Packaging a Tragedy

Yet for all the Darfur movement's success in raising public awareness, the reality on the ground is that there has been no improvement. Indeed, the activists' power to dictate priorities may even have made the crisis worse. While few in Washington will go on record to criticize it, some officials complain privately that the coalition has hampered aid, gotten in the way of American diplomacy and hurt efforts to find a political solution for Sudan. Analysts also say the activists are wrongly treating the tragedy as a humanitarian crisis rather than a political one. "You can't have a solution for Darfur without finding a solution for Sudan," says Harvard University's Alex de Waal, a leading scholar on the country. "At the moment [Save Darfur's involvement] is not a help; the simplicity of their message is getting in the way of a response."

De Waal believes the focus on Darfur has been "disastrous" for southern Sudan. The North-South peace treaty has faltered as deadlines are missed, tensions between soldiers and rebels rise and preparations for a 2009 election are at risk. Another common complaint is Save Darfur's simplistic presentation of the conflict. Typically, the violence is presented as a clash pitting Arabs against African. The truth, obviously, is more complex.  Few Americans realize that both sides are Muslim and that the trouble is at least partly rooted in scarce resources: a convergence of drought and an influx of land-hungry Arab tribes from Chad and North Darfur. Nor is the fighting solely between the two ethnic groups: an upsurge in violence among Arab tribes has left an estimated 600 dead in intra-Arab fighting this year alone. Framing it as a clash pitting Arabs against Africans may have helped the activists groups get their genocide rating (a classification former U.S. President Jimmy Carter recently questioned), but some analysts fear that incorrect usage merely devalues the word. Save Darfur's Prendergast dismisses these arguments as a "diversion"—and has now started a group called "The Enough Project" to widen public focus. Using Save Darfur's organizational blueprint, the organization plans to draw attention to problems in other desperate regions like Somalia, Northern Uganda and Congo. "These kinds of atrocities have common roots and have common solutions," says Prendergast. That may be so-but the danger for the activists is that questions about their strategic tools may blunt their edge next crisis around.

© 2007