We Won't Stop Darfur
None of the cost-effective options will be effective on the ground, and we really don’t think any of the options that’d be effective on the ground are worth the costs. This, thru Ezra, is the bottom line from Michael Gerson, who nonetheless concludes that
the choices in Rwanda were also flawed. Once again, the credibility of the United Nations is questioned; its troops are too few in number. Yet their deployment is perhaps the last hope for the betrayed people of Darfur. And we cannot run again.
Yeah but this isn’t happening, and everyone knows it, and almost everyone — even those who feel guilty about it — are, when push comes to shove, resigned to it.
How to feel? Guilt-stricken and ashamed? Or stoically tolerant of our inability to rid the world of genocide? Or something else?
And that’s the issue, isn’t it. Not what to do. But how to feel.
On the one hand, I’m quite certain that nobody but the neocons has the … whatever, moxie, soul, balls — to insist that we actually follow through on our supposed international laws. But on the other, I’m convinced that Darfur proves something about the world, and everyone in it, that needs to be reckoned with as reflective of certain inescapable truths about human life on earth: specifically, that great suffering, as a matter of fact, will not be eradicated from the planet, not now, not anytime soon. And I suspect that there’s something profound in the moral paradox of having deeply held ideals which are also unenforceable.
It’s not a very happy thought — that there are awful things that happen which, when push comes to shove, we must accept only being able to feel bad about. Because in this age, we want to eliminate as much agony as possible, personally, nationally, internationally, even if the tradeoff is a great increase in anxiety. Anxiety can be coped with; and we’ve learned how to cope with the anxiety of letting a genocide happen, too. It seems crass and awful, but it’s also the coping mechanism that allows us to make it through everyday life in our democratic, secular, therapeutic era, by and large.
I am opposed to military intervention in Darfur, for a great many reasons. But this— “On the one hand, I’m quite certain that nobody but the neocons has the … whatever, moxie, soul, balls”— I find untenable. I have never quite understood why people are so quick to accept the notion that the motivations for the neocons are exactly as virtuous and idealistic as they claim. And I would hasten to point out that GOING to war takes soul, moxie, and balls. ADVOCATING GOING TO WAR takes no such thing. If I never have to absorb an argument that misplaces the virtue of courage in those who want our armies to fight, rather than in those armies themselves, it will still be too soon.
— Freddie · Dec 20, 01:49 PM · #
James: I think the word you’re looking for is, “chutzpah.”
— Noah Millman · Dec 20, 03:00 PM · #
This blog has a seemingly unrivaled ability to turn specific geopolitical situations into thumbsucking ruminations over “moral paradoxes.” Um, yeah, it’s really, really hard to mobilize international action over a civil war or genocide in a country of no strategic importance to anyone. I’m pretty sure this has little to do with some some high-school ethics class bushwa over whether we’ll ever be able to eliminate suffering in the world, or whether we’d want to if we could, or whether we’ll ever resolve the spiritual malaise brought on by our necessarily imperfect universe.
I personally have no idea what, if anything, should be done about Darfur, but I can recognize a morally insipid argument when I see one. I wonder: how should Darfurians feel about your struggle to figure out how you should feel about Darfur? I’m sure they’d be touched.
— Adam · Dec 20, 03:29 PM · #
I am not crazy about the way Adam put it, but I think he has a fair point.
The relevant moral question for any individual seems to be “What can or should I, James Poulos/J Mann/whomever, do for the people of Darfur, and is it worth the cost to me?” That question may itself be informed by “What can George Bush/the UN/NGOs do, and is it in my power to influence them through lobbying/scathing blog posts/contributions/whatever?”
If your answer is that there is absolutely NOTHING you personally or the US/UN/NGOs collectively can do, then I suppose that you are left asking how to feel about it, rather like asking how to feel about a friend you have heard has died.
On the other hand, if you only conclude that a neocon/international invasion is off the table, then I think it’s worth asking whether there are actions that you could take at the margins that might do some good. It seems to me that at a minimum, the NGOs should be documenting the disaster, and I suspect that there is some other stuff that people could be doing to help, even if that help won’t address the root cause.
— J Mann · Dec 20, 05:56 PM · #
Of course, followed to its logical ends, Adam’s complaint isn’t just an indictment of Poulos’s specific argument, but an indictment of moral reasoning and philosophy whatsoever. (I wonder: how should fetuses feel about our struggle to come to a moral policy regarding abortion? I’m sure they’d be touched.)
I struggle to imagine a comprehension of the world that leads one to believe there is too much moral soul-searching going on within it. I’ll err on the side of those who are too concerned with what is to be done, rather than those who can’t be bothered, thanks.
— Freddie · Dec 20, 07:09 PM · #
I think you’re onto something in saying that it’s not about what to do but “how to feel”, and it’s why much of the Darfur activism makes me uneasy, even as I’ve seen the suffering there first-hand. The scene described by Uzodinma Iweala in this op-ed captures the dynamic perfectly: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/13/AR2007071301714.html
In case you didn’t see it, Mahmood Mamdani’s piece in the LRB last spring also highlights the inconsistencies in the way we think about troubles in Sudan and is well worth reading, even if he does go a bit out of his way to be incendiary (www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n05/mamd01_.html).
The question remains: from whom are we trying to save Darfur? From the Khartoum government? From the more than a dozen splintering armed factions that now exist? These are messy political questions, not solved by any military intervention.
— Louisa · Dec 20, 09:33 PM · #