The CBS hit Touched by an Angel has been hailed as an example of what television can become. It has no sex or profanity. Its violence is presented in a context of explaining its harm, and how violent people will suffer consequences for what they've done. But the consequences are not always apparent in this life. The program deals with an afterlife, populated by God and angels. The angels in the show appear on earth to get people to do the right thing.
On Sunday September 26th the season premier aired. It cut to the heart of President Clinton's announced doctrine of humanitarian interventionism. The program examined the situation in Sudan, where 2 million people have died in the last ten years. But other than send some cruise missiles into a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, in order to divert attention from his sex scandal, Clinton has done nothing about the murderous Islamic regime in power there. He has not unleashed NATO to stop the human rights abuses in Sudan.
Touched did not hold Clinton accountable for that gross failure. But it did shed some light on one of the problems in Sudan - slavery. The plot involved a liberal politician who is persuaded by her husband, son and an Angel to take a trip to Sudan to draw attention to the plight of the people there. She resists such a trip because she thinks focusing on a country so far away will be bad for her reelection chances. One of her corporate supporters, who imports a substance from Sudan, says he'll stop contributing to her campaign if she makes the trip.
After heavenly persuasion, she makes the trip anyway, and brings back dramatic film footage of slaves in Sudan being bought and sold. Her group makes the transaction and gives the slaves their freedom. The program ends with a narrator saying the film footage will provide a new awareness of what's happening over there.
The program served that purpose. But it failed to convey some critical facts. First, it never mentioned that the Sudanese government is an Islamic fundamentalist regime that is persecuting Christians. The show emphasized slavery but didn't mention that some of the Christian victims of the regime are actually being crucified. The only reference to the religious dimension of the problem came when one character talked about a "holy war" and a campaign to force some people to change their religion.
Brad Phillips appreciated the program. But his own film, entitled "Sudan: The Hidden Holocaust," goes into much more detail about what's really going on. You can find some information about his film at the web site www. persecutionproject.org Brad tells us that the producers of Touched had promised to provide an announcement at the end of the program about where viewers could get more information and act to make a difference. They reneged on that promise. They may have come under pressure from CBS or the organized Arab-Muslim community. Telling the truth can be difficult in modern television, but at least CBS told part of the story. For more of it, go to: www.persecutionproject.org
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