Monday, June 06, 2005

Genocide under our noses: What to do about Darfur?

Nicholas Kristof's column in the Times today is a must-read -- as I've mentioned before, he's at his strongest when he's reporting from faraway forgotten lands, and his work on Darfur is notably powerful.

Last fall President Bush declared the slaughter here in Darfur to be genocide, and then looked away. One reason for his paralysis is apparently the fear that Darfur may be another black hole of murder and mutilation, a hopeless quagmire to suck in well-meaning Americans - another Somalia or Iraq.

It's not.

We're again making the same mistake we've made in past genocides: as in the slaughter of Armenians, Jews, Cambodians, Rwandans and Bosnians, we see no perfect solutions, so we end up doing very little. Because we could not change Nazi policies, we did not bother to bomb rail lines leading to death camps; today, because we have little leverage over Sudan, we do not impose a no-fly zone to stop the strafing of civilians or even bother to speak out forcefully.

So what exactly is going on in, say, the town of Labado?

For months, Labado was completely deserted and appeared destined to become a ghost town. But then African Union forces, soldiers from across Africa who have been dispatched to stop the slaughter, set up a small security outpost of 50 troops here. Almost immediately, refugees began returning to Labado, followed by international aid groups.

Today there are perhaps 5,000 people living in the town again, building new thatch roofs over their scorched mud huts. The revival of Labado underscores how little it takes to make a huge difference on the ground. If Western governments help the African Union establish security, if we lean hard on both the government and the rebels to reach a peace agreement, then by the end of this year Darfur might see peace breaking out.

For now, Labado is only an oasis, and when the people here step out of the town they risk being murdered or raped by the janjaweed militia.

Refugees fleeing to Kalma from a village called Saleya described how nine boys were seized by the janjaweed, stripped naked and tied up, their noses and ears cut off and their eyes gouged out. They were then shot dead and left near a public well. Nearby villagers got the message and fled.

Aid workers report that in another village, the janjaweed recently castrated a 10-year-old boy, apparently to terrorize local people and drive them away. The boy survived and is being treated.

So what to do? Kristof is right on the mark:

Yet along with atrocities, there are hopeful signs. While Mr. Bush should do more, he has forthrightly called the killings genocide and heaped aid on Darfur, probably saving hundreds of thousands of lives.

Indeed, aid shipments have brought malnutrition rates in much of Darfur below those of other places in Sudan, partly because donor governments have "borrowed" aid from other regions. So children are going hungry in southern and eastern Sudan as a consequence of Darfur.

If Mr. Bush led a determined effort to save Darfur, there would be real hope for peace here - plus, the international image of the U.S. would improve. And a new Zogby poll commissioned by the International Crisis Group found that Americans by margins of six to one favor bolder action in Darfur, such as a no-fly zone.

But Mr. Bush is covering his eyes. Last year administration figures like Colin Powell and John Danforth led the response to Darfur, but now neither Condoleezza Rice nor the White House seems much interested.

Darfur will never be a Somalia or Iraq, because nobody is talking about sending in American combat troops. But simply an ounce of top-level attention to Darfur would go a long way to save lives...

Mr. Bush values a frozen embryo. But he hasn't mustered much compassion for an entire population of terrorized widows and orphans. And he is cementing in place the very hopelessness he dreads, by continuing to avert his eyes from the first genocide of the 21st century.

One wonders what lessons we've learned. I understand that Vietnam and Somalia and now Iraq have justifiably scared many of America's even more determined hawks. And I understand that Darfur seems like an awfully remote place of little relevance to American national self-interest. And I understand that this isn't just an American problem that demands American unilateral action. After all, one could be equally critical of Canada, for example, or, more severely, of Europe. But let's keep this confined to an American context for now. Genocide is happening. Period. But nothing is happening. For all the rhetoric about the spread of liberty and the march of democracy, for all the talk of regime-change and nation-building, Darfur remains a distant thought, if a thought at all. Instead, we -- and I include myself here -- worry more about the Bolton nomination, or a few extremist judges, or the filibuster, or the European Constitution, or whatever -- often to absolute overkill, especially out here in the echo chambers of the blogosphere.

