Two members of the What I Wish You
Knew group examine the web site,
Lost Boys of Sudan in Chicago.

Thoughts on Darfur

The article, “Why We Don’t Care About Darfur” appeared on page 236 in the September 2007 issue of Oprah Magazine. The author, Thea Singer, references psychologist Paul Slovic, New York Times columnist Nickolas Kristof and Jennifer Lang, MD of the Harvard School of Public Health. One quote that our What I Wish You Knew group thought was simple and very true is by Dr. Lang, “…What numbs (people) out is a sense of powerlessness, helplessness, that nothing in the world will change the situation.” She then goes on to talk about what we CAN do.

Below are some responses we have received. Click here here to add your own or just send your thoughts to whatiwishyouknew@gmail.com

Response to Article on Darfur

I find that the article raises many valid points about the ongoing situation in Darfur; especially the notion that the more people involved, the more likely we are to push the crises out of our minds. The way to counteract this tendency is to personalize the situation by giving ordinary people with no connections to Sudan the ability to see that helping even just one person can have a tremendous impact.

I have one caveat with the article and that is that it oversimplifies the reason that people ignore Sudan in some sense by saying the extraordinary number of people involved makes it psychologically overwhelming; this logic seems to suggest that if fewer people were involved, it would be easier to process mentally and the average American would be more likely to help assuage the situation. The reason that Darfur has generated even the most paltry media attention.

it has so far received is largely due to the millions of people involved. The bigger problem is that the tragedy is taking place halfway around the world, and in many ways that disconnects people just as much, because the person is geographically isolated and is more likely to feel that help would be difficult to provide to unknown people so far away. By showing average, caring Americans that not only is the situation dire, but that there are people living in America such as the Lost Boys of Sudan provides a dramatically more accessible way of helping by showing how close to home the crises really is.

Gabriel Friedman, age 16

My response to the article about Darfur in Oprah Magazine

By Angelique Mukandamage, student, from Africa and Evanston

We all think, we all wonder, but mostly we all want to say things we want other people to hear. We want to show the world we care even when we don't think about it.

I am from Africa and have been a victim of genocide. I firmly believe that many of us don't want to act upon war or poverty. These two issues affect each one of us daily, but none of us want to take action because we think "we are not included." Everyone wants to live in peace in a place where no worries or fears exist. Therefore, it is hard, after spending much of the time figuring out how to ignore the negativity that is going on around the world, to feel obligated to care about millions of lives living thousands and thousands miles away.

Joseph Stalin once said, “a single death is a tragedy: a million deaths is statistic”; this is very true. When one person goes missing, the whole community will get involved; but if Iraqi civilians are dying every minute of every day, then the whole community will not feel the need to spend just a few minutes to think about what is going on in Iraq (rather the majority will talk about it).

I think we all need to take a few seconds in our daily lives to think and act upon the issues that are affecting the world. By doing so, many of us we will feel included and we will be forced to care of our brothers, sisters and friends. Every small effort put toward an action to stop inhumane acts makes a huge difference in our society. Let's all take advantage of that and work together toward one goal which is to help a group of people affected.

Why we DO care about Sudan but are still left helpless

No one likes to admit their indifference to ill pregnant women or starving children in another part of the world. We’re people, after all; we care about others. After reading Thea Singer’s “Why we don't care about Sudan" (September 2007), it became perfectly clear to me that we do care about places like Darfur but only when looking at them narrowly.

Singer’s article highlights our caring nature and suggests that our apparent ignorance to mass suffering is a defense mechanism. Not only does this assessment make sense on an evolutionary scale (acquisition of traits that allow us to survive longer and better), but it also verifies that there is hope for resolving hunger, poverty, and disease on a mass scale. We just have to appeal to the vulnerability of the individual by putting a “face” (even if imaginary) to each report of death, illness, and suffering. Even writing these phrases down as abstract ideas is easy when no specific images are associated with them.

Even when inspired by a particular image or account of suffering, we ask ourselves, “so, what to do now?” and yell internally that we are ready to take action. We are still left feeling helpless because it is not possible for one person to move a nation.

