"America is opposing genocide in Sudan,”
President Bush said to widespread applause when he delivered his State
of the Union address this week. It
seemed to me that his vague use of the present tense is a perfect reflection of
the state of the campaign to address the tragedy of Darfur:
it’s just there, not making progress, not moving forward, just existing.
Shmuel
Rosner, the always-interesting Washington Bureau Chief of Haaretz, has a fascinating, and
sad, article in Slate this week (read it here). He writes:
The campaign to save Darfur is alive, but it is no longer kicking. You could
say that it has achieved all its stated goals: public awareness, international
pressure, congressional action, the administration's involvement. Well, all but
one: The crisis in Darfur is not yet solved, and the campaign to save Darfur is running out of options.
And
more pointedly:
So, here's the
problem of the campaign to save Darfur: Public interest has waned, the simple
options have all been exhausted, the political machinery is mired in the
election process, and other problems—Pakistan,
Iran—have
taken over the front pages.
I
think Rosner is right. In many ways, our
work (and that of so many others) on Darfur
has been a success. I think it’s fair to
say that the situation in Darfur is near the
top of the Jewish community’s agenda. We have spoken to, written to, and met
with our Members of Congress on Darfur. We have played a role in pushing the
President to take a firm stand. But, in
another, the way that counts at the end of the day, success seems as distant as
ever.
