So Long, April ... Hello, Genocide Prevention!

Tree blossoms. Warm afternoons. Barbecues. Tank tops. For most Americans, these are defining characteristics of April, that joyous precursor to summer.

But for anti-genocide activists like me, April also brings a series of sinister memories. April 1915: the Armenian genocide. April 1933: the Holocaust. April 1975: the Cambodian killing fields. April 1994: Rwanda. And April 2003: thousands upon thousands of deaths in Darfur, Sudan.

I've frequently thought that April, with its bloodstained past, might as well be nicknamed "genocide month." It seems my home state of California agrees; this past Thursday, the State Assembly unanimously passed a resolution declaring April 2010 the first annual Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month in the Golden State's history.

While the old adage may claim that the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history, Assemblymember Bob Blumenfield, the driving force behind the resolution, disagrees. "Awareness and vigilance," he reminded his Assembly colleagues in early March, "are needed to prevent future genocides and to stem hate crimes, human rights violations and other known potential precursors of genocide."

Unfortunately, as someone who has fought to liberate the good people of Sudan from the hands of genocidal violence and injustice for the past five years, the term "awareness" has turned somewhat sour in my mouth. I've seen the news segments come and go. Countless photo exhibits have passed through the San Francisco area, my current place of residence. Even my home town of Weaverville, CA, with just 3,500 people, has seen its fair share of anti-genocide posters and information tables (as a result, admittedly, of my own activism efforts during high school and college).

And where has that gotten us? Half a decade later, the Sudanese government continues to bomb its citizens into oblivion. According to a key leader of the Sudanese diaspora here in California, on April 27, President Omar al-Bashir and his corrupt regime killed at least 25 Darfuri civilians in an aerial bombing. Eight of the victims were children.

Despite my burgeoning cynicism, at this point, I'm willing to try anything. If dedicating a given month to "Genocide Awareness and Prevention," if only in name, helps foster a political culture that proactively works to prevent genocidal violence in the future, it will have done its job. At the very least, the resolution might succeed in plucking us from our spring-induced haze and remind us of April's countless innocent victims. Any resolution that can accomplish such a noble feat is all right by me.

Photo credit: Christian Haugen