Sitting at the computer in the office of his Northampton home last month, Eric Reeves pushed the “send” button, intending to spread an idea — a modest, but potentially powerful idea.
Reeves, a professor of literature at Smith College who has become one of the world’s foremost experts on the humanitarian disaster in Darfur, has concluded that only China, as Sudan’s biggest economic and diplomatic supporter and a permanent member of the UN Security Council, can stop the slaughter that President Bush has called genocide (as many as 400,000 people have been killed in the Darfur region of Sudan since 2003, and more than 3 million others may face a similar fate). And China, says Reeves, can only be pressured to act by appealing to its sense of national pride and honor — forcing Beijing to choose between its lucrative relationship with Khartoum and having its coveted games lumped in the collective consciousness with Nazi Germany’s hosting of the Berlin games in 1936.
more from Boston Globe Ideas here.