As the situation in Darfur gets worse, women seem to be on the receiving end of much of the brutality.
A coalition of U.N. agencies says the alarming increase in violent attacks against women and children in Darfur has risen ever since the signing of a peace accord between the Khartoum government and one rebel group earlier this year.the attacks often occur, as they have throughout the three-year-long war, when women leave camps for internally displaced persons to collect water and firewood for cooking or selling. He also says patrols by African Union forces in and around the camps, some of which are home to tens-of-thousands of people, have been greatly reduced.
A.U. forces have come under attack and have been stretched far beyond their capacity to protect civilians.
How many more times am I going to write about the atrocities done to women in Darfur?
As I read this stuff and write on it, I feel so frustrated. I feel frustrated with myself for being so distant from the issue. I feel frustrated with the world and super powers for letting these things happen and making it look like it is the fault of the people of Darfur (you know those animalistic natives that can't run their own countries). I feel frustrated that as Western feminists we often use these examples of atrocities in other countries (3rd world countries) to assert our dominance in believing that we are the most liberated women on the planet, ignoring all the culturally hegemonic assumptions imbedded in that.
I feel frustrated that everything that has been going on to *help* the people of Darfur, isn't working.
Yes a post turned rant, but sometimes I get frustrated about these things, because I am writing about them constantly, and sometimes I feel like I am just part of the problem.
Does anybody else feel frustrated?
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I feel very similar to you Samhita. I don't know what SHOULD be done (i.e. military action or diplomacy, etc.), but I really wish people were talking about it more & focusing on it more. Very little time is spent on the news about it. And while I don't mean this in any partisan way, I really don't think the lateset Washington sex scandal is worth the relative proportion of time spent discussing it!
I get very upset thinking about this, especially as the US as a country is doing NOTHING. Genocide is totally fine, but if there is some sketchy dictator in an oil-filled country, invade!
Thinking about people saying after the Rwandan genocides of 1994, "Never again..."--People, you lied. It is happening again. What are you doing?
Would you like the US to invade?
I mean, logistically it would certainly be possible.
Economically? Well, all wars are huge money dumps - but for all the current crisis the USA does have the money.
So I can't say invading and totally restructuring the culture and laws and... everything... would be impossible. It has been done before.
But is it a good idea?
It's funny, when you try countless times to inform people, and, yet, they'd much rather watch Jackass 2 than care about the slaughter and rape of these people. At least, after, what is it, like 4 and a half years, the word is starting to get out: people are suffering. I mean, MTV just had a special on the Devastation in Darfur, Chad, and Ethiopia. It covered AIDS, starvation, and genocide (of course My Super Sweet 16 was on right afterwards). I'm so grateful for that.
What's more frustrating than knowing what's happening in Darfur, is not having any power at all to make a difference. As much as I'd like to think that I can do something, I can only try so hard to get others interested before losing hope.
YES.
I feel helpless and frustrated that I can't do shit. People are trying and trying, but at the end of the day the people who have the most power decide it is too complicated to get in there and do something even though it wasn't when the country is spelled I-R-A-Q.
This is going to be on our hands when we look back. Then a false sense of "never again" will creep in and the same thing will happen years later (learn from history: Armenia, Europe, Cambodia, the Balkans...). We need to break the cycle, but it is just so hard.
Right on fellow posters. I share your frustration and concerns. It seems that Africa never makes it on the list of things to do (so to speak) of the United States. Would we let this happen if it were not taking place in Africa-say, to a "whiter" population? I feel guilty for even speculating or simply turning this terrible genocide into a racial issue, but I think it is worth pondering.
In analyzing priorities, I don't see how Iraq came before Darfur. It makes me sad.
It is similar to the hand wringing about deaths in the Bosnian War compared to the Rwandan genocide in which 800,000 people died.
I feel very similar to you Samhita. I feel guilty for even speculating or simply turning this terrible genocide into a racial issue, but I think it is worth pondering.
In analyzing priorities, I don't see how Iraq came before Darfur. It makes me sad.
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