The Genocide in Darfur Must End Now. VOTE.

by Michelle

Published January 06, 2009 @ 10:54PM PST

(I'm running on about 5 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours---literally---and still can't seem to shake an epic bout of insomnia, so you'll have to forgive anything that more incoherent/ranty than usual.)

As you may or may not be aware, Change.org is in the midst of its Ideas for Changing America campaign, and will present the top ten ideas, as voted on by you, to the Obama transition team next week. This list, in my view, represents our---and that's the royal "our"---priorities for the new administration, our list of the most urgent and pressing needs and issues, in the country and abroad, that Obama and his team must address immediately once in office.

The End the Genocide in Darfur submission is no where near the top ten at the moment, and this makes me more than a little concerned. Don't get me wrong---there are many, many great ideas. And I know I'm biased.

But here's the thing: Hundreds of thousands of people have died at the hands of a brutal regime concerned only with maintaining its own despotic grip on power, and millions more continue to hang in the balance as the government threatens further retribution. These are civilians---men, women, children, families, who live and die at the whim of a lousy band of war criminals in Khartoum.

This is genocide---a government deciding to systematically eradicate an entire population from the face of the planet. It reeks of arrogance and of evil, and by not ending it, we become complicit.

And this isn't just about Darfur. This is about the Holocaust, it is about Armenia, it is about Cambodia, Bosnia, and Rwanda---about all of the times we've expressed horror and outrage over senseless mass slaughter, but seemed content to sit quietly with our righteous indignation, shake our heads, and do nothing. This is about the present, and it is about the future---about finally matching our professed ideals with a sense of urgency, and the will and the courage to take the risks necessary to end the most horrific act known to mankind.

This is about restoring our country's moral standing in the world, after watching it torn to shreds, and then stomped on and burned and rolled over again, over the last eight years. This is about finally putting our money where our mouth is, rectifying a blight on humanity that has been allowed to continue for too long already, and setting a precedent for the future that warns the world that, no, we will not tolerate this kind of abuse by a government against its people.

It's about using our powerful voice to be the voice for the powerless.

This genocide is happening now. It needs to end yesterday.

VOTE to end the genocide in Darfur.

(And please spread the word--on your blog, via email, Facebook, Twitter, whatever.)

Back to the Balkans - Let's Pay Attention This Time

by Martha Heinemann Bixby

Published January 06, 2009 @ 03:57PM PST

Sometimes, I wonder how it is possible that situations of genocide and mass atrocity aren't given any attention or resources before things get "really bad" (whatever really bad means).  Is it because no one knows?  There are no warnings?  Then I think about how many very clear warnings, from very smart people who should know, have been ignored... and then I stop wondering.

However, today I'm going to try and draw your attention back to the Balkans.

A while back during my November guest-blogging gig I posted about Paddy Ashdown and Richard Holbrooke's warning piece in the Guardian - a plea to the world to stop Bosnia's increased, internal 'Balkinization' before our eyes.

Ashdown (the High Representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina from 2002 - Jan. 2007) and Holbrooke (chief architect of the Dayton Peace Agreement) warned:

Almost exactly 13 years ago, American leadership brought an end to Bosnia's three-and-a-half-year war through the Dayton peace agreement. Today the country is in real danger of collapse. As in 1995, resolve and transatlantic unity are needed if we are not to sleepwalk into another crisis.

Then, in today's Wall Street Journal European Edition we get another warning from Morton Abramowitz and Daniel Serwer about not just Bosnia, but also that other Balkan hot-sport, Kosovo.

Abramowitz (former Assistant Secretary of State and U.S. Ambassador) and Serwer (former U.S. special envoy and coordinator for the Bosnian Federation) remind us:

Bosnia and Kosovo have largely disappeared from public view...

Bosnia is a nonfunctioning state living under the constant threat its autonomous Serb region to hold a referendum on independence. The Bosnian Muslim prime minister wants to throw out the Dayton agreement that concluded the Bosnia war in 1995, end Serb autonomy and form a unitary state. Western oversight has failed to ease the tensions among ethnic groups. The wounds of war are still raw.