It is also not feasible to send every person a picture of a suffering child to evoke action. Thus, a more proactive approach is to take advantage of our “narrow” thinking and to set smaller goals, both individually and collectively. Instead of trying to get people to cure world AIDS all in one attempt, it is more effective to get them to donate infirmary supplies to suffering regions so that a minimal level of care could be upheld.
One example is that of the The Lost Boys of Sudan. They have partially adopted this “small – steps” concept by setting smaller, more attainable goals. The first is to obtain netting that could be used as protection against mosquitoes. The fulfillment of this goal will be the stepping-stone for larger-scale initiatives. In the end, it is only through this collection of small actions that we can make a significant impact in places like Sudan. Then, we will see the products of our caring nature.

Victoria, student, Northwestern University

Why We don’t Care about Darfur

By Peter Machok, Lost Boy of Sudan
President of Onewithus, awelmachok@yahoo.com

Why we don’t care about Darfur? I would like to start my answer by asking a question. Who does care about Sudan? Let’s talk about Save Sudan and not only Save Darfur. If you want to ask a question, it should be why we don’t care about Sudan?”

For many years Sudan had never enjoyed peace. Since the British left Sudan, it has been ruled by military leaders and dictators. Slavery has been practiced for many years. Looting and rape also was practiced by the regime government, and who cares about all of these issues?

In the 1960s, Southern Sudan waged war against the government in Khartoum to push for freedom, equality and justice through democracy. And that war took some years before the two parties signed the Addis-Ababa agreement, which gave the Southern Sudan self-rule and referendum after some years. Did that peace work? No, because the government dishonored Southern Sudan and began to redeploy its troops to Southern Sudan territories. The president told the Southern Sudan interim government that the peace which we signed was not the Bible or the Koran, so why should I honor it?

That caused the twenty-one years of war between the Sudan People Liberation Army and the central government in Khartoum. The Sudan People Liberation Army was not fighting for Southern Sudan only, but all marginalized people of Sudan, including Darfur, Nubian, Baja and the Blue Nile region. In 2005, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed between the Sudan People Liberation Army and the National Congress Party, and this peace was witnessed by the international community and the African Union. They all agreed that it will be the only way to solve Sudan's problems, including Darfur. If the government doesn’t honor and implement all protocol according to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, then why should the world waste time talking about saving Darfur while the whole country is in a coma?

We Sudanese in general believe that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement is the only formula to be used to solve the Darfur case. If the world can’t force the Sudan ruling party to implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, then how will peace in Darfur be made? The Comprehensive Peace Agreement is the only way to save Sudan if we give pressure to governments around the world to force the National Congress Party to implement the agreement immediately without delay, then two parties in the Government Of National Unity will work together to bring peace in to Darfur by using the peace agreement formula. However, the National Congress Party refuses to respect the peace which it signed with rebels from Darfur, so who can trust this government? The international community is not serious about protecting the victimized people of Sudan in general, and Darfur in particular. In addition, if they are serious, they shouldn't have asked the permission from the government, which is the most problematic cause of the Sudan crisis for many years. If I were the international community, I should have asked permission one time and make my own decision after that because the death cannot wait for permission. It is like asking a lion to give us permission to protect antelopes.

Talk about Save Sudan, and not only Save Darfur.

Sometimes the Simplest Things

By M. Park, MSW, Retired social worker,
Columbine High School

It has been my experience that efforts to ease the suffering and pain of others often seem overwhelming and hopeless. When I first began training as a social worker I had a burning desire to save the world, the entire world. Bit by bit, as I accepted reality and my own realization of being very human, I began to understand that the best anyone can do is take a small little part of the human experience and try to ease another’s pain. Everyone feels overwhelmed and helpless in the face of great issues.

I used to come up with any excuse I could when I was called upon to provide service in crisis intervention. Then it dawned on me that I was resisting because I couldn’t envision what possible role I could take that would truly help others. After that, each time a call came, I went and did the best that I could do. It might have been a little thing, like a warm cup of coffee or a fresh cookie or even silence. I never knew what might make a difference for someone.

