Lessons from the Global Nightmares We Can't Address
On Sudan's one-year anniversary of all-out civil war, and more
In the third year of pandemic, with the world’s attention caught by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I wrote a piece for now-defunct OnlySky on the brutal conflict in Tigray.
At the time, my research into this civil conflict had been heartbreaking. The region of Tigray was caught not only between vindictive, dictatorial Eritrea and the rest of Ethiopia, but also in a mess of ethnic politics that was denying many subgroups anything resembling proper representation at the federal level. The consequence was an outbreak of civil war that saw civilian populations caught between national and state armies seeking to murder anyone who wasn’t from the same in-group.
The conflict had become so brutal that even UN-backed NGOs could no longer safely operate in the vicinity, let alone acquire proper data about related events. Local journalism was scarce by design, and full death counts were unknown, but the brutality of mass rapes and tortures still made itself known through private channels, as did the slaughter and forced recruitment of other civilians.
Worse yet, there were few who could even come close to mediating between local groups, especially as the conflict sharpened what had once been much milder ethnic divisions between them. An uneasy peace was eventually extracted, but the emphasis here is on “uneasy”: human rights violations continue even today, as the world tries to extend more humanitarian aid and healing to a politically shattered region.
But back in 2022, I still had this drive—and sense of responsibility—to write proactively even on a situation that we in the West could do little to stop. Nobody wants to read about a total downer, right? My piece was therefore edited for maximum humanist “go get ’em” energy, so this is how the opening paragraphs read:
With Western attention on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it’s easy to forget the added pain of people from regions where crimes against humanity have been raging all this time. But it’s a whole different level of heartbreak for many to witness European borders suddenly opening wide, stronger sanctions put in place, and international organizations rallying to combat injustice done elsewhere. Why not also for Yemen or Palestine? Why not for Ethiopia?
But we need not wallow in despair when faced with this humanitarian disconnect. We can build from what the response to Ukraine has already taught us about our options. And we can put those lessons into practice today, even as the Eastern European crisis remains so terribly uncertain. We can leverage our rapid mobilization around one violent conflict to strengthen our international commitments to seeking peace most everywhere.
Gosh, I was adorably/insufferably upbeat, wasn’t I?
Last week, I wrote about war propaganda and the weaponization of history, and in both cases I reflected on claims being advanced to try to diminish anyone’s care for what’s happening in the Middle East—or at least, any act of care that might relate to one “side” of this nightmare. Long before the latest outbreak of violence there, too, I’d been trying to help Westerners resist “gamifying” global politics—and yet, the struggle against tribalist thinking is always so hard to sustain in stressful times.
One of the most common propagandist talking points in this latest war, though, didn’t get a mention in either piece—and yet, it’s a form of what-about-ism that flips the very questions I mentioned in those quoted paragraphs above, from my article on East Africa in April 2022. At the time, when writing about Tigray and Ethiopia, I introduced the topic in the shadow of Russia’s war in Ukraine. I alluded to the mass flight of Ukrainians, and the overwhelming public attention paid to their plight in Western media. I noted that this sharp distortion of media attention did come as a wound to many other people living in or displaced from concurrent world conflicts.
Syrians, Afghans, Palestinians, Yemenis, Central and South Americans, West Africans, East Africans… so much of the world looked in 2022 at how the West was responding to the war in Ukraine, and were gutted by a deeper realization of how little they mattered. Where had been this outpouring of care for their struggles, too?
The propagandist what-about-ism in this latest war has been much nastier, though, because it’s not used to elevate other global crises, so much as to shut down anyone who cares about one of them. Specifically, a very strong Western-conservative response to Israel-Gaza has been to mock anyone expressing alarm at this war’s civilian cost. As the argument goes, if people weren’t this upset about every other global crisis, then clearly their alarm here is misguided, dishonest, or just plain stupid—so they should shut up about it, and let the grown-ups finish warring in peace.
Now, on a rhetorical level, this has always been a bizarre tactic, because it could so easily be turned against the speaker. The implication in this what-about-ism is that caring about their “side” is okay (even if they, in turn, don’t care as much about other global crises), but to care about the other “side” is patently ridiculous. As the rationale goes, people are just being hoodwinked by foreign interests if they’re at all concerned about overall suffering in a situation in which their governments are
openly endorsing a country involved in that suffering;
routinely making public, official statements about the whole conflict;
converting tax dollars to military aid used to cause more of that suffering:
in huge congressional/parliamentary debates around such military spending;
voting in support of related military actions, even against global consensus; and
showing no signs of an exit strategy or line in the sand with such diplomacy.
Suffice it to say, the idea that people shouldn’t express concerns about issues that involve their countries on so many pragmatic, governmental levels unless they’re “equally concerned” about every other violent action in the world is disturbing not just because it’s anti-democratic, but also because folks who disseminate this talking point don’t even seem to realize how anti-democratic they’re being.
To be clear:
It is perfectly acceptable to disagree.
And it is perfectly acceptable to discuss different forms of protest, and to hash out what is and is not acceptable conduct within them.
But the above form of war propaganda not only calls for anyone with a dissenting opinion to shut up; it also actively erases a major difference between activist responses to, say, the war in Gaza, and responses to conflicts like the one in Tigray, which I tried to address in the early heat of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Sometimes activist movements are louder and larger in response to one situation because activist movements can actually do more about it.
And when a Western government is an open, central ally in a global conflict yielding blatant upticks in suffering? Then there’s a heck of a lot more that Westerners can call upon their employers, neighbours, and sitting representatives to do, than when expressing concern over the treatment of Uyghurs in China, or local ethnic groups in Ethiopia, or—as we will discuss today—the ongoing horror of civil war in Sudan.
So, before we deep-dive into what’s been happening in Sudan, and what we can and can’t do about it from our Western contexts, I want to stress this part of the equation for all readers, because it is important for civic health across the board:
Constructive dissent is a critical part of thriving democracy.
You do not need to agree with someone else’s position.
You can firmly believe that they don’t have all the information.
You can absolutely express concerns about the way their protest is performed.
But to suggest that a person shouldn’t care about X unless they have shown equal care and mobilization against Y—even when their country is far more publicly involved in X than Y; and thus even when there is far more that one can do about X than Y—is to argue in bad faith. This is not serious discourse.
This is anti-democratic war propaganda, and it diminishes our ability to have useful conversations about how to move ethically through our hurting world at all.
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