Not Deep Or Broad Enough

Anne Applebaum, writing in the Washington Post, looks at the extraordinary campaign being waged in the West to raise awareness about Darfur. She asks a few very pertinent questions.

"How will history judge us?" Like much of the grass-roots campaign that has sprung up to oppose the genocide in Darfur, this slogan is intended to evoke the genocides of the recent past. Earlier this fall 120 survivors of the horrors of the Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia signed an open letter calling for a U.N. peacekeeping force in Sudan. The stunning variety of organizations that have joined the Darfur campaign — they range from Amnesty International to the World Evangelical Alliance to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum– also speaks to the evocative nature of the Sudanese conflict.

And their call upon the witness of history has made an impact. Indeed, it is fair to say that were it not for the Christian, Jewish, human rights, genocide-prevention groups and others that have been talking about Sudan with such dedication, the massacres of Darfur might not be on the international agenda at all. The ads and the rallies got "people in the street talking about something that happens far away," as an activist at Global Day for Darfur told me. Public interest has forced politicians to act.

The result: The United Nations is trying to form a multilateral peacekeeping brigade in Darfur, and the White House and Tony Blair are involved, too. And yet — it is not simple to explain why this particular grass-roots action has been so successful. After all, Darfur is not the only place in the world where there has been mass murder, even ethnic mass murder, on a large, historically familiar scale. The North Korean regime has for years run concentration camps, directly modeled on the camps of Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union. But though there is excellent documentation of Pyongyang's camps — the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea even has satellite photographs on its Web site — and though some religious and university groups have made an effort, the level of interest, and therefore perhaps of U.N. involvement, is much lower.

The same is true of arbitrary arrests in Iran, some of which have also targeted particular ethnic groups for intimidation or elimination. For that matter, Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons to murder tens of thousands of Kurds never caught the popular imagination, not before the war and not afterward.

Applebaum theorizes that because it feels like there is no Western interest in Darfur that it feels as if it is an altruistic mission to stop the violence. And maybe she is right. But some of the strongest backers of doing something in Darfur have been the harshest critics of the US trying to do something to stop a genocidal madman in Iraq. Some of the loudest voices denouncing Sudan have been even louder in their silence about the workings of Kim Jong Il's murderous regime. Some of the most strident critics of US intervention beg the US to intervene in the Darfur conflict.

Applebaum is correct in her closing statement:

The creation of an international coalition to end genocide is a stunning achievement, but its goals are still not deep or broad enough.

The lofty goals are mired in a twisted worldview. Human freedom and dignity need a champion. The US is not the enemy. But too many treat it that way while ignoring the real evil.

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  By syn, Tuesday, 21 November , 2006 @ 6:04 am

  I walked along side Simon Deng up to the George Washington Bridge as he led an awareness trek from the UN to the Washington DC. Small group yet one ‘peace’ activist had the audacity to proclaim that blacks were being wiped out from “katrina to kartun’ I loudly hissed and booed such proclaimation for it represents just how off the mark the ‘peace’ peoples are.

  Nothing will be done about Darfur because Liberalism has already been destroyed by the illiberal Left.

  And, George Clooney is just an fake image created by the Left to pretend they actually care about anyone but themselves.

  The anti-war/anti-American Left in America and Europe have focused all their hatred on Bush that they have rendered the ideals of freedom and human rights completely worthless.

  How can we help those in Darfur while at the same time withdrawal from Iraq?

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  By Arlo, Tuesday, 21 November , 2006 @ 10:52 am

  http://www.cjrdaily.org/behind_the_news/kristof_becomes_own_worst_enem.php

  interesting article.

Other Links to this Post

1. Doug Ross @ Journal — Tuesday, 21 November , 2006 @ 5:18 am