Good Shepherds: Living the Faith by Dana Yost

Author:Dana Yost [Yost, Dana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christian Living
Publisher: eLectio Publishing
Published: 2013-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Her fingers grazed the strings of the harp, and she added the words, “peace I leave with all of you here tonight,” to the lyrics, and some people in the audience closed their eyes.

Global Shepherd

First published in the January 30, 2007, issue of the Marshall Independent

A couple of years ago, as the genocide and civil war in the Darfur region of the African nation Sudan flared, the United States government tapped Eric Markusen to investigate human rights violations in the region.

Markusen traveled from southwest Minnesota, joining a small team of fellow investigators in a remote region in the west of Darfur and Chad—“the middle of nowhere,” one colleague said—and spoke with victims as they huddled in barren refugee camps.

His goal: To learn more about the disaster unfolding on the ground.

“When you talk about combining scholarship and activism, he was the very perfect example of that,” said Stewart Day on Monday.

Markusen, a longtime sociology professor at Southwest Minnesota State University with an international reputation for his work on genocide, died on a Monday morning, January 29, 2007, at Avera Marshall Regional Medical Center, after a short battle with pancreatic cancer. The cancer had spread to his liver.

He was 60.

Day is also a professor at SMSU, a colleague and close friend of Markusen’s. He visited Markusen at the hospital the day before his death.

The two led a pair of SMSU global studies trips to Jamaica, and Day said Markusen was able to succeed in both his international work and the classroom at SMSU.

Markusen helped establish genocide trial processes in both Rwanda and Bosnia. He also spent 2001 and 2002 as the research director of the Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Copenhagen.

He also did extensive work in the field, Day and other friends said.

He was diagnosed with cancer late last fall, but often continued to travel instead of staying in the hospital. He had recently gone to Sweden and to Ethiopia, where he met with those involved in the Darfur situation.

Darfur is a region in the Sudan where an estimated 400,000 have been killed in genocide and war in the past few years.

Markusen edited a book about the Darfur killings, and also co-wrote with respected genocide author Robert Jay Lifton a book titled The Genocidal Mentality: Nazi Holocaust and Nuclear Threat.

Markusen also organized a range of genocide and human rights forums and conferences at SMSU.

Day said Markusen had a real belief he could change dark places in the world, and was starting to see results of his efforts in places like Rwanda.

“I think that’s right,” Day said. “He saw some things changing. The international tribunals in different parts of the world—he was directly involved in the one in Rwanda. He helped to set things up.

“The one concerning Bosnia before that, he helped with.”

SMSU vice president Vince Pellegrino visited Markusen in the hospital near the end, and considered himself a good friend.

“Those of us that saw him last week in the hospital felt we were saying one last goodbye to Eric,” Pellegrino said.

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