Darfur

It was always going to happen (a blog about Darfur).

The question is, do I really need to point out the hypocrisy, ignorance and racist nationalism that is prolonging the worst humanitarian crisis of our time?

400,000 Sudanese have died during the government sponsored ethnic cleansing of the Darfur region in West Sudan. The international community has tremendous power to intervene and prevent the continued slaughter of civilians. But they choose not to. UN resolutions have been pushed through by the US and Britain, but China blocks further action and the Sudanese government resists efforts to allow a UN peacekeeping force into the country.

Where is brave George Bush and his War on Terror now? Isn't genocide even worse than terrorism? It seems the Sudan government has too much oil it wants to sell to the West (as opposed to the cantankerous Arab nationalist Saddam) and no threat of WMDs. If ever there was ANOTHER reason to pull troops out of Iraq, it is to move them into Sudan where military presence is needed.

But you know what the problem is? That kind of action isn't in the national interest of the US or Australia. It wouldn't be strategic to do the right thing because it is the right thing.

On average 21 civilians are murdered every day, almost a Virginia Tech or Port Arthur every day, in the same region. Why does everyone keep ignoring it?

Here's a question to test how racist and nationalistic you are. Hypothetically, how many Americans or Australians would you have allowed to die in order to prevent all 400,000 deaths in Darfur? Not even considering the rapes, stolen children and displaced people. Would you allow 200,000 Australians to die? Not even half the total death toll in Darfur? Effectively valuing a Sudanese person as half that of an Australian? Most people wouldn't even go that far, 200,000 Australians is way too much they think. How about as a proportion of the country's population? Sudan has roughly 36 million people, which as a proportion would mean that 226,000 Aussies would have died, would you make this trade?

Okay, to appeal to the most heartless and money hungry of you - how about if we made a trade per dollar value of each person? Using a measure of income distribution and per capita income I estimated that those 400,000 dead in Darfur have the same wealth as the poorest 12,000 people in Australia. Would you make that trade? Twelve thousand dead Australians, it seems large doesn't it - but in the place of 400,000 Sudanese it is nothing. If you still consider that 12,000 dead Australians/Canadians/Americans/British is too much then you are a filthy racist and you don't deserve to breathe the air on this planet.