The day following the Columbine shootings in 1999 the simplest things became lifesavers for the people stunned by the event. Someone brought some newborn Golden Retriever puppies for us to handle, hug, and hold. I don’t have any idea who had done that, I only knew it was amazing to hold life and receive unconditional love back. As items of love and expressions of shared grief began to pour in we could only sit back and feel the strength of the goodness of people, the joy of the love of people, and the courage to continue on from people. One envelope contained four quarters taped to a note. The note said that a little boy was too young to write. So he asked his mom to send his all of the savings from his piggy-bank to help us re-build our school. A nursing home sent a week of bingo winnings. Love was stitched into quilts and sorrow in poetry. Flowers were sent. Sometimes the simplest things made all the difference. We should never despair from a sense of being helpless or that a place or situation is hopeless or that nothing will ever make a difference. Mother Teresa once said, “Every day we are called to do small things with great love”. You might never know the outcome but, possibly, something you think is small, maybe just one letter you might write, may give someone the gift of strength and courage.

We must not be frightened by a large, overwhelming picture of suffering; rather we can choose something manageable, become passionate about it, and ultimately make a difference one life at a time.

Response to “Why we don’t Care About Darfur”

This article argues that a phenomenon called "psychic numbing" is responsible for our apathy towards Darfur. While this phenomenon certainly plays a role, the real reason we stand idle is that we don't lose a damn thing no matter how many people die there. However, if we were to intervene, we'd actually stand to lose things that matter to us, like money we don't have, lives of Americans, and the reputation of our country. It may seem cruel and callas to place a dollar amount on a life in Darfur, or to suggest that the life of an American soldier is worth more than that of a dark-skinned Muslim, but the fact of the matter is that if we wish to make the right decision, we must first force ourselves to look at things in cold, analytical terms. When we look at Darfur in this manner, it is apparent that we simply have nothing to gain by caring.

Psychic numbing, as the article describes it, is definitely part of the reason we've done nothing about Darfur, but to indicate it as the sole reason is foolish. It is true that our brains simply cannot process something as shocking as death tolls in the hundreds of thousands, that we have a much easier time empathizing with the death of one person. The problem is that those who support intervention know this and even exploit it. They attempt to persuade us with both impersonal statistics about how many thousands died last week and stories specifically designed to induce a gut reaction - stories about women getting savagely raped and babies' heads getting squished under rifle butts. If "psychic numbing" were really the only reason we aren't in Darfur yet...well, we'd already be there.

But we're not. And if we were, we'd just have a lot more to numb our psyches to. Our country already faces a huge deficit; we've been numbing ourselves to this fact every time we spend more, and now we literally cannot afford to get involved. We also can't afford to lose more soldiers; we know very well from conflicts like Vietnam and Iraq how much more upsetting it is to lose lives on our side. We've also learned from Iraq the great problems that arise from destroying and reconstructing a country's government; we're now seen by many as a tyrannical Democratic world police force. It’s sad that we can’t help Darfur because we have to worry about our image, but if America were attacked again by some radical religious group that thinks we're trying to control the world, we’d be forced to wage war on them, and a domino effect would ensue. The genocide in Darfur is heinous, to be sure, but it is easy to ignore. If we got involved, though, it would be impossible to ignore all the additional problems we'd create.

Like the people who misguidedly donated thousands to save a Hawaiian dog, those who support intervention in Darfur are missing the big picture. Humans have been killing innocent humans since we first evolved, and animals have been killing long before that. Humans are just another species, and dark-skinned Muslims just another race; species come and go, and so do races - it's one of the very hardest facts of life. Even if we intervene and save lives, it would ultimately only contribute to the inevitable problems associated with overpopulation; the more poor people we save, the harder it will be for them to live. Yes, we could “over ride our feelings”, as Dr. Slovic suggests, but I don’t think we should. The human mind is an amazing thing; sometimes it knows what's best for us even when we don't. It knows we can't win; it numbs us so we don't play.

Mikey L., 18, Evanston

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