The time to act was a year ago.
Since February 2003, more than 50,000 African Sudanese have been murdered by rebel armies on horseback in the Darfur region of the country. More than a million Darfurians have fled to refugee camps in neighboring Chad where families slowly perish from a lack of basic resources.
By the time you finish reading this column, hundreds of Darfurians will have gone to sleep in their houses made of tree branches, while rebels using weapons of mass rape and terror claim the lives of hundreds of women and children.
For a while, I was afraid no one knew enough about Sudan until I ran into Suzanne Wardle, a Medill junior and political science double major. Thankfully she had something to say.
“It’s not getting lots of coverage,” Wardle said. “It bothers me to think back to the genocide in Rwanda. More could have been done to prevent the 1 million deaths if there could have been more media coverage.”
Thursday’s celebration in Little Rock, Ark., of the opening of President Clinton’s new library made me think of the former president saying his biggest regret (outside Monica) was not intervening in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Bush could learn a lot from Clinton’s inaction.
Sadly, however, the Bush administration has hit the snooze button on humanitarian violations in Darfur. Rather than using his political and moral “mandate” to establish no-fly zones or move in with a small army in Sudan, Bush is abusing his power to convince you — with a straight face — that the world’s largest humanitarian crisis is happening in Fallujah.
Though bringing more war into Sudan would be a failure in diplomacy, the United States has a political and moral obligation to act. Not doing so would be a failure of humanity.
As technology continues to connect and yet divide Americans from Africa, Africa’s plight becomes more a “they” problem and less a human one. This is the prime opportunity for America to mend its fences with the international community and make Africa matter.
America won’t act until we demand that it act. College students have a storied history in promoting awareness and sparking action. Northwestern, with the largest Africana library in the nation and one of the strongest African studies programs, should be leading the charge.
At least some college students are getting it.
In Wheaton, Ill., about 50 students at Wheaton College fasted for 36 hours three weeks ago to protest the genocide. Instead of kicking back for the weekend, these students used that time to pray and raise money to send to displaced Sudanese who now live in refugee graveyards.
NU can do better.
We have a habit of only discussing these kinds of issues when they are beating down our doors — remember that string of “hate crimes” last year? Rather, our activism has to start within a paradigm of patience and information, which is why I’m willing to acknowledge Sudan’s problem and be a part of the solution by giving it 550 words of my time.
In the long run, it’s only by our nudging and pushing that the administration will intervene and stop the genocide in Sudan. And it’s only by your active demands that American policy can embrace morality and make an honest man out of the president.
The African Student Association’s brainstorming meeting Saturday at Norris will devise a plan of action to get our leaders talking about Darfur. I hope to see you there.
Malena Amusa is a Medill junior. She can be reached at [email protected].