Look, I do no better. I sit here at my computer day after day and write posts on a variety of seemingly fascinating topics, linking to other sites and hoping for an occasional link in return, probably more concerned about my "traffic" than about thousands of anonymous deaths on a continent I've never even been to. And I comment and I comment and, from time to time, I wallow in my own self-importance and lust for recognition. Some of this is only natural. We live in our own worlds and what is our own -- ourselves, our families, our friends, our neighbourhoods, our countries -- is most immediate and most important to us. There's no way around that, and even a healthy humanitarian perspective can't overcome that innate prejudice. And, too, opening our eyes to the horrendous events of some faraway forgotten land only brings shame. And who wants to feel such intense shame? But maybe that's exactly what we need. Maybe we do need to be shamed into doing something serious about what's going on in a place like Darfur.

And maybe we need to get angry. Why can't we all open our windows, lean our heads out, and shout, I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore? I'm not going to sit idly by while so many of my fellow human beings -- people I've never met but who, for all intents and purposes, are a lot like me -- suffer so horribly. Some such suffering may be inevitable. I'm enough of a realist about human nature, after all, to know that suffering and the infliction thereof won't go away. It's human, all too human. But it's also human, I think, to seek justice. The Greeks called it thymos, or spiritedness. It's that non-rational, non-erotic part of the human soul that underpins political action, preferably directed toward justice. It may to tough to muster that kind of spiritedness for the sake of justice across national boundaries and, indeed, across oceans and continents. But the world is smaller than ever before, and perhaps even flatter than ever before. We know what's happening in Darfur because people like Kristof are there, because accounts and images of the atrocities are available all over the media, not least on the internet, and because, in many ways, Darfur really isn't all that far away. The 20th century was marred both by totalitarianism and by mass genocide all around the world. The 21st century is already witnessing its first genocide. But there's time to do something about it, to put a stop to it.

If we learn anything from history, it's that we must act. And we must do so with a firm commitment to ensuring that justice is done. It's the right thing to do. Nothing less is acceptable.

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8 Comments:

  • In case no one else posts here -- you're right on about this, M.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:08 AM  

  • Arrgh, I know what you are saying. I'll be sitting reading a book or playing a videogame or whatever and then that familiar thought pops into my head.

    "While I'm doing this, people are being slaughtered in Darfur or starving in N. Korea and here I am doing what feels like the equivalent of laughing in their faces."

    In the quest to balance theory and action I am so overwhelmed with theory (university life, you know) that it is all just becoming absurd and contributing to that subtle but pervasive feeling of personal hypocrisy.

    Moments like these pass quickly of course and we go on with what we feel we should be doing. These experiences are unpleasant but fundamentally good and necessary. Just have to remember my mantra:

    "Finish school and then find some way to particpate in the suffering of this world." Theory and action, theory and action....

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:19 AM  

  • Thanks, Rachel. You, too, Mr. Nash. I'm certainly not saying that we should be spending all of our time agonizing about all the suffering out there. In Annie Hall, Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) says that he can't enjoy himself as long as he knows that even one other human being is suffering. In that context, it's funny, but you can't live your life that way without going crazy. And I acknowledge that we're much more likely to be drawn to our more immediate and familiar attachments than we are to people and places on the other side of the world. And that's not so bad, since we tend to find meaning and happiness in those attachments. But it's also important, I think, to live outside ourselves, beyond ourselves, if only to keep the larger perspective in mind. And this, to me, is precisely where that's most needed.

    Look, a single murder that happens, say, down the street means a lot more to us than a single murder in, say, Zimbabwe. That's obvious. And it some ways that single murder down the street, or even closer, will have greater immedate relevance to us than the murder of thousands in some distant place. That, too, makes sense. But there must be a threshold somewhere, and it seems to me that genocide well surpasses that threshold. We all find ways to block out such massive events, or we think of them as media events, things that happen on TV, but we need to start paying more attention to them. We need to start getting angry. And we need to do something about them. Maybe I don't do enough. I just write about them, and hopefully raise awareness and get people thinking. But it's frustrating. Frustrating not to be able to do anything more tangible. Frustrating that nothing is happening -- or at least not nearly enough -- to put a stop to it.

    By Blogger Michael J.W. Stickings, at 12:04 PM  

  • Fair enough, Nate. I agree that moral interventionism is often largely unworkable. And I do agree that Hobbesian human nature is very much an obstacle.

