INTERNATIONAL Darfur: Religious questions, advocates and resources
The United States
calls it genocide, and the United Nations calls it the world’s worst humanitarian
crisis. Whatever you call it, the murderous conflict in Darfur, in western Sudan,
is deepening as the government and rebels step up attacks on each other. A stunningly
diverse range of individuals and organizations are pushing for the United States
– and the world – to put a stop to it. Religion and ethics are key to most aspects
of the story:
Darfur has attracted
one of the largest, broadest and deepest coalitions of faith groups ever to
agree on the urgency of a crisis and the need to lobby persistently for action
to address it. They have organized rallies and public education campaigns,
pressured government officials, prayed, and joined forces with secular groups.
The problems
in Sudan and Darfur include religion but are inextricably bound up with ethnicity,
race and abuse of government power, as religious conflicts throughout the
world tend to be. Sudan has endured a two-decade civil war between the Arab
Muslim north and the south, where mostly black Africans who practice Christianity
or animism live. Violence escalated in Darfur in 2003 when rebels increased
attacks and the Sudanese government sent militias to stop them.
Morality is
the central topic in the debate over how the United States should address
problems in Darfur. For many, morality stems from religious faith. At a time
when Americans say they are concerned with morals and values, the debate over
Darfur presents a prime example of how moral issues are debated and acted
upon in the public square. How does a country decide what can and should
be done?
Darfur highlights
that genocide is a real threat in the world. Some of the earliest advocates
of intervention in Darfur were Jewish individuals and organizations who say
they feel a moral obligation to stop other genocides after the experience
of the Holocaust. Journalists will find that in the 60 years since the Holocaust,
dozens of research centers, human rights organizations, academics and activists
have acquired considerable expertise on genocide. (See an April
12, 2004, ReligionLink issue on Holocaust museums.)
While some feel
powerless when they hear of an international crisis, Darfur has inspired many
ordinary individuals to take extraordinary actions. Consider Eric
Reeves, an English professor whose lunch with a Doctors Without Borders
member led to a six-year writing and advocacy campaign that has catapulted
him – and Darfur – into national news stories. Darfur has also inspired a
good deal of student activism. A group of Swarthmore College students' long
nights of sending emails out to raise money for Darfur inspired the national
Genocide Intervention Network, which includes campus
groups across the nation. Wherever they live, journalists can find other compelling
stories of people who decided to take action or raise their voice.
Darfur raises
the specter of evil. The government of Sudan has turned away help and advice,
blocked international efforts to stem the killing and continued what it calls
an anti-insurgent effort, which has resulted in the murder of thousands of
people. How do people respond when they sense they are dealing with evil?
(For resources, see an October
2005 ReligionLink issue on evil.)
Victims are
suffering unimaginable traumas as the killing continues, including torture
and rape. The relatives and survivors of victims of other genocides – in Rwanda,
Armenia and the Holocaust – are among those advocating for action. Torture
has been in the news because of abuses during the Iraq war, and religious
groups are at the forefront of pressing for an end to torture and helping
with recovery. (For resources, see an April
17, 2006, ReligionLink issue.)
Darfur is being
debated internationally (through the United Nations), nationally (in Congress
and with President Bush), in states (through state legislatures) and locally
(through rallies and awareness-raising events). Save
Darfur's Web site lets you search for groups throughout the nation.
Why it matters
All religions encourage
helping the powerless and oppressed. If Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims,
Buddhists and others press for action, will anything happen?
Click
the map for interview sources
in your state and region
ADVOCACY
ORGANIZATIONS
• The
Save Darfur Coalition
is an alliance
of more than 170 faith, advocacy and humanitarian organizations, representing
all the major religions and dozens of Jewish, Muslim and Christian groups. It
advocates for public awareness and public policy change and provides aid. Contact
communications director Alex Meixner, 202-478-6194, alex@savedarfur.org.
• The
Genocide Intervention
Network was begun by Swarthmore College students in 2005 as a way to raise
money to help resolve the Darfur crisis. It has developed into a network of
campus groups across the country. Read a March
6, 2005, Boston Globe story about the group. It is now based in Washington,
D.C. Contact executive director Mark Hanis, 202-481-8220, hanis@genocideintervention.net.
• Gregory
Stanton is president of Genocide
Watch, a Washington, D.C., organization that “exists to predict, prevent,
stop, and punish genocide and other forms of mass murder,” including in Sudan.