Newly independent Kosovo, unrecognized by two-thirds of the world's states -- including five EU members -- barely functions after 10 years of U.N. rule. It has high unemployment and little foreign investment and needs enormous foreign assistance.

Abramowitz and Serwer maintain that the solutions proposed by the international community won't be sufficient:

Read More »

Will Robots Stop Genocide?

by Martha Heinemann Bixby

Published January 06, 2009 @ 07:05AM PST

This Sunday's Washington Post contained a fascinating piece by GlobalSecurity.org's John Pike.  In it, Pike predicts "Soon -- years, not decades, from now -- American armed robots will patrol on the ground as well, fundamentally transforming the face of battle."  We all know that technology's on the rise - so why does this matter?

Apparently, "Conventional war, even genocide, may be abolished by a robotic American Peace."

How? "The excellence of American military technology makes it possible for U.S. forces to inflict vast damage upon the enemy while suffering comparatively modest harm in return."

"No human army could withstand such an onslaught. Such an adversary would present the enemy with the simple choice of martyrdom or flight. So equipped, America's military would be irresistible in battle...

[T]he large-scale organized killing that has characterized six millenniums of human history could be ended by the fiat of the American Peace.

Genocide, and the failure of the outside word to intervene, could also become a thing of the past. The industrialized murder of the Holocaust could perhaps have been disrupted by Allied bombers, but subsequent genocides have been less institutionalized, and far less vulnerable to air power. Intervention would require infantry and a decision to accept casualties. Genocide prevention may be in the interest of our common humanity, but it has never been in the national interest. But with no body bags to explain to bewildered voters, America's leaders may be less hesitant in the future about imposing an end to atrocities in places such as Darfur."

Read More »

Bush Approves Airlift for Darfur, Hadley Bites, Kristof Bites Back (What a Day)

by Michelle

Published January 05, 2009 @ 04:50PM PST

Two things happened today that you should know about:

1.      President Bush authorized an immediate American airlift of equipment to UNAMID peacekeepers in Darfur. In a word: Fantastic. (Seriously.)

2.      National Security Advisors Stephen Hadley issued a statement criticizing Nicholas Kristof in a tone reminiscent of a wounded ego on a fool's errand.

Bush's unexpected commitment came after a meeting this morning with Salva Kiir, the president of the semi-autonomous South Sudan. (One can only wonder how much time was spent discussing his rather impressive hat.)

I'm not sure how often columnists---even the most influential ones---get such mention in official Executive Branch statements, but Hadley singles Kristof out:

"Today's announcement is further evidence that Nicholas Kristof's portrayal last week of this Administration's response to the genocide in Darfur (A New Chance for Darfur, December 28, 2008) was inaccurate. President Bush has been committed to resolving the crisis there since the United States first labeled it genocide in 2004."

Kristof's response is one for the books. A snippet:

"Look, I'm delighted that the White House is, belatedly, organizing this airlift. It sure smells of a desperate effort to burnish the administration's legacy on Darfur, but better late than never. This particular step is one that the White House and Pentagon have resisted for months, so my hunch is that President Bush finally weighed in after my column in question or that Hadley became concerned about his own reputation on this matter."

Kristof goes on to discuss what he sees as Bush's genuine interest in Darfur, and once again points to Hadley and Condoleezza Rice as the ones who reined him in.

But regardless of the motivation, the airlift is, as they say, kind of a big deal. As Twitter makes brevity a new form of art, Save Darfur's tweet on the matter sums it up quite nicely, I think:

"Airlift is important b/c helps UNAMID deploy, provide relief to suffering people of Darfur (currently out of reach b/c security concerns)"

And that's what it all comes down to.

Genocide Education: Resources for Teachers

by Michelle

Published January 05, 2009 @ 04:20AM PST

While many complicated and convoluted obstacles stand in the way of achieving the ideal of "Never Again," at least one challenge is fairly simple and straightforward: The need for sensitive and comprehensive genocide education.

