Freedom - to rape, to mutilate, to murder
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Dare We Call It Genocide?
I wish we were for "freedom." We aren't. I'm pretty sure we're for oil. The Sudan has oil. But not nearly as much as Iraq.
But if we were for freedom - as president Bush likes to claim - would we stand around with our hands in our pockets as the Sudanese government carries out a systematic and brutal genocide? Let me remind you of the "four freedoms" laid out not by Bush, but by FDR more than 60 years ago. I think they still provide a moral compass.
The first is freedom of speech and expression --everywhere
in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his
own way-- everywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world
terms, means economic understandings which will secure to
every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants
--everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into
world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to
such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation
will be in a position to commit an act of physical
aggression against any neighbor --anywhere in the wold.
So what has this to do with the Sudan?
As Kristoff says: "The world has acquiesced shamefully in the Darfur genocide, perhaps because 320,000 deaths this year (a best-case projection from the U.S. Agency for International Development) seems like one more boring statistic."
Besides, these victims are blacks with strange names and strange lifestyles - and the victims are very poor even when they're defined as "rich." So why should we care? Let's face it, we didn't care much about victims in Iraq until Saddam started stirring up the oil pot by attacking oil-rich Kuwait. Then President Bush - the geriatric sky-diving one - tried to sell us a war based on oil. That wasn't going over so well, so he brought in some folks with fanciful tales of babies being thrown out of incubators and left on the floor to die. Trouble is they were thrown out of more incubators than existed in the country, let alone one hospital. But I digress - the simple point is we go to war when our interests are threatened - or when we think they are. We tell people, of course, that we have high moral reasons. And maybe that's what gets mpost of us to support our government at such times. But those moral reasons are not the foundations. If they were, we would be at war in the Sudan right now. But whatever is happening in the Sudan isn't a threat to the price of gasoline.
We don't really get excited about human rights. We don't even get excited about genocide.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not for rushing into the Sudan with guns blazing. I'm for a strong world government - a strong UN or whatever - that takes on the criminal leaders of the Sudan, ,arresta them, and brings them to trial for crimes against humanity. A pipe dream? Perhaps. But in country after country - not just the US - we control government leaders with that kind of authority. Why in the world shouldn;t we apply that kind of authority to the world? Not "we" the United States. "We" the people. We "the people" could have - should have - a world government that stands up for human rights every where. That does for people everywhere what governments in the United States and so many other countries do for their people.
But unless you're reading Nicholas Kristof's columns in the New York Times, chances are you hardly know the Sudan exist. And if you know it exists, you don't have a clue about the daily horror that is taking place there under the nose of an uncaring US and world.
And frankly, niether do I. "Kartoum," the capital, has a familiar ring to it thanks to some ancient movies, and I know the Sudan is in Africa and there my knowledge ends. I have no justification for this ignorance, other than it's next to impossible to keep up with everything and our media certainly doesn't keep us well informed on everything. In my case, I read Kristoff's column and quickly turned to the CIA World Factbook. I don't have a clue how good this thing is any more, given the way the CIA has failed of late, but it's all I have for informaiton of this sort. What the Factbook tells me is:
Military regimes favoring Islamic-oriented governments have dominated national politics since independence from the UK in 1956. Sudan has been embroiled in a civil war for all but 10 years of this period (1972-82). The wars are rooted in northern economic, political, and social domination of non-Muslim, non-Arab southern Sudanese. Since 1983, the war and war- and famine-related effects have led to more than 2 million deaths and over 4 million people displaced. The ruling regime is a mixture of military elite and an Islamist party that came to power in a 1989 coup. Some northern opposition parties have made common cause with the southern rebels and entered the war as a part of an anti-government alliance. Peace talks gained momentum in 2002-03 with the signing of several accords, including a cease-fire agreement.
Hmmm . . . if you've read Kristoff's account that last bit about peace accords seems a bit dated.
What else can I learn?
That the Sudan is:
- Slightly more than one quarter the size of the US.
- desert in the north, tropical in the south
- a petroleum producer , with some other valuable mineral deposits
- populated by 38 million people , which is more than Iraq by about 10 million
- "black 52%, Arab 39%, Beja 6%, foreigners 2%, other 1%"
- "Sunni Muslim 70% (in north), indigenous beliefs 25%, Christian 5% (mostly in south and Khartoum)"
- run by a military junta that took power in 1989
And what about the economy?
Sudan has turned around a struggling economy with sound economic policies and infrastructure investments, but it still faces formidable economic problems, notably the low level of per capita output. From 1997 to date, Sudan has been implementing IMF macroeconomic reforms. In 1999 Sudan began exporting crude oil and in the last quarter of 1999 recorded its first trade surplus, which, along with monetary policy, has stabilized the exchange rate. Increased oil production, revived light industry, and expanded export processing zones helped maintain GDP growth at 5.1% in 2002. Agriculture production remains Sudan's most important sector, employing 80% of the work force and contributing 43% of GDP, but most farms remain rain-fed and susceptible to drought. Chronic domestic instability, lagging reforms, adverse weather, and weak world agricultural prices - but, above all, the low starting point - ensure that much of the population will remain at or below the poverty line for years.
See a common theme here? Try Islamic extremism.
I heard a Republican Congressman on C-Span last night saying that the "War on terror" is misnamed. What it really is, is a war against Islamic extremism. He made a pretty solid case for this. Frightening, of course, because what he is talking about is holy war. So are we in a holy war and don't want to admit it? Is what is happening the Sudan really driven by Islamic extremism, or does Islam just happen to be the main religion there? Perhaps the war is driven by old and very local prejudices? hates? Economic and cultural issues? Bigotry?
Hell - I don't know.
All I'm really sure of is people in the Sudan are experiencing terror on a scale that makes September 11 look like a minor incident and me, and thee - and CNN, FOX, NBC et al - and the rest of the world doesn't care or even know it.
Posted by Greg Stone at June 16, 2004 04:16 AM
