Thursday, April 27, 2006

yesterday on Oprah

I suppose I shouldn't be so flippant. While today's Oprah may have ventured into Geraldo territory, with its focus on "Female teachers, secret sex at school," Wednesday's episode was dedicated to giving profile to the situation in Darfur, Sudan. Apparently George Clooney and his father recently toured the region and are now back in the USA on a campaign to bring awareness to the plight of Darfuris. Angelina Jolie also laid down the coin for a one-page spread calling attention to the issue in USA Today.

I am not critical of those who use celebrity to gather media for a good cause. (The big caveat being Lindsay Lohan's recent announcement that she is going to Africa to "see what America is doing for AIDS in Africa." If she comes back with anything less than the conclusion that what America is doing for AIDS in Africa is putting it there, and making it stay there, then La Lohan probably should just stay at home trying on Prada.) Such obvious examples aside, the more the various world crises are in the mainstream media, the better. If nothing else, it might cause one reporter to ask our Prime Minister, "What is Canada doing for Darfur? (Or situation X, Y and Z)," and it might actually make the PM think about it.

Where I do think there's a problem, however, is when the message being sent by those like Clooney et al. is reduced to a tag line just small enough to fit on the ticker at the bottom of the CNN screen. ("Tick. Tick. Tick. "Seattle gets three inches of rain today." Tick. Tick. Tick. "Britney Spears' baby falls out of high chair. Authorities investigate." Tick. Tick. Tick. "Darfur a genocide: Clooney." Tick. Tick. Tick.") If there is anything I learned during my eight plus months working on Darfur, it's that the situation is more nuanced than a one-liner, and that eight months of trying to understand the root of the problem will only leave you more uncertain of how the international community can solve the mess that is apparently "the first genocide of the 21st century" than before.

Take the role of the African Union for example. What should be the role of the African Union in solving Darfur? What should be the role of the rest of the world in supporting that organization? There are those that say: "Let the African Union do its job. African solutions to African problems." To which there are those that respond: "What are you, glib? If there's only so much that African nations can do for themselves -and, let's face it, there is only so much that African nations can do for themselves - then it is the responsibility of the Western world to intervene. American paternalism be damned." Surely there must be some kind of balance, you might think. But is there really time to refine that balance when statistics say anwhere between 180,000 and 400,000 people have been killed by the conflict (and we're still counting)?

These are the questions that are thoughtfully considered everyday by the very competent and compassionate people who struggle to find some measure of success for Darfur. There are many reasons why we're failing, but it's not necessarily for lack of concern by citizens of the world and their governments, in my estimation; rather, it's that the solutions are not that simple ("just send in the troops and pour in more money"), and that the questions do not have easy answers (unless one considers overthrowing the Sudanese government. Now there's an idea to consider!).

(Oh, and if you think I'm going to let Oprah get off that easy for one good show, I'm not. Friday's episode? "Does my butt look big?" The show every woman who's recently given birth is dying to see.)

1 sweet nothing:

Anonymous said...

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Dad