Save Darfur Rally in NYC

The Princeton Review recently named the University of Delaware the fourth most apathetic campus in the nation. However, if the editors who bestowed upon us this bragging right were sitting on one of the buses headed to the Save Darfur Rally in New York City this past Sunday, I daresay we would have been bumped down a notch or two on the apathetic ladder. Donning Save Darfur Tshirts, courtesy of Hillel International, and clutching signs, 92 University of Delaware students joined the impassioned masses in Central Park for the second of two major Save Darfur rallies in the past six months. Coming from various religions and ends of the political spectrum, the students traded in their differing views for stickers, buttons, and slogans- all asking for the United States to pressure the United Nations to send in peacekeeping troups to the Darfur region.
More than 400,000 people have been killed so far in the genocide of the people in Darfur, which is being carried out by the Janjaweed, an Islamic milia group backed by the Sudanese government in response to requests from groups asking for better equality in government. The horrific atrocities are continuing unabated, despite a deadline for peace set by the government of Sudan and one faction of the militia.
An estimated 25,000 people showed up to the NYC rally on Sunday not just to voice their outrage over the immensely cruel and tragic loss of human life, but to ask President Bush why he will not uphold his promise of fighting terror in a region now defined by the word.
As members of the generation who will soon be asked to provide answers to such questions, we have no right to maintain ignorance of the situation. I often hear students say, "it's so hard to keep up to date on things like this in college." It should be the opposite. In a place of higher education, where the goal is to create informed and critical contributors to society, we should be especially aware. Now we, as members of a declared political group, must not only maintain our awareness, but increase the awareness of others. Or there will be worse consequences than a bad rating from Princeton.