Ending the genocide: I wish it were that simple
Mohamed el-Dahshan
Issue date: 4/4/07 Section: Op-Ed
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It's a sad time for mankind. We pledged 'never again'. Then we pledged again, because we failed to keep our word. We blamed our inaction in Rwanda on a post-Black Hawk Down trauma. And when we ran out of excuses, we blamed Srebrenica on the mere disbelief that it could really be that bad, Frankly, when it comes to dealing with genocides and massacres of civilians, we suck.
But a formidable student and popular movement has been growing around Darfur. Several groups, including the Genocide Intervention Network at the Kennedy School, have channeled student support into strong and organized action. I know that we can collectively have a real, tangible impact. We can save lives, no less.
I'm afraid, however, that our impact will not come through divestment from Sudan.
First, divestment is ineffective. There is a reason why Harvard has only divested twice. The first was from apartheid South Africa in the 1980s, which had most conditions for a successful campaign. The second was from tobacco companies, where divestment was its own target - a moral stance not to make money off sales of tobacco.
The divestment campaign for Darfur aims to coerce a number of undetermined firms into leaving the Sudan, to pressure the government both financially through a reduction of its revenues, and politically from the home countries of those companies.
But the possibility that those companies will leave - especially if they're not American - is extremely slim, proportional to the size of our investment in their capital, and inversely proportional to the price of oil. And both factors play against the hoped outcome - as one KSG-er said, 'it won't happen: the money is just too sweet there'.
And if indeed they do leave, many companies will only be too eager to put their capital in the Sudan's easily accessible oil fields. And we'd be back to square zero, having squandered the momentum generated around the issue.
Furthermore, a decade passed between the divestment wave from South Africa in the mid-eighties and that country's first free elections in 1994. Can we afford to take a chance waiting for a mechanism to slowly, if ever, effect change?
But a formidable student and popular movement has been growing around Darfur. Several groups, including the Genocide Intervention Network at the Kennedy School, have channeled student support into strong and organized action. I know that we can collectively have a real, tangible impact. We can save lives, no less.
I'm afraid, however, that our impact will not come through divestment from Sudan.
First, divestment is ineffective. There is a reason why Harvard has only divested twice. The first was from apartheid South Africa in the 1980s, which had most conditions for a successful campaign. The second was from tobacco companies, where divestment was its own target - a moral stance not to make money off sales of tobacco.
The divestment campaign for Darfur aims to coerce a number of undetermined firms into leaving the Sudan, to pressure the government both financially through a reduction of its revenues, and politically from the home countries of those companies.
But the possibility that those companies will leave - especially if they're not American - is extremely slim, proportional to the size of our investment in their capital, and inversely proportional to the price of oil. And both factors play against the hoped outcome - as one KSG-er said, 'it won't happen: the money is just too sweet there'.
And if indeed they do leave, many companies will only be too eager to put their capital in the Sudan's easily accessible oil fields. And we'd be back to square zero, having squandered the momentum generated around the issue.
Furthermore, a decade passed between the divestment wave from South Africa in the mid-eighties and that country's first free elections in 1994. Can we afford to take a chance waiting for a mechanism to slowly, if ever, effect change?
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