I recently responded to a message from a teacher asking about resources for teaching genocide, and think it makes good sense to share the information publicly as well. So, a short list:

• Hands down, the best resource for teachers interesting in genocide education is Facing History and Ourselves, a non-profit dedicated to the issue. Facing History's website is a veritable treasure trove of information and curriculum resources for teachers, and the organization also conducts excellent teacher training programs across the country.

• Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day blog for highlighting this resource: Oxfam's Darfur: Teaching about the Issues. The website focuses on making the complex issue of the genocide in Darfur comprehensible to students, and focuses on drawing connections to young people affected by the conflict.

• The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has resources for educators as well as for students. The page for educators includes guidelines for genocide and Holocaust education---because there is, in fact, a wrong way to teach it---as well as an online teacher workshop.

(If anyone out there found these or other resources particularly useful, please let me know---I'll put a more comprehensive list together and post it in the "About" section.)

Teachers have tremendous power in shaping the future of the world---it may sound cheesy, but it should not be underestimated. By incorporating genocide into a broader humanities education, teachers not only equip students with the knowledge necessary to understand the issue, but show that genocide is a matter of importance and urgency. By challenging students to examine moral catastrophes of the past, teachers also encourage students to examine moral choices of the present and future, prompting a ripple effect with impact far beyond the bounds of a history textbook. Teaching genocide is fundamentally future-oriented.

My commitment to the anti-genocide movement was first inspired by my 7^th grade English teacher, Ms. Mote. Without teachers willing to address the difficult issue of genocide in their classrooms, future generations of leaders and citizens will not be equipped to respond to the occurrence of genocide in the world at-large.

[Photo: Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel speaks to students.]

Daily Darfur: The Threat of the Domino Effect

by Michelle

Published January 04, 2009 @ 11:44PM PST

Sudan is standing on a precipice as we move into the new year, and any number of imaginable possibilities could start a chain reaction to either push the country over the edge, or put it squarely on the road to peace. The town of Abyei, for instance, stands in the middle of Sudan's jigsaw puzzle of regional and national conflicts, and lingering tensions that threaten to reignite conflict there could threaten not only Darfur and the rest of the Sudanese nation, but the entire region.

Read More »

The Holocaust: Trans-Generational Moral Reckoning

by Michelle

Published January 04, 2009 @ 03:32PM PST

Listening to the stories of genocide survivors is about more than honor and remembrance, but also about looking at the present and the future through the lens of the past, in hopes of stopping the repetitive cycle of history. In that spirit, this post draws from an article on Boston.com, about a 20 year old German volunteer working an 85 year old Holocaust survivor.

Gerrit Wiezoreck traveled to the U.S. with Action Reconciliation Service for Peace, a German social justice organization that sends volunteers to work on projects that promote "peace and social justice and for reconciliation with the Jewish community." (An interesting concept---thoughts?)

"In general, anybody can't just apologize . . . because it was too deep, it was too horrible," Wiezoreck says of the Holocaust. "We can't return it, it is a part of our history."

Wiezoreck's own coming-to-terms with his country's past---which far preceded his own birth---and his experience at the Hebrew Rehabilitation Center show just how pervasive the ripple effects of genocide can be. As Wiezoreck grapples German complicity with Nazi crimes, he also finds himself bearing a trans-generational burden of responsibility:

"Not all of the home's residents are warm toward him, however. Wiezoreck says that some won't talk to him, and one challenged him by asking what his grandfathers did during the war. But his personality seems to go a long way toward breaking down hostility."

The whole collective guilt issue will have to wait for another day---it's an incredibly intense debacle---but the point here is that a young man was compelled not only to assume a certain degree of this responsibility, but to move forward in life in a manner that, even if you disagree with his methods, at least attempts to pay homage to the victims and survivors of his country's and his family's sorted past.

I find that honorable.

[Photo of the Holocaust memorial in Berlin, which was sadly defaced--yet again--this weekend.]