, 2013 at 11:11 am
Mr. Allen: There IS here, despite the wishes of anyone to be left alone; an Isolationist America nearly let Germany win two World Wars– thank heavens the U.S. at least tried to fight Soviet Imperialism 1945-1991. Power & opportunity imply a moral obligation to– at very least– monitor & protest evils around the world, if not intervene in every one. The current U.S. regime has taken the side of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East– that is immoral interventionism. Turkey is now in a life-or-death fight with the Muslim Brotherhood to destroy any form of non-Islamic law and practice.. should the U.S. sit back and watch? Should the U.S. act like all those folks in Woolwich taking iPod vids of a man being beheaded, instead of doing something– anything– about it? Faith & her friends & related groups are not trying to cure all injustices, everywhere, ever– just to tell Americans about an evil going on in the world that everyone should be concerned about: the Jihad in North Africa, and in particualr, the horrible genocide in thee Sudan. Read your history, Mr. Allen– American politicians, churches, groups, and the public made the same kind of outcry in the late 1800s and early 1900s over the Armenian Genocides, raising awareness, sending aid, and putting public and political pressure on the dying Caliphate to stop the murders, starvation, and death-marches. The freedom and opportunity to do good when it lays in our power to do so is a duty. Personal or national selfishness in the face of atrocity and genocide and preventable evils is simply indefensible.