Time to change the math about African problems

April 7, 2008 — We have been constantly bombarded with images of suffering. One consistent source of these images and tragic stories is Africa. Africa has so many problems that we would not be faulted for forgetting about an epidemic here or a civil war there. Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Sudan and the Republic of the Congo are only a few examples of the cruel cocktail of conflict and death that plague the continent.

But what is this beguiling amnesia that seems to strike us when genocide raises its deadly grin over the continent? What is this peculiar calculus that says that the longer genocide persists in Africa, the less we eventually care?

In Rwanda, 800,000 people were killed by mobs carrying machetes and sticks. The international community stood by and watched as this insanity continued. When the violence broke out, a quick and decisive action by the United Nations and the international community may have prevented Rwanda's decent into madness. In fact, a small U.N. force was already in place. Did they then go about restoring order? No no. Quite the opposite. The cruel arithmetic was done and resulted in the decision that as many U.N. troops as possible should leave. The rest as they say, is history.

So one may say that we learned our lesson, albeit at the cost of 800,000 Rwandans (naturally, the cost of our apathy can be found on someone else's ledger). "Never Again!" was the new slogan of the international community. Then came Darfur, where Sudanese-backed militias are cleansing Darfur of Darfuris. Now that chant is, "Never Again! But first let us expresses our shock and our deep commitment to the people of Darfur and investigate the proper avenues to arrive to a satisfactory conclusion of this deeply tragic event."

This is not to say that the U.S. and others were not genuinely concerned initially. The U.S. was quite bold at the outset of the violence. Astonishingly, our government is one of the few in the world that recognize that an actual genocide is taking place in Darfur. In September 2004, our commander in chief walked up to a podium, looked us square in the eye and said "we have concluded that genocide has taken place in Darfur." Now, I have not agreed with our president very much in the past, but on this issue, I found the two of us on the exact same plane along with a million or so Darfuri villagers.

I was certain the U.S. and the international community were going to do something to stop the killing. I do not think my faith was misplaced either. Remember that this was September 2004, only 18 months after we invaded Iraq. This was Bush: Dictator Bounty Hunter. Remember? He was ready to send the world's bad guys to The Hague or Hades. At last, we were going to alter our math in favor of the victims of genocide. I was ready for something to happen.

Nothing happened.

As with most things, this administration proved to be strong on the rhetoric, weak on the delivery and with a few hundred thousand people left to suffer the consequences.

Where are we now? I look at the media landscape and find Darfur conspicuously absent from the public discourse. Where are the headlines? Where the brave pronouncements from podia in air-conditioned government buildings around the world?

Where are the multilingual beatings emanating from the chambers of the U.N.? Where is the EU and where are the Arab states, two groups that have much more influence on the government of Sudan than we do? What about China's complicity in Darfur? China acts as a reliable customer of Sudan's oil and as an equally reliable supplier of Sudan's arms.

Unfortunately, the people of Darfur have been left to rely on the impassioned voices of students, journalists (Nicholas Kristof among them) and citizens of good conscience. At the University, the efforts of Action Darfur, and Amnesty have been admirable. There is little we can do as students. But raising consciousness and maintaining the torch that sheds light on the suffering of the people of Darfur is important. Let us show our solidarity with the people of Darfur and show others that our cruel African calculus is at an end.

Othman is a senior in political science and applauds our University's move to divest from Sudan and urges you to visit genocideintervention.net.