Day for Darfur

The STAND Concordia University Chapter (http://standconcordia.ca/), in conjunction with other student groups, including the Concordia chapters of Amnesty International, the African Students Association, HASA, SHOUT Concordia and Hillel Concordia, joined forces to organize the March 15th benefit and awareness concert, held at Club Lambi in Montreal.

Word of mouth advertising, street-team poster campaigns, email campaigns, website announcements… these are the tools that were used to spread the word about the event to raise money for the politically neutral relief organization Médecins Sans Frontières (http://www.msf.org/), currently striving to bring much-needed humanitarian assistance to the people of the Darfur region.

I was invited to the Rock Darfur show by Jason of La Defense, one of the acts playing the benefit.  Through him I was introduced to Roxi Bechman and Helen Downie, who helped to organize the event along with Julien Laflamme and Sean Zunini.  Through Roxi and Helen I met members of the other performing acts, as well as some others through Tara Tavender, executive director for Save Darfur Canada (http://www.savedarfurcanada.org).

The bands that played, Heruba, La Defense, Feel Gud, Nate Escape and Polar Eyes, were recruited by Helen and Roxie from a huge pool of local musical talent here in Montreal. Their musical styles ranged from rock to reggae to retro; there were spoken word performances by Roxi, Aliyah Thomas and Samson Tshikuka as well as a video presentation, an information kiosk and a merch table selling authentic African handcrafted jewellery.

Aliyah Thomas’ spoken word piece can be heard here: Download WAV file

All those involved with the benefit, from organizers and staff to the performers, were, themselves, all united by the belief that they could, in their own way, do something to make a difference for the victims of the unrelenting violence in Darfur:

Justin, of La Defense: “I’m just really excited to be playing a show of this magnitude… I’m not a particularly political-activist type of individual so it’s new territory for me… but to do our part, to raise awareness, it feels good.”

T, of Polar Eyes: “We all met through shows like Amnesty International and we’ve always thought of it as important for bands to get involved anyway they could, which is to bring people together and make the body move and make the spirit move… ”

Stewart, of Feel Gud: “Not only are we here for the greater good and for Darfur and Doctors and Without Borders… but to try and generate awareness not to exploit others… ”

Frederick Arlen of Heruba: “… There’s so much to tell about so we try to be useful as musicians… collecting money for Médecins Sans Frontières… those doctors out there are doing such a great job but they need help and they need the support of the public… there is something really bad going on there in Darfur and everybody’s got to help them.”

A huge and swelling crowd turned out to hear the bands play that night, and more importantly, to listen to the message being spread, the cause being supported.

It is an unfortunate fact of human nature that few of us are willing to open our eyes to the unpleasant realities of the greater world around us.  If not for the Rock Darfur event, the humanitarian crisis in the Sudan would have remained a blip on my own intellectual radar; something I was aware of, but not overly concerned about.