Nesrine Malik in The Ideas Letter:
Some 20 years ago, the Darfur region of Sudan was in the throes of a brutal war against rebel African groups protesting their economic and political marginalization. Arab militias known as the Janjaweed joined the central government to quell the rebellion, and the repression soon metastasized into ethnic cleansing—and, some say, genocide. Outrage abroad over the atrocities spurred a global advocacy campaign that came to be known as the Save Darfur movement. Two decades later, Darfur is burning once again, but the network that once heeded its cries is now dramatically diminished.
At its peak, Save Darfur drew a constellation of celebrities from Hollywood, sports and politics, and from across lobbying and activist groups. Advocates included the actors George Clooney, Don Cheadle and Ryan Gosling, the Olympic speed-skating champion Joey Cheek, and a charismatic, young U.S. senator named Barack Obama. Addressing a crowd gathered at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in April 2006, Obama said of the conflict in Darfur: “If we care, the world will care. If we act, then the world will follow.”
The movement began in 2004 with the Save Darfur coalition, which sprang from established Jewish anti-genocide networks in the U.S. In July that year, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American Jewish World Service organized the Darfur Emergency Summit in New York, featuring the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, to draw attention to events in Darfur and make the case for intervention.
More here.
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