Sudanese are dying, and no one cares. Genocide is occurring in the Darfur province, ethnic cleansing by Arab Sudanese against African Sudanese. So far, over 30,000 -- that's THIRTY THOUSAND -- men, women and children have been killed, and more than a million driven from their homes. Yet, the world sits silently. We do not act. Why? Using the example of the Darfur genocide, I am going to attempt to answer that question. My thesis: Collective identity is to blame. Simply put, Sudan is an "other," and therefore none of "our" concern.

Any discussion of collective identity must begin by understanding what that term means. A collective identity is built on the idea of imagined communities -- in lay terms, I do not know a single person who lives in Nebraska, yet if someone came up to me in a foreign country and said they were from Nebraska, I would instantly feel camaraderie with them, because we both belong to the imagined community of "America". Similarly, I share a bond with everyone who goes to and has gone to the University of Virginia.

The implicit circle drawn by an imagined community creates a sense of "us" (everyone in that circle) and "them" (everyone outside of it). So, when the Vikings invaded England in the 8th and 9th centuries, they forced all of the previously disparate English kingdoms together, and gradually a collective sense of "Englishness" grew. The American Revolution began in much the same way, with the colonists gaining a sense of "Americanness" set in opposition to the Britishness of the King. In the Cold War, you were either Democratic or Communist; we felt solidarity towards those in the former category and hostility towards those in the latter. Today, it is easy to see that there is a sense of collectivity in "The West" -- America and Europe. Following the same logic, anyone who is not Western is not within our sphere of common identity.

Bringing that back to Sudan: If there was a similar genocide occurring in a small Eastern European nation, there is no doubt whatsoever that the West would intercede; in fact, in Bosnia and Kosovo, we did. We would intercede swiftly and with little debate, because Europe is within the West's collective identity. Sudan lies in Africa, a far-away land most people can't point to on a map, and the people dying there are just statistics. There is no sense of urgency, no sense of moral imperative to back up words with actions. This is the same set of circumstances that allowed the Rwandan genocide.

Our policymakers today still have a Cold War mentality, and a worldview infused with 40 years worth of collective identity that left Africa out of the equation. Not even 9/11 -- one shocking event against 40 years of conditioning -- has forced the politicians to see that we have strategic security interests in Africa, that it is not simply a moral imperative, a humanitarian imperative, but a defense imperative as well.

Realism is the dominant theory of foreign policy, and it states that nations act in the interest of putting themselves in the best position of power. Realism dictates in 2004 that Darfur cannot be allowed to become a wasteland of lawlessness; we gain both from a security and reputation standpoint. Realism, however, treats nations as unitary actors, deprived of emotion. Logically, since we are not acting, there must be another answer. It is simple:

America sees Sudan as an "other," and an "other" is not worth sending American boys to die for. That's what it boils down to.

I fear that this mindset will not change until the next generation of policymakers takes over. We are a generation whose defining moment was 9/11, a generation reared in the Era of Terrorism. We know that the world is completely interdependent, that what happens in the remotest corner of Afghanistan can have the most severe impact in New York City. We know that the only way forward is to begin to form a global identity, one where every country, every human feels solidarity and connectivity with every other.

Our realism will be one of sweeping global change.

For now, there is little to do but cajole and plead for our leaders to stop the brutal slaughter that is occurring in Sudan. It's going to be another decade before my generation starts rising to power; I pray the world can wait that long.
- posted by Elliot H. @ 5:33 PM