Sudan’s burden
By MORGAN STRONG
BRICK, N.J., Aug 19, 2004 (UPI) — The children of the Sudan, those desperate children, are dying terrible deaths. They and what is left of their families, those who were not killed by fanatics, cling desperately to life virtually ignored by the world. We see them every so often on the nightly news, not all that often because grim images of the Sudan won’t keep our moods quite upbeat enough for commercials. If we’re anguished, and guilt ridden, we might not buy that new SUV, or whatever else they’re selling.
Television news producers know where the bottom line is. Thanks to marketing surveys, they have a precise knowledge of when our tolerance for self-flagellation is reached. Too much agony, and we won’t watch. Too many starving children and we tune out. That will not keep the networks in business.
The people, Doctors Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, et al who go to the Sudan to try to help know this. They try and get as much attention paid to the horror of the place as they can. But there are obstacles. We, the American public — the television audience — are a problem so say the network executive who decide just how much bad news we can absorb. The network execs do not want to force us to face our failure, to distract us from the right, embodied in the Constitution, to the pursuit of happiness. They do not want to embarrass, or enrage us to so that we demand relief for those who suffer. They respect our sensitivity and purchasing power.
Perhaps as many as 20 people were killed by hurricane Charley in Florida last week. The president has declared the entire state a disaster area and has pledged billions in low-cost loans and relief aid for the state. The president has to get the constituency back on their feet before the coming election.
Twenty people dead in Florida is a pittance in comparison to the tens of thousands who have already died in the Sudan. And in comparison to the million or more, who will surly die there if no relief is given, the number is hopelessly inconsequential.
There has not been little uttered by the president or his opponent John Kerry to call attention to the terrible events in the Sudan. They appear oblivious to the horror. They spend countless hours deriding each others military service to the nation, and ignore what cannot be ignored.
They both try mightily to convince us of their compassion, but do little to demonstrate that caring to a people who just do not matter in their ambitious calculation.
That’s the point really. If they, or two woeful choices for the presidency, can ignore the desperation of these poor souls now, what can they do to us down the line? I don’t want a president who is so callus that the lives of others, no matter how distant and unlikely it is to matter in their self-interest, are dismissed as meaningless.
We invaded a country, Iraq, because the dictator of that country was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of his people. He might not have had weapons of mass destruction, but he was guilty of massacres on a monstrous scale. That’s exactly what the government of Sudan is now doing to the black populace of that country — on a monstrous scale. The Sudanese government is killing them because they present an obstacle to their ambitions.
If we are to justify our actions in invading Iraq so as to dispose of a madman slaying thousands of innocents, how can we remain unmoved by the killing of tens of thousands elsewhere?
Why doesn’t George W. Bush or John Kerry make some reference to the genocide in the Sudan? Why can’t they offer some hope to these terrified people? Or is political expediency the measure of their compassion?
Why do not we not threaten the Sudanese government with retribution? Why do we not raise our voice to them? What if we did? Why cannot, either one of the two who would be president, say to the government of Sudan that unless it stops killing these children, we will see to it that they do.
I think that would be the real test of leadership. Moral outrage is not a bad quality to exhibit every now and then, even for politicians.
* Morgan Strong is a free-lance journalist