Canadian Jewish News
By SHERI SHEFA, Staff Reporter
TORONTO — Actor and humanitarian Mia Farrow has endorsed another Canadian Jewish organization working to raise awareness about the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.
Mia Farrow spoke about the importance of distributing literature such as Canadian Jewish Congress’ Darfur: A Jewish Response to galvanize citizens to advocate for the victims of the Darfur genocide.
Farrow, who has starred in more than 40 films including Rosemary’s Baby and Hannah and Her Sisters, is a children’s rights advocate as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and a Darfur activist. She sat with The CJN last week to talk about her support for the Darfur Action Committee, a Canadian Jewish Congress initiative.
Farrow was in Toronto on Nov. 8 to speak about the need for people to do their utmost to alleviate the suffering of the helpless and voiceless around the world at an annual awards ceremony called Starry Nights, hosted by Ve’ahavta, the Canadian Jewish Humanitarian and Relief Committee.
Moments before the event was to begin, Farrow took time to talk about the CJC campaign on Darfur advocacy, which is led by Ottawa-based lawyer Amichai Wise, as well as volunteers, including university students, professionals and religious leaders from across the country.
CJC presented a 44-page booklet, titled Darfur: A Jewish Response, that it plans to distribute to synagogues, university campuses and community centres across Canada. The book, which draws on Jewish texts to motivate Canadians to advocate for the victims in Darfur by providing specific advocacy ideas, is also available for downloading as a PDF at www.cjc.ca/darfur.
Although the book appeals specifically to the Jewish community, Farrow said that it hasn’t even been necessary to appeal to Jews to advocate for the victims of Darfur because they have been part of the campaign from the start.
“The response of the Jewish community in America, in England, here in Canada has been immediate and everybody stepped up, and it’s just amazing. Without Jewish advocacy in America, we wouldn’t have the Save Darfur Coalition, we wouldn’t have the STAND [Students Taking Action Now: Darfur] groups – we wouldn’t have anywhere near the focus that we have been able to shed on another genocide,” Farrow said.
“And, of course, it is because of the Jewish people, who tragically know better than anyone, when we say the word genocide… what it means. It is the Jewish community again and again who have stepped up,” she said.
Going even further with her praise of the Jewish community, she called herself a “Jewish wannabe,” and added that she “always wanted to be Jewish.”
Wise, chair of the Darfur Action Committee, said, “Jews understand more than anyone, perhaps, why being a bystander is not an appropriate stance to take.
“All of my grandparents are Holocaust survivors, so for me, it is just part of my outlook to not be a bystander and speak up,” he added.
The book also includes graphic images from the region, including a photo taken by Farrow during one of her 11 trips to the region.
Farrow took her first trip to Darfur in 2004, about a year after a conflict over land between African farmers and Arabic nomads began. The conflict escalated into a violent war between African guerrilla groups and the Janjaweed, which led to the murder of hundreds of thousands and the displacement of about three million people in refugee camps, some of whom are dying from hunger and disease.
Farrow said that books such as Darfur: A Jewish Response are so important because “to reach the governments you have to get to the citizens.
“I’m of a generation that stopped a war. We took to the streets and stopped a war,” she said, referring to the Vietnam War. “But that’s because our voices were heard. We just have to raise our voices.”
She spoke about a late American senator, Paul Simon, who said that if just 100 people from each congressional district had written or called their leadership about the Rwandan genocide in 1994, the American government would have intervened.
Farrow urges people to call a toll-free number, 1-800-Genocid(e), that connects you directly to the office of the Canadian prime minister, the office of the foreign affairs minister, or the office of the opposition.
“You don’t have to be an expert, you just have to say, ‘I want my government to step up. It is not acceptable to watch millions of people perish.’”
Farrow, who said her family motto is that with knowledge comes responsibility, said that the first step in becoming an advocate is to get informed.
“[Ask yourself] what is being demanded of you, what is in your sphere of capabilities to give, to do, to join, to become involved, to lend your voice.”
She said that while she has gotten discouraged in the past by people’s apathy, she has a lot of hope when it comes to the younger generation of activists.
“I get down sometimes. I don’t indulge in it and I don’t allow it for long, but sometimes I wake up feeling depressed that it is such an uncaring world, but I went to We Day, that the Kielburgers [put together],” Farrow said, referring to an annual event in Toronto and Vancouver conceived by children rights activists Craig and Marc Kielburger to empower youth to make positive change in the world.
“I’ve been two years in a row. I can’t feel anything but hopeful when you see 20,000 young people saying, ‘Yes, we can!’ Each time I tell them, ‘You are the generation I’ve been waiting for,’ they scream, ‘Yes, we are!’ Canadians are on fire. I’d like to see that in America.”
For more information or to join the Darfur Action Committee, e-mail CanadianJewishCongress@cjc.ca.
