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Minor Truths

Louis Century

Save Darfur! Okay. Wait. How exactly?

By Louis Century - 13 months ago
Over the last couple weeks, a great brawl among otherwise peace-loving humanitarian bloggers has transpired. The point of contention: do advocacy groups like Safe Darfur do more harm than good?

It's a touchy question, considering the sheer dedication of so many Darfur campaigners in the West.

The debate was sparked by this Newsweek interview of UN Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes. When asked if the Darfur activist lobby “does more harm than good,” Holmes unambiguously replied: “I do agree with that. When I moved to New York I remember seeing a poster in the subway which read: 'Save Darfur—tens of thousands are dying each month'. That's just not true. They are a bit misplaced but they do create a political context and that can be helpful.”

These comments inspired a juicy feud between two change.org bloggers, with Humanitarian Relief blogger Michael cautiously sympathizing with Holmes’ remarks and Stop Genocide blogger Michelle passionately condemning them.

Michael:

Any organization which claims it can save Darfur is courting hubris, at the least.  At the end of the day, Darfur – and Sudan – have to save themselves.

The traditional humanitarian critique of Save Darfur and others is that they don't understand the reality of the situation on the ground.

For instance, both John Holmes and Michelle refer to incidents when Save Darfur overstated the number of people killed in the conflict.

Which might seem like a trivial point, except it gets at something deeper – if you don't understand the facts, even the most basic facts, it's hard to offer useful recommendations on how to end the slaughter.

Michelle:

The Save Darfur Coalition and affiliated anti-genocide and human rights organizations do, in fact, have extensive contacts on the ground in Sudan…

Conflict is not like the weather – it is not unchangeable, and it is not unstoppable. Conflict scenarios are comprised of the choices of individuals, and like any others, those individuals (even in their groupings) are subject to influence and points of leverage. It might be excessively complicated, but resolution is not impossible.

The U.S. and other international actors do have means of influence and points of leverage at their disposal. Whether or not they will be entirely successful remains to be seen, but we must at least try. And it is the job – nay, the responsibility – of advocates, in this country and abroad, to demand such action from our leadership.

This is just a taste of the back and forth exchange, which itself spawned new articles and blogs.

Personally, I am sympathetic to the skeptics. I think the fact that thousands of pro-Darfur activists haven’t the slightest clue about the situation on the ground in Darfur does, in fact, matter. Even with reasoned analysis, one is hard-pressed to decide upon the best approach to Darfur. Mass advocacy for unknown goals seems futile; at worst, it complicates the situation on the ground by alienating the Sudanese government and compromising the security of aid agencies and displaced communities.

Conflating Darfur with Rwanda, the Holocaust and all the other genocidal evils that jump to mind reinforces the colonizing mindset – we must save you! Discussion of how to go about things is left by the wayside.

At best, however, advocacy does hold potential to set in motion reasoned responses from governments and the UN. Advocacy can work. Besides, if we dismiss all advocacy that isn’t as analytically sensitive and nuanced as we might like, we may as well dismiss advocacy altogether. Popular advocacy will never be overly complex or analytical.

(I quote hysterical human rights bloggers Wronging Rights: “Seriously, can you imagine the protest signs and chants? ‘What do we want? A reasonable balancing of human security with progress towards respect for human rights and democracy! When do we want it? As soon as feasibly possible given the political realities of the situation!’ Not bloody likely.")

Has the outpouring of Darfur advocacy over the last five-odd years been beneficial to Darfurians?
 

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