07 May Bystanders and Upstanders on Darfur
“For three grueling years, Eric Reeves has been fighting for his life, struggling in a battle with leukemia that he may eventually lose. And in his spare time, sometimes from his hospital bed, he has emerged as an improbable leader of a citizens’ army fighting to save hundreds of thousands of other lives in Darfur…. Perhaps the most striking distinction in the history of genocide is not between those who murder and those who don’t, but between “bystanders” who avert their eyes and “upstanders” who speak out. Professor Reeves has been a full-time upstander on Sudan since 1999, back when the people being slaughtered there were Christians in the south of the country. He noticed immediately in 2003 that Sudan had diversified into butchering Muslims in Darfur, and his frantic blowing of the whistle helped alert me and others. Visit his Web site, www.sudanreeves.org, but be careful — his fury may set your computer smoking…. While Darfur has been incredibly depressing, the grass-roots movement in this country to stop the genocide is immensely inspiring. (To join, go to Web sites like www.savedarfur.org or www.genocideintervention.net.) The activist kids just bowl me over: girls like Rachel Koretsky, a 13-year-old who organized a rally in Philadelphia, distributed circulars and conducted a raffle to raise money for Darfur as her bat mitzvah charity project. So far, Rachel has raised $14,000 for Darfur…. Then there are the entertainers. Frankly, I think it’s bizarre that we turn to movie stars for guidance on international relations. But in this case, I bow low to George Clooney, who had the guts to travel to the Darfur area last month, and to Angelina Jolie, who has visited the Darfur area twice and is pushing for action on Darfur more forcefully than almost anyone in Washington…. And one of the best presentations of life in Darfur is in an extraordinary video game developed with help from MTV and available free at www.darfurisdying.com. In the game, you’re a Darfuri, trying to survive as Sudan’s janjaweed militias hunt you down. So that’s how the response is unfolding to the first genocide of the 21st century: a video game is one of the best guides to understanding the slaughter, and our moral vacuum is filled by teenyboppers and movie stars. Someday we will look back at this motley army of children and celebrities, presided over by a man struggling with leukemia, and thank them for salvaging our national honor.”
Thanks for this Roger. Any academic or intellectual (the two categories not identical) who has read Samantha Power’s “A Problem from Hell:” America and the Age of Genocide (2002), and/or Stanley Cohen’s States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering (2001), has no excuse whatsoever to avoid actions that directly or indirectly support the goals of this ‘grassroots citizens army.’ Those who have not read either of these titles can find sufficient warrant for involvement in adhering to basic tenets of moral and intellectual responsibility as outlined by the likes of Jean-Paul Sartre, Edward Said and Noam Chomsky. Those of religious suasion will find ample sources of moral psychological motivation in their respective ethical traditions. Finally, any human being of the ‘age of reason’ possessed of the faculty of conscience and intimate acquaintance with rudimentary expressions of empathy and compassion cannot help but be moved in some way to contribute in some manner to the global efforts to end the genocide in Darfur. In short, there is neither ethical reason nor excuse for inattention and inaction. [Those of us fortunate or privileged enough to have discretionary leisure time to read, would benefit from Arne Johan Vetlesen’s Evil and Human Agency:… Read more »