Never Again

Kigali, Rwanda -- Sharing the genocide commemoration week with the people of Rwanda is a humbling and supremely complex experience and not something for a daily blog. I have also shared this experience with a Holocaust survivor and a Darfurian genocide survivor -reminders that not only did genocide continue after the Holocaust, but is still occurring as I write this.

The Rwandan people understand better than most the horrors of this systematic crime against humanity. Yesterday President Paul Kagame spoke of the commitment of his country to help end genocide. Rwanda was let down by the international community, we were all shamed....and yet a decade later the Darfurian people have been abandoned too.

Today I will walk with mourners along what was a 5km death march to Nyanza outside Kigali, honoring those who died there on this day 12 years ago. I will pause for a moment of silence and healing for those who have died because of genocide and those who face that threat today. I have asked people all over the world to join me in a simple and modest attempt at a collective act of healing. President Kagame told me personally that all I can do as an individual is try and influence100 people to end genocide and hope by sharing my experiences here perhaps 30 will understand, and so, person by person, the international community will begin to act in a meaningful way.

The promise of "never again" still has no meaning. It should not remain so.