Mother Nature has managed to accomplish a feat which remains unobtainable to mere mortals. In one swift cruel maneuver Mother Nature has inspired this world to join together in a single common cause - to relieve the suffering in southeast Asia in their hour of need.

As news of the disaster unfolded before our eyes we found ourselves glued to the TV, a sudden feeling of horror began to form among human beings throughout this tiny planet. Horror gradually began to be replaced with an urgent need to just 'do something'. The need to do something has evolved into the largest most extensive co-operative relief effort ever witnessed in the history of humanity.

Adjectives began swirling such as 'admirable'and 'impressive' and 'magnificent' as an inadequate way of describing what the world can accomplish as a single unit with one goal..to help their fellow human beings. The massive relief efforts we continue to witness on the nightly news show no signs of tapering off, indeed we continue to be told of new ideas to collect even more money to send to the area.

This outpouring of kindness and generosity and compassion for our fellow man will go down in the annals of history as one of our finest hours and rightfully so.

I do however have a 'but'. Opinion pieces usually do.

My thoughts of late have been uneasily shifting to another part of this great world. I admonished myself at first for being downright ungenerous..uncaring towards the people in southeast Asia. And I remained silent. But my thoughts continued unabated. My thoughts of course had shifted to another disaster of 'biblical proportions' but with one distinct difference...Mother Nature had nothing to do with it. This disaster is entirely the fault of basic human foibles and greed and hate.

Disaster thy name is Africa.

Let us take a look at the region of Darfur.

Darfur is located in western Sudan, a country of 39 million people located between Arabic Egypt and black Africa. Before the tsunami in Thailand last December the United Nations referred to this area of Africa as the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world.

The region of Darfur which translates as 'Homeland of the Fur' is roughly the size of Britain and home to several ethnic groups including the Fur, Massalit, Bargu, Zaghawa and Tunjur. Sudan’s government has armed an Arab militia called Janjaweed or “Men on Horseback" to murder, rape and pillage non-Arabic speaking black Africans in western Sudan.

Non-Arabic speaking black Africans includes babies, children, women, the elderly, the infirm...everyone who doesn't speak Arabic and who is black. Ethnic cleansing. Genocide.

At least 900,000 Furs and other black peoples have been forced from their Darfur homes but that number is probably a low estimate. Another 110,000 non-Arabic speaking, black babies, children, women, men,elderly and infirm Furs are now refugees in neighbouring Chad. The dead - those who have been raped and brutally murdered, are estimated in the tens of thousands but that number is in all likelihood extremely inaccurate when you factor in body mutilation and burning.

Countless whole villages have been burned to the ground but not before the Janjaweed loot property, rape women and children, torture them for a time and then put them out of their misery by murdering them.

Various agencies are reporting 1000 people a week are dying from hunger and disease in the refugee camps in Chad. And finally, some 2.3 million people require emergency assistance including an estimated 1.65 million who have been uprooted from their homes.

So, what is the difference? Why hasn't the world come together as one to come to the aid of the Furs? We can do it, we're proving that as I write this. Charity benefits and concerts are being planned right now as a way of helping the victims in southeast Asia. More gala events are in the immediate future and Canada has just announced that we will donate over $400 million.

A thought - could it be that we have personalized what happened in Thailand? Knowing that it isn't beyond the realm of possibility that a deadly tsunami could reach our own virgin shores? But a bloody and brutal civil war with daily...hourly genocide, rape and murder, couldn't?

Could it be that basic? Are we humans wired to show compassion only to those with whom we can personally identify?

Were you shocked as you read my short explanation of the happenings in Darfur? Were you even aware that it was that bad?

Do you even care?