New Year, Old News

There are only so many different ways that you can write: Genocide is happening!!! We must do something!!!

In contrast, there are an endless number of ways to put off doing something. If you are a country – let’s say the most powerful country in the world – you might be distracted while your resources are monopolized by other wars or you might find it inconvenient to confront an emerging global rival (China) who effectively nips all diplomatic efforts in the bud.

If you are the president of that most powerful country, you might be unwilling to spend any amount of your dwindling political capital on engaging in a crisis only a small, if noisy, constituency would recognize – especially when that noisy constituency would then simply push for you to do more.

Most of us are not a powerful country or its president, but we are capable of coming up with plenty of wonderful excuses of our own. “I don’t have time” is a favorite. “I don’t really know what’s going on” works just as well. There is that most tempting “There are lots of other problems closer to home – crime, poverty, etc. – that more directly impact my life.”

But perhaps most usefully, there is “I know what’s going on and I’m not happy about it, but what difference can I really make?” It is this excuse, the excuse of paralysis due to the magnitude of the problem that explains why a country filled with people who are sickened by genocide cannot muster the will to effectively stop one as it unfolds.

If you have read my column before, you know about Darfur. Here is what is going on there now – seven months after a “peace agreement” was signed by many of the parties involved. Jan Egeland, the recently-resigned UN humanitarian chief was expelled from Sudan and has described the expansion of the conflict and humanitarian suffering into neighboring Chad and Central African Republic as a “free fall.” Meanwhile, as fighting has reintensified, humanitarian operations are being scaled back and the UN has pulled many workers out of the region. On the peacekeeping front, the UN has approved the deployment of a peacekeeping force, but that deployment has been held up indefinitely due to an unwillingness on the part of the Sudanese government to accept them. In this bizarro world, it appears that the perpetrators of genocide get to decide for themselves when they will be confronted.

As this African tragedy drags on into a fresh new year, it is time to dust the confetti off our shoulders and re-deliver an important message to anyone who can hear: Genocide is happening!! We must do something!! The message is not new, but it is as critical as ever to deliver it again and again as global leaders wait for Darfur to slip back off the radar.

Today, you can contact members of the spanking new Congress and tell them to put Darfur high on the agenda by pushing for a NATO-enforced no-fly zone over Sudan. (you can check how your representatives score on Darfur by visiting http://www.darfurscores.org/) You can contact local and national media to tell them it is as much their responsibility to keep the public informed about unfolding genocide as it is to sensationalize the information that passes for news on many stations. You can contact your friends, keep them informed, and encourage them to contact their own representatives. You can sign up to receive updates from anti-genocide advocacy groups, like www.savedarfur.org and www.genocideintervention.net, to help them build a larger lobbying constituency.

These actions may seem feeble and insignificant in the face of the depths of suffering in Darfur, but they are the small acts upon which bigger acts must be built. No single call will end the genocide. Even a million calls may not press our government to act. But each call builds momentum toward action and action must be taken.

After all, Genocide is happening!! We must do something!!