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Recording artist Jon Foreman joined the DARFUR FAST FOR LIFE today following activist-actress Mia Farrow and Virgin Group Founder and Chairman Sir Richard Branson. A longtime activist and Switchfoot frontman, Foreman will undertake a water-only fast in order to raise awareness of the humanitarian crisis currently taking place in Darfur, as well as to encourage long-term U.S. Government actions to bring lasting peace to the people of Sudan. Foreman begins his three day fast today and is joined by U.S. Representative Donald Payne who is Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health and works tirelessly to end the suffering in Darfur.
Expressing his outrage at the situation in Darfur, Foreman said, “Can it be possible that right now, two and a half million people are waking up in camps and refugee camps having been driven from their homes by violent means? Under the same sun, could it be true that almost half a million people have died of starvation, violence, and disease over the past six years in Darfur? Is this true?! And if this is true, why has the media remained almost completely silent on the issue? Why has our government maintained it’s current stance of inaction?” Foreman follows Actress-Activist Mia Farrow and Virgin CEO and Founder Sir Richard Branson and others in sharing their experiences during the fast through video and blog posts at www.fastdarfur.org. Jon Foreman - Switchfoot - Darfur Fast for Life from fastdarfur on Vimeo. How are we, in our own lives, relinquishing justice and ushering freedom? What are we fasting from? Who are we championing for? If an entire country seems too big, start with the people outside your front door. |
Comments
CJ- How are you?
No doubt Jon Foreman has great intentions behind this act of fasting. Yet, by not eating does this make him or anyone else more likely to light a fire under the pants of those in power to make change? Or will it just a cause a bunch of Switchfoot fans not to eat?. There are millions starving in the world right now (close to 6 million alone in N. Korea) and little is being done about it. So what makes celebs think that they can change anything by choosing to starve themselves?
I'm wrestling with the idea that often times the Western world has not a clue where a country in need is until a celeb knows. When did celebrities become educators? Does something need to be 'popular' before we, and by we I mean the world's wealthiest and most influential, will act?
Darfur gained its 'popularity' because celebrities deemed it so by stepping foot on Sudan soil. But what about the places in the world where not even celebrities go? What then?
What about Sri Lanka where civil war has forced hundreds of thousands either off the small island (and by the way, not one of the surrounding countries will take them in) or if they remain on the island, they are crammed into 2 sq. miles with violent fighting surrounding them?
The war in Congo has claimed the lives of five times as many people as the genocides in Rwanda and Darfur combined. And where is the demand for justice there?
Don't get me wrong, raising awareness and a voice is needed on behalf of those who can't speak for their own people. But what does it take for us to not only be concerned with the popular places, but with the unpopular places as well?