Darfur: On Steven Spielberg and the 2008 Beijing Olympics
By Eric Reeves, The Boston Globe
April 16, 2007 — STEVEN SPIELBERG surely doesn’t favor the continuing genocide in the
Darfur region of Sudan, but he still needs to explain himself.
The acclaimed film director has chosen to play a central, hands-on role
in orchestrating the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Summer
Olympic Games in Beijing. Besides Spielberg, China has enlisted other
well-known artists such as director Ang Lee, Australian Ric Birch, and
Frenchman Yves Pepin to add flash to the spectacle.
Oddly, Spielberg has declared publicly that while aware of genocide in
Darfur, he only recently became aware of China’s involvement. But the
facts are no secret. Beijing has unstintingly provided large-scale
economic, military, and diplomatic support to the Islamist regime in
Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. Spielberg has now sent a letter urging China
to use its influence constructively. But that gesture is not enough.
What are the obligations of artists in the face of genocide? Spielberg
and the others are at two removes from the ethnically targeted killing
in Darfur; they are helping with the Olympics that China’s government
cares so much about, and China is helping Khartoum. But how do we assess
degrees of complicity in the ultimate human crime?
As a means to fight rebels, Khartoum has orchestrated a campaign of
mass murder. Since the spring of 2003, hundreds of thousands of innocent
civilians have perished, 2.5 million have been displaced, and 4.5
million civilians in the greater humanitarian theater of Darfur and
eastern Chad are at risk.
The key to halting a brutal genocide by attrition in Darfur is securing
Khartoum’s consent for the large, robust peace support operation
authorized in August by the United Nations Security Council. But China,
which obtains large quantities of oil from Sudan, abstained in this
critical vote — and insisted on language that merely “invited”
Khartoum’s consent for the deploying force. Assured of Beijing’s
diplomatic support, Khartoum has defiantly declined this “invitation.”
An overwhelmed African Union force remains the only source of security
for millions of civilians and the world’s largest, most vulnerable
humanitarian operation.
The only way to change conditions on the ground in Darfur is to break
the diplomatic deadlock that emboldens Khartoum. China is the key. But
its diplomacy has been governed by the principle of not interfering in a
sovereign nation’s internal affairs — even when such affairs include
the gravest of crimes.
This flies in the face of the emerging legal norm: a responsibility to
protect civilians who are the unprotected victims of genocide, ethnic
cleansing, or crimes against humanity. China voted for this principle at
the UN World Summit in 2005, and again in a Security Council resolution
in 2006. But China’s vast commercial interests in Sudan have rendered
this principle meaningless.
Beijing’s foreign ministry did urge Khartoum last week to be more
“flexible” in allowing UN forces to deploy. Then again, special envoy
Zhai Jun recently toured Darfur and then declared that the region is
stable, refugee camps have good sanitary conditions, aid groups were
functioning normally, and the “situation is in fact improving.”
Beijing is paying no price for shielding Khartoum. By diplomatically
underwriting Khartoum’s intransigence, China has become deeply culpable
in the Darfur genocide.
The 2008 Beijing Olympics are the only lever the international
community can use to change China’s ways. The event’s motto “one world,
one dream” is a grim irony amid the nightmare of Darfur.
The question for Spielberg, then, is how much China’s culpability
matters to him. How does he feel about his own complicity in a vast
public relations effort by China? This is Beijing’s most ambitious
attempt at full international legitimacy since the Tiananmen Square
massacres (never mind the destruction of Tibet and domestic human rights
abuses).
Artists are judged not just by the extent of their skill but also by
how they choose to use it. In 1936 film maker Leni Riefenstahl decided
filming the Berlin Olympics in Nazi Germany was an appropriate artistic
choice, and her creation — the film “Olympia” — was put in service of
National Socialism’s propaganda efforts. Why would Spielberg or others
want to contribute to Beijing’s propaganda — especially when it helps
Khartoum?
Spielberg has declared publicly that, “all of us are dedicated to
making these Olympic opening and closing ceremonies the most emotional
anyone has ever seen.” But history will harshly judge those who had the
ability to stop the Darfur genocide and failed to use it.
* The author is a professor at Smith College. He can be reached at [email protected]. Website
www.sudanreeves.org