Its board
of advisers includes academics from around the country. Contact 703-448-0222.
• Ricken
Patel is a fellow at Res
Publica, a group that works to support refugees in Darfur, and co-director
of DarfurGenocide.org,
an information and advocacy source. Contact 646-229-5416, ricken@therespublica.org.
• Human
Rights Watch, an independent, nongovernmental organization dedicated to protecting
human rights worldwide, maintains a page
on Sudan with essential background
and linked articles and essays. Contact media director Minky Worden, 212-216-1250.
• The
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., posts a “genocide
emergency” page on Darfur. The museum sponsors research and education efforts
on genocides worldwide. Contact 202-488-0400.
ACADEMICS
• Francis
Mading Deng is director of the Center
for Displacement Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced
International Studies and research professor of International Politics, Law
and Society. From 1992 to 2004, he was the representative of the U.N. Secretary-General
on Internally Displaced Persons. He is author of more than 20 books, including
War of Visions: Conflicts of Identities in the Sudan (Brookings Institution
Press, 1995). Essays are posted at his home
page at the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, where he is
a nonresident senior fellow. Contact him in Washington, D.C., at 202-663-5870.
• Jok Madut Jok is an associate history professor at Loyola Marymount University
in Los Angeles and author of Sudan: Race, Religion and Violence (OneWorld
Publications, forthcoming in March 2007) and War and Slavery in Sudan (The
Ethnography of Political Violence) (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001).
Contact 310-338-7040, jjok@lmu.edu.
• Mahmood
Mamdani is an anthropology professor at Columbia University in New York
and author of When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism and the
Genocide in Rwanda (Princeton University Press, 2002.). His current research
includes Sudan. ZNet posts one of his essays.
Contact 212-854-8777, mm1124@columbia.edu.
• Walid Phares is a senior fellow at the Foundation
for the Defense of Democracies, where he focuses on Middle East history
and politics, global terrorist movements, democratization and human rights. A
frequent media commentator, he also leads the Future
of Terrorism Project. Contact through 202-207-0190.
• Samantha
Power is the Anna Lindh Professor of Practice of Global Leadership and Public
Policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. She wrote
A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (Basic Books, 2002),
which won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction, the 2003 National
Book Critics Circle Award for general nonfiction and the Council on Foreign
Relations' Arthur Ross Prize for the best book in U.S. foreign policy. Power's
New Yorker article on Darfur won the 2005 National Magazine Award for
best reporting. Contact 617-495-3140,
samantha_power@ksg.harvard.edu or through her assistant, Robin Trangsrud,
robin_trangsrud@ksg.harvard.edu,
617-495-0743.
• Samuel Totten is professor of secondary education at the University of
Arkansas’ College of Education and Health Professions. He is co-editor of Genocide
in Darfur (Routledge, 2006), editor of Genocide at the Millennium (Transaction
Publishers, 2005) and author of Teaching About Genocide (Information Age,
2004). He is a member of the Council of the Institute on the Holocaust
and Genocide (Jerusalem) and the Centre for Genocide Studies (Sydney, New South
Wales, Australia) and co-chief editor of the journal Genocide Studies and
Prevention. Contact 479-575-6677, stotten@uark.edu.
• Alex
de Waal is a fellow of the Global Equity Initiative at Harvard University
in Cambridge, Mass. He studies the social, political and health dimensions of
war, famine and genocide. He is the author of Famine That Kills: Darfur,
Sudan, 1984-1985 (Oxford University Press, 1989) and Facing Genocide:
The Nuba of Sudan (African Rights, 1995) and editor of Islamism and Its
Enemies in the Horn of Africa (Indiana University Press, 2004). Contact
617-998-0162, dewaal@fas.harvard.edu.
• Morton
Abramowitz is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a former president
of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former employee of the
U.S. State Department. His Oct.
23, 2006, commentary suggests that advocates may be increasing the agony
in Darfur rather than pushing for action that will alleviate it. Contact 202-745-5468,
Abramowitz@tcf.org.
OTHER
• John
C. Danforth, an Episcopal priest and a former U.S. senator, has served as special
envoy to Sudan under President Bush and also as U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations from 2004-2005. Contact 314-259-2980, jcdanforth@bryancave.com.