    But I wonder at your assertion that "[o]nly out of enlightened self-interest do we further the cause of a more just, humane world". I'm enough of a classical liberal to believe in the power of enlightened self-interests. Ultimately, it's why capitalism works and socialism (at least as in its more radical variants) doesn't. And it's why today's conservatives (classical liberals, at least the economic ones) have been so successful. They understand a fundamental truth about human nature and reject efforts to remake humanity according to some utopian scheme.

    But there may be times when enlightened self-interest is very much in line with interventionism of the kind I would recommend in Darfur. Clearly, there's only so much, say, the U.S. can do in different contexts. An invasion of North Korea, for example, is out of the question at the moment, even that Kim's regime is likely the most horrendous of all. But Kristof offers what I think are reasonable suggestions for dealing with Darfur. Not some massive American ground force, but just a good deal of publicity, diplomatic pressure, aid packages, a no-fly zone, support for the African Union... or what Kristof calls "an ounce of top-level attention".

    Your point is well-taken, Nate, and I admit that moral outrage sometimes gets the better of me. But this is a case where doing what we can and considering our self-interest to include the end of genocide might actually work.

    I certainly don't favour unlimited, unconstrained moral interventionism anywhere and everywhere, not least because there's rarely any agreement on such matters. But there is general agreement that Darfur has crossed the line from local problem to international crisis. And I would add that U.S. involvement would, in the end, strengthen its reputation. Perhaps this is more of a Hobbesian case for intervention, but I'm certainly open to any other suggestions.

    How else can America's self-interest be connected to Darfur?

    By Blogger Michael J.W. Stickings, at 3:53 PM  

  • Unfortunately, I suspect that the will won't be there, at least no time soon. Nor do I think that there is an easy answer to the paradox of power and altruism. If there is one, though, it clearly must be the U.S., which has the power and the principles to engage in a moral, humanitarian foreign policy, at least where possible.

    But you're right that the U.S. won't do it alone, and I'd love to see some sort of understanding of the kind you mention develop between the U.S., Europe, and the U.N. But I'm not sure this will anytime soon either, not least because of Iraq.

    I think I'm in a slightly more cynical (and less morally outraged) mood today. I guess what we're talking about here is liberal imperialism -- that is, an "empire" of liberalism (or liberal democracy) that is constructed through the efforts of the United States and its allies. Ultimately, it's imperialism for the sake of regime change and legitimate national sovereignty built around liberal democratic principles. More and more, I would agree that realism would seem to suggest that such an effort would prove impossible.

    By Blogger Michael J.W. Stickings, at 5:15 PM  

  • I haven't seen such intelligent comments to a blog post in...forever, I think.

    My question is, why must we rely on states to fix problems like these? Using U.S. power to control the world is just a bad idea, as I discuss in my own blog. What's stopping us, as private individuals, from trying to help? How? The best, most effective way possible is: give them guns. Armed peoples simply do not get massacred. (See Innocents Betrayed for proof of this.) No, of course the U.N, the U.S., and others would not like us trying to arm the oppressed. Who cares? Spending money on charities that provide food will not help a people who are getting murdered. Providing them arms will.

    By Blogger Calion, at 5:43 PM  

  • Well, thank you, Calion (although they're not my comments!) We attract some really good readers here.

    Anyway, I do agree with you that private citizens can and ought to do what they can for Darfur. But I don't think that arming them would help. If anything, it would only encourage Khartoum and its agents of genocide to use even more force against Darfur. It's bad enough now, but it could get even worse.

    Unfortunately, in a case like this, what is needed is the sort of force that only states can provide -- preferably in unison, through NATO or the UN, but that seems unlikely. I remain unconvinced that any peacekeeping force (which, it seems, much be approved by Khartoum) would make much of a difference. I agree that it isn't always for the best that the U.S. act as global policeman, but I do think the U.S. needs to take the lead here (though it's bogged down in Iraq). This isn't because I agree with the neocons about benevolent hegemony, it's because only the U.S. has the clout to get anything done.

    By Blogger Michael J.W. Stickings, at 11:38 PM  

  • By Blogger söve, at 2:16 AM  

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