Don't Forget Darfur

By KATIE KISSINGER

Editor's note: This editorial marks the first in a series entitled "Breaking the Bubble" - the series aims to promote awareness of current events within the "bubble" of the Advanced Studies Program community and will feature editorials, podcasts, and follow-up discussions on three separate topics over the next three weeks.

On June 2, 2005, President George W. Bush stated that a genocide was happening in Darfur, becoming the first sitting president in United States’ history to speak out against an ongoing genocide. So why do we hear about it so little in the media today?

To find out whether or not people were informed about the current happenings in Darfur, I recently interviewed a select number of students and faculty taking part in the Advanced Studies Program (ASP) at St. Paul’s School. In gauging their knowledge about the issue, it became clear that a number of the students were not familiar with the topic as a whole, even mistaking it for a different problem in the world.

Those students who were slightly familiar with the genocide were still unable to identify some of key issues of the situation. Soon, however, it became clear that it was not the student’s fault they were misinformed, but it was the fault of the media.


“I could not find much media attention about it unless I searched for it,” said Geoff Edwards, an Assistant Director of the Advanced Studies Program, one of the few people who possessed a solid awareness of the subject. “With all of the current issues in the United States such as the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the War in Iraq, it is not reported because we are too busy reporting on issues that directly effects us,” he said.

So with all of these problems currently facing the United States, why should we care about what is going on in Darfur?

Darfur is a region in the country of Sudan (the largest country in Africa) that borders the Sahara Desert, and used to be home to six million people. Currently, a civil war rages on between the Sudanese government and the rebel tribal groups of Darfur. In retaliation to the rebel attacks, the Sudanese government has been targeting civilians in the tribal villages of Darfur. As a result, over 400 villages have been leveled. According to amnestyusa.org, an estimated 300,000 people were killed between 2003 and 2005 and the death toll continues to rise daily.

Although the Sudanese government signed a peace treaty with one of the rebel groups in 2006, the fighting still continues, even between the rebel groups themselves. According to savedarfur.org, currently over 300,000 refugees from Darfur live across the border in the country of Chad, and 4.7 million of the inhabitants of Darfur are still currently being affected by the violence. On July 14, 2008, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir was charged by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.

If the current issues concerning the United States continue to push other global stories such as this out of the news, the responsibility to seek the truth in order to become informed citizens will fall to individuals in our society. As young people in the world today, if we apply ourselves and strive to become enlightened, we can have a phenomenal effect on how we want to shape the world. If we all work to seek out important information about global political issues and engage more in activism aimed at addressing the genocide in Darfur and other such human rights campaigns, we can make a profound difference.

If you or anyone else you know is interested in getting involved or finding out more about the crisis in Darfur, visit www.savedarfur.org or www.eyesondarfur.com for more details.