Darfur: Did an American McMovement forget to do its market research?

by Michelle

categories: Activism & Advocacy, Darfur & Sudan

Published March 16, 2009 @ 06:15PM PT

November in Lusaka, Zambia: I was sitting in a hotel bar, making idle conversation with a very astute and rather verbose bartender. First, the weather. (It was raining, and of course that meant that the internet was out.) Then, the recent Zambian elections. Followed by regional politics --- Zimbabwe, the DRC. And then, Sudan.

"What do you think about what's going on in Sudan?" I asked.

"It's terrible, all of it. Sudan, Zimbabwe, the DRC, Somalia --- all about greed."

"What do you think we should do about it?"

"Well, that depends on what you mean by ‘we.'"

Fast forward two weeks, same questions posed to a cab driver in Cape Town, South Africa, who happened to be a native of Khartoum. Sudan is different from the others, he explained to me: "You must understand, people compare Sudan with Iraq. They don't like Bashir, but after Iraq, they don't trust the U.S."

Which brings me to a question I've been mulling over ever since: Did the activist movement in the U.S. make a grave mistake by not considering the genocide in Darfur through the lens of U.S. relations with the Arab world?

And secondly, is it even possible to craft a grassroots advocacy campaign around the particular political sensitivities of any given context? Can we have a one-size-fits-all approach to anti-genocide activism, or can we tailor our message and actions according to the context?

Phrased another way, as Change.org's own Danny Moldovan just put it:

"In part you're asking if Americans tried to package anti-genocide efforts, using the best practices that we thought worked, forgetting that the label on the package, the brand itself, was suspect."

(Various McDonald's and Chinese toy analogies were also involved in that conversation.)

In posing these questions, I do not at all mean to suggest that there is any legitimacy whatsoever in Khartoum's anti-West and, especially, anti-Israeli propaganda, or that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is a tool of either. The vitriolic rhetoric touted by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in recent weeks is, in a word, ridiculous. (For an excellent argument on why international justice is not unduly biased against Africa, see Desmond Tutu's recent op-ed in the New York Times.)

But given the significant opposition to the ICC's indictment of Bashir among many in Arab and African countries, and the wide-spread distaste for the activist movement in the US and Europe, I think it's worth asking if our approach could have been more considerate of the broader political dynamics at work --- namely, the broad-based mistrust of the US and its intentions.

And if so --- how? Right now, as activists mobilize against the expulsion of aid agencies from Darfur, is there a way in which we can shape our response so that we adequately pressure our own elected officials without further entrenching the anti-Western sentiments of those rallying around