Zeev & Ed, Of course UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called for intervention in the Sudan in his opening speech tot he UN Assembly... But shows like this Hollywood production blasting the hypocrites of the NIF Junta which will air Sunday on CBS also help raise consciousness and ready the world for intervention in the Sudan...Perhaps the days of this very evil Junta are numbered as are those of its allies...
Pray that the Senate Resolution 1453 "Sudan Peace Act" passes soon so that the US may intervene quickly and directly to end the suffering ... I am happy to report that bipartisan support for this Resolution is growing....
News Article by WT on September 23, 1999 at 08:38:00:
Touched by an Angel' will start season with show on Sudan slavery
By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Angels landed on Capitol Hill Tuesday night in an unusual
marriage between Hollywood and Washington, in which
both parties were patting each other on the back for tackling
the most unlikely of prime-time causes: slavery in the Sudan.
CBS-TV's top-rated program, "Touched by an Angel," will
move into international politics at 8 p.m. Sunday with a season
premiere on the Sudan. An advance screening Tuesday night
attracted politicians, their families, various advocacy groups
and a who's who of local evangelical Christians packed into a
large hearing room in the Dirksen Senate Office Building.
The admiring crowd surrounding Martha Williamson,
executive producer of the show, included Sens. Rick
Santorum, Pennsylvania Republican, Jeff Sessions, Alabama
Republican, and Mike DeWine, Ohio Republican. Mr.
Santorum informed her that "Touched by an Angel" was the
only TV show he watches all week.
"You're in our prayers," he promised. Rep. Edward J.
Markey, Massachusetts Democrat, also had some inspirational
thoughts.
"God bless CBS," he said, as he brushed by a TV official.
Someone asked why CBS was getting involved in politics, at a
time when several of the members of Congress were pushing
Senate Resolution 1453, known as the Sudan Peace Act. The
bill, sponsored by Sen. Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, would
greatly expand America's role in the Sudanese civil war.
"The episode is not as political as this press conference,"
said CBS Senior Vice President Martin Franks. "CBS is not
endorsing any legislation." Still, he added, "When you're as
successful as Martha is, you're given wide leeway."
Tuesday's reception was a celebration of the drama's
success, with Sen. Sam Brownback, Kansas Republican,
lauding it as "the most God-oriented show in the history of
television."
Despite all the business suits present, the affair had some of
the trappings of a Hollywood gala. In the midst of it all stood
Irish actress Roma Downey, who plays the red-haired angel
Monica. Dressed in a sequined pink dress, an orange shawl
and gold slippers, she was surrounded by a receiving line of
adoring children and their mothers.
"Hopefully, it will help to increase awareness out there," she
told a bystander. "In my own personal circle of friends, people
were as ignorant as I was."
A few minutes later, she was speaking before the crowd.
"As a mother myself hearing about the kidnappings, it
makes me grateful to be part of a show exposing this atrocity,"
she said.
Miss Williamson took full advantage of her pulpit to preach
against slavery.
"When I heard there was slavery in the Sudan, I stood up
and listened," she said. "We've been committed to the message
that God exists and God loves you and God wants you to be
part of His life . . . I'm sorry to say it took something like
slavery to get my attention, but it did."
What also got her attention was a surprise visit by Rep.
Frank R. Wolf, Virginia Republican and two congressional staff
members while she was relaxing in the Washington Hilton
coffee shop one morning last February. Mr. Wolf, who has a
habit of visiting human rights nightmares such as East Timor,
Chechnya, Tibet and Siberia, had been to the Sudan three
times in the past 10 years.
Now he prays for it every night.
Could she, Mr. Wolf asked, introduce on her show the
horrendous civil war in the Sudan -- and the resulting
enslavement of thousands of southern Sudanese children?
Two million people were dead, he said, yet the world didn't
seem to care. Even the media was more taken with the growing
war in Kosovo.
Miss Williamson was a tad stunned. She was on a break
from the National Prayer Breakfast, and international politics
had not much entered her mind that day.
"This is very serious stuff," she told him. "How on earth
would 'Touched by an Angel' tackle this?"
She had a point. The show, which stars Miss Downey,
Della Reese and John Dye as invisible angels who try to
influence humans toward worthy causes, is more known for
sentimentality than scathing exposes. Except for a segment on
human rights in China, it had not waded into politics. As for
religion, the show even avoids mention of Jesus in favor of the
more generic "God."
But a few weeks later, while driving down the street in Salt
Lake City, Miss Williamson heard on the radio, "For Such a
Time as This," a song by evangelical Christian songwriter
Wayne Watson. Something clicked.
Although the lyrics were originally written for one of Mr.
Watson's friends, what stood out in Miss Williamson's mind
was the title, taken from a biblical reference to the Old
Testament Queen Esther. When faced with the possible
extermination of all Jews in ancient Persia, Queen Esther still
hesitated over whether to risk her own life in intervening on
their behalf. She decides to do so after her Uncle Mordecai
tells her she has been elevated to royalty "for such a time as
this."
Perhaps, Miss Williamson realized, she had been given a
national platform on a 20-million-viewer show for such a time
as this.
She began writing the script, aided by Mr. Brownback's
staff. He had just returned from visiting the Sudan in June with
Reps. Donald M. Payne, New Jersey Democrat and Tom
Tancredo, Colorado Republican and, coincidentally, had just
been presented with a CD of Wayne Watson's song by friends.
The plot concerns a U.S. senator, Katherine Cooper,
played by Lindsay Crouse, who is stumping for re-election.
She is then handed photos and documents about Sudan's
enslaved, beaten and raped citizens by two angels in disguise.
"To be honest," she coolly informs them, "the Sudan is not my
priority right now."
Then her son accidentally discovers photos in her briefcase
of tortured Sudanese children and confronts her with questions
like, "Mom, what does 'sexual chattel' mean?" Her husband
also takes up the Sudanese cause.
The episode follows her inner battle between her family's
desire to have her pursue the Sudan issue vs. her corporate
constituents who would rather she drop the matter. She
eventually visits the war-torn country in a scene filmed on the
salt flats west of Salt Lake City. Sixty-five Sudanese
immigrants, themselves ex-slaves, play the parts of their
tortured countrymen. The song "For Such a Time as This"
plays at the end of the show.
Mr. Brownback visited the set, partly to advise Miss
Williamson on how to film the scenes that take place inside the
U.S. Senate.
"This is really going to raise awareness," he said of Sunday's
show. " 'Touched by an Angel' can take tough moral issues and
put them before the American people."
Referring to recent controversy over a Christian group that
has been buying back Christian black slaves from Islamic
traders, "The issue is touchy," he admits. "People ask why we
should redeem people and so create a slave market. Those
who have been redeemed don't care who redeems them. They
just want to be free." |
