Answering Africa’s Call
Answering Africa’s Call
Did you cry during “Hotel Rwanda“? Secretly root on Don Cheadle’s nomination last night? Have you been wearing your green “Save Darfur” bracelet despite it not always *gasp* matching the rest of your outfit?
And when thousands of people died yesterday in Africa, did you even blink an eye?
Yes, it’s that time again. Time for the obligatory plea for the forgotten continent. What argument might work:
In the name of national security, we need to address the underlying contributors to the spread of global terrorism — “the lethal combination of corrupt or destructive leaders, porous and unmonitored borders and rootless or hopeless young men” — with more than just military action, yet we continue to spend more than 30 times more on military operations than “foreign aid that addresses the plight of the poorest of the world’s poor.” Right now terrorists are feeding people (and feeding into their desperation) while we continue to be wasteful and negligent, funneling money into an ill-begotten war instead of actually focusing on the war on terror.
In the interests of keeping our word, the United States needs to start making real progress in fulfilling the Millennium Development Goals set forth a few years ago. Alongside several other countries, we vowed that by the year 2015 we would be “giving 0.7 percent of [our] national incomes for development aid for poor countries,” a commitment that could eradicate world poverty by 2025. Britain and France are already halfway there, but we putter along “near rock bottom at 0.18 percent.” President Bush praises his Millennium Challenge Account but the provisions of that vastly underfunded program, which “has yet to disburse a single dollar,” preclude those most in need from receiving any aid whatsoever.
In the name of human decency, we must. “We are the first generation able to afford to end poverty and the diseases it spawns.” It is true that “not every African state is failing,” but we are failing them. At a time when technology has allowed us to have the world at our fingertips, we continue to keep Africa at arm’s length. Nominating socially conscious movies is not enough; not when the “official” Oscar baskets being doled out cost more than what whole villages of people will see in their lifetimes. More than 20,000 people perished yesterday of extreme poverty. Some may call it “the silent tsunami,” but the cries of hunger that escape from the lips of orphaned children are far from quiet; it is we who have gone deaf to their wails.
Thousands of people will die today in Africa; how will we respond?
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Who was President when the genocide in Rwanda was happening? Oh yeah, it was our countries first black president, Slick Willy! He sure wasn’t too worried about it back then. He was focused on other things.(wink,wink)
February 28th, 2005 at 1:45 pmTed, as always, thank you for commenting on the blog. The point of the post was not to start a partisan battle. And the argument of “That president did it too!” in no way justifies the moral indecency of continuing to let regions of Africa fester in poverty, disease, and warfare. Some issues that call to our basic humanity should know no colors — be they race or political ones.
February 28th, 2005 at 2:22 pmSome African history, misrepresented up to now:
February 28th, 2005 at 5:08 pmhttp://tinyurl.com/5fxo7
Ted, stop.
February 28th, 2005 at 5:09 pmClinton didn’t intervene in Rwanda in part because of the very vocal opposition from the Right to the American intervention in Somalia. A chorus which was repeated when he did intervene in the Balkans.
Time to stop the partisan bickering and ideological games and start recognizing our responsibility to our neighbours in Africa.
March 1st, 2005 at 10:21 amYou’ll be smoking a turd in hell Ted
March 1st, 2005 at 10:59 amWow…
“In the name of national security, we need to address the underlying contributors to the spread of global terrorism ”
As Justin Raimando notes:
March 1st, 2005 at 2:52 pm“In today’s constricted political “debate” – especially when it comes to foreign policy – only two flavors are allowed: right-wing neocon and left-wing neocon.”
I agree wholeheartedly. But I think the implications of Darfur are not well understood, even by people who care. It’s not Rwanda, where a few hundred lightly-armed peacekeepers might have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. And it’s not even Somalia, where we were actually pretty close to success against those ragtag militias. Sudan is a real state with a real military, kept in decent shape by its sponsors, chiefly Russia. It includes a state of the art (albeit small) air force and a significant number of ground forces. Sudan’s leaders have said that they will treat any international intervention in Darfur as an act of war.
Sometime in the past year, The New Republic examined what exactly an international intervention in Darfur might look like. Their estimate was quite a bit more daunting than, say, Nick Kristof’s. First we’d have to establish safe havens and safe corridors for refugees against marauding militias, which means ground troops. And we’d have to neutralize Sudan’s air force (which has been used against villages and could also be used against foreign troops), which means control of air space and bombing air defense targets — which also means collateral damage. And since the UN Security Council would never sign off (China would veto, and Russia might also), this action would have to be undertaken by some other grouping.
So we’ve got basically a full-scale invasion, plus an indefinite occupation and/or regime change, implemented by an ad-hoc coalition of nations without UN approval. Sound familiar?
Of course it might turn out to be easier than that. But given the stance of the Sudanese government, probably not — and as we all found out in Iraq, we need to be prepared for the worst case before undertaking to go in at all.
Mipe, I don’t doubt your intentions in keeping this issue on the front burner. It’s an ongoing travesty that the world will not address this atrocity in full view. But my question is, how many of those who insist we must do something about Darfur are prepared to see the US mount something that looks quite a bit like the invasion of Iraq? And out of that group, how many supported the actual invasion of Iraq? I count myself in both groups, but I suspect I’m in the minority.
March 1st, 2005 at 5:57 pm