See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil

The current ruling party in Sudan, the National Islamic Front (NIF), gained power in 1989. Almost immediately afterwards it began marginalizing and oppressing the people of Darfur, a region in western Sudan roughly the size of France. Around early 2003, rebel groups from Darfur began attacking government offices in the hopes of forcing the government to address these issues. The NIF’s response was sickening.

They created a force made up of the Sudanese army and a militia group known as the Janjaweed. Their sole aim would be to kill as many Darfurians as possible in the hopes of quelling the rebellion. This macabre goal hasn’t been so difficult to achieve. At least 400,000 have been murdered by the Janjaweed and Sudanese soldiers. Over 2 million have been displaced, mostly to eastern Chad. Countless have been raped. And many, in addition to the 400,000, have died during their trek to humanitarian safe-havens. All this makes the Sudanese government one of the great criminals of our time.

Nevertheless, at the moment, I would like to focus our attention, and lay a bit of blame, on someone other than the Sudanese government: the international community. This community has been confronted by the specter of genocide before, and it has done little to stop it then, as now. Yet previously they had a plausible excuse. Little was known about earlier genocides, like the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust, while they took place. Only after the tragic deeds were done did anyone really become aware of the extent of the damage. So, this community could tell itself it would have done something if only it had known.

But now we know all too much about what’s happening in the Darfur; and still not a stir. We, the rest of the world, have been detailing each battle in the Darfur; we know of nearly every village intentionally pillaged and destroyed; we know how many have died, not in hindsight, but in real time; we have analyzed the conflict; and we have debated over whether these acts of aggression should be given the much-worse name of “genocide”. Everything is known but nothing is done.

This is incredibly disappointing for me since I have always felt the adage “The truth shall set you free” was essentially correct. I believed that if all the relevant facts were in, we couldn’t help but do the right thing. Something inside us will just not stand for something like genocide, once it’s clear that genocide is in fact taking place. I believed the truth would compel us. I was wrong.

Complete awareness of this tragedy has not kept the international community from remaining immobile and complicit. And, although thorough knowledge of the facts should elicit enough sympathy to set many on the course of action, it hasn't. This might say something against the relevance of journalism in a world of myopic and selfish states, but not necessarily. The detailing of events and description of suffering good journalists provide the international community with may be the Darfurian’s greatest resource, and only hope. The fact that it is often not enough says more about us, the immobile and the complicit, than it does about the good journalist.

We lie to ourselves when we say the only reason past genocides were not stopped was that we knew little of what was actually going on. It’s clear now that there have been other reasons. It’s clear now that even when genocide is perfectly evident, we will still do nothing. Sadly, we may find that in the long-run, this coldness, this indifference, will hurt us as well, if we ever need the kind of international support Darfurians currently hope for.

There is a Walt Kelly cartoon in which the title character, Pogo Possum, exclaims in a moment of clarity: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Further Links

Save Darfur

Human Rights Watch - Darfur