Over at Change.org, Michael and Michelle are getting in to a fairly heavy question: can the Save Darfur campaign in fact save Darfur? Michael argues No, while Michelle argues Yes, and I come in strongly on Michael’s side of the argument. This might surprise people who know that I started my working life working in human rights, coming to it from an interest specifically in genocide prevention.
There are two reasons why don’t I support Save Darfur, with a possible third hiding in the background. The first is that I believe that real social change in a country has never been caused by external actors, and only in few cases has external change . As Michael points, the only people who can save Darfur are in Darfur, in Sudan or (possibly) in the region. One critical problem is that absolutely none of those actors – whether political, militia or civic groups – appear to have a clue how to save Darfur, so it’s hard to know exactly who we’re supporting with our advocacy.
My second reason is that I’m severely disillusioned about the efficacy of mass-mobilisation advocacy in post-industrial societies, particularly following the complete failure of the Iraq anti-war demonstration of February 2003 to have any impact on government policy. The more demonstrations I attended in my life, the more I felt that the real motives for most demonstrators (not all, mind you) were largely internal motives, questions in an individual’s life that they were working out in the public square.
What worries me a little about the sort of advocacy that Save Darfur coalition is involved with is that it is no-cost to the participants. If nothing happens as the result of their advocacy, that can be incorporated into the narrative, but it won’t affect them personally in the least (again, this doesn’t apply to all – there are Darfuri/Sudanese involved). On the other hand, they will invest sufficiently in the process that it might blind them to its flaws – a common problem in any endeavour. The question in the end is simple – what impact does it have? All the activities that Michelle cites – Sudan divestment, Ask the Candidates, Team Darfur – what’s been the outcome of those activities, exactly? Michelle says
Darfur gets significant attention now because of thousands of advocates kicking up the dust, shouting to sky, grabbing everyone who will listen (and even some who won’t) and saying, “This must end NOW.”
What must end now, exactly? Does anybody still believe that there is a genocide happening in Darfur (if there ever was, which most people actually working on the ground never believed, as far as I know)? What does “ending” it mean, exactly – what does a post-genocide Darfur look like? “Significant attention” is nice, but it doesn’t really mean jack to the people of Darfur, or to the government of Sudan or various armed groups who are simply not that interested in what the US has to say. The onus is on the Save Darfur coalition to show that its efforts lead to significant and lasting change in Darfur/Sudan (or, more weakly, in US policy towards Darfur/Sudan) – but I don’t see them doing that, or even trying to do that. All that remains are slogans and platforms and a sense that doing something is better than doing nothing.
Preventing and ending genocide are truly worthwhile goals, but in the case of Save Darfur, I’m not convinced a) that genocide is happening, or that it ever was, and b) that an external actor such as Save Darfur can have significant impact. I can definitely change my mind on both of these issues, but I need to see better arguments than Michelle gives us.
Tags: darfur, genocide, Save Darfur, Sudan