Originally posted at Writeindependent.org on March 16, 2012
After testifying this Wednesday at the Senate foreign relations committee on the subject of violence in a possibly oil-rich desolate area of South Sudan , George Clooney was arrested today in front of the Sudanese embassy in Washington DC.
Clooney’s aim was to bring attention to Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, government official Ahmad Haroun and defense minister Abdelrahim Mohamed Hussein, for war crimes on the indigenous people living in the Nuba mountains.
I have a lot of respect for anyone who would put himself in harm’s way to understand a war torn region’s complex situation.
But I don’t find it so amazing that George Clooney and his father spoke out against what is going on in South Sudan. Anyone who experienced the horror first hand, if they knew they could do something about it, would have to do something, or his soul would die.
There are precious few occasions in a lifetime that present turning points, that define the character of a person. Some new knowledge, an event that turns the world upside down for a while, a chance meeting, can thrust one into a crisis and there is no going back. Suddenly, a choice that hadn’t even been there becomes as clear as daylight.
Out of the millions of people who are aware of what is going on in South Sudan, only a few have the power to make a difference. What George Clooney is doing is asking those people to make a choice. They have to do what it takes to fix this problem, because the alternative is to die a thousand deaths inside.