On Thursday, January 26, at 12:30 p.m., about 30 Brown students decided to lie down near Faunce Arch. Confused students observed signs telling them that these fanatics represented the 400,000 dead in Darfur, a region in western Sudan. Other signs urged the United States to send a multinational force to Darfur to protect the civilians. To many, though, the people seemed to be crazed radicals expressing opinions over a matter that students at Brown cannot possibly change. As one student mindlessly remarked, "These people are blocking my way."
The truth is that there were more than just 30 maniacs doing this. Thousands of college students did the same thing at more than 60 schools throughout the country. They all lay down at the same time and they all had signs making a statement about Darfur. They all were "blocking the way" of fellow students trying to get by. And for the next three months, these students are going to make it difficult for the government to "walk by" without paying more attention to the situation in Darfur.
Contrary to public belief, the three-year genocide is not stopping; it is getting worse. Hundreds of innocent civilians are dying by the day, prompting notables such as Senators Sam Brownback, Barack Obama and Joe Biden and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to call for more action. Yet, despite these pleas, Congress recently withdrew $50 million dollars appropriated for the African Union force protecting the Darfurian civilians, despite the fact that the force will have no money left in its budget after April of this year. During President George W. Bush's first year in the White House, he wrote in the margins of a report on the Rwandan genocide, "Not on my watch." He has failed to keep this promise.
This is where college students can come in. In an unprecedented movement, humanitarian, faith-based and other organizations are joining together to send one million postcards to the White House demanding a multinational force in Darfur, a force many experts feel is the only solution to ending the ongoing violence. Former Darfur movements have been isolated and ineffective, but with all activists fighting for a common goal, this one seems to have legs.
The campaign, though, is much more than just postcards. As students, we are doing our part through the Power to Protect Campaign. The campaign is organized by Students Taking Action Now: Darfur, national movement composed of hundreds of schools fighting the geno-cide. A student-led executive committee has spent countless hours organizing and motivating STAND chapters to participate. For three months leading up to a large-scale April 30 protest in Washington, D.C., students will join together to prompt more action to stop the genocide. The campaign features a media campaign beginning with the Jan. 26 Die-In designed to force the American people to recognize that the atrocities are still occurring. Additionally, a national week of action in April will feature camp-outs, fasts, and other events targeted at making the genocide an issue that Congress will be forced to grapple with. Each school will be lobbying its state representatives, urging them to appropriate more money to the multinational force while encouraging the president to pursue more action. This is grass-roots activism at its best.
In The Herald last semester, an op-ed battle began over the activism on campus. Some argued that Brown has become a liberal swamp: many innovative ideas with little action to back them up. The genocide in Darfur, however, is a non-partisan issue uniting students throughout the country. Brown has a legitimate opportunity to reclaim its reputation as an "activist Mecca" by playing a large role in the Power to Protect Campaign.
Because of the scope and organization of the campaign, it has great potential to implicate change and help the people in Darfur. Many of my friends, while appreciating my efforts, have asked if I think my attempts to "save Darfur" have actually made a difference. The answer is no. My individual attempts to stop the genocide have probably done absolutely nothing. I alone cannot stop the genocide, nor can alone the Darfur Action Network at Brown. A movement with thousands of high school and college students, thousands of religious peoples and thousands of humanitarians, however, can help stop the genocide in Sudan. And this is what we now have.
I urge you to join a cause for a semester that has a current real-world implication. The time commitment is not large, but the reward is huge; you will be joining the first anti-genocide campaign in history. When 400,000 people have died, and hundreds of thousands more are on the cusp of the same fate, how can we not attempt to do all possible to stop the suffering?
Scott Warren '09 invites you to come learn more about the current situation and how you can help at The Darfur Action Network teach-in, Sunday at 8 pm in Wilson 102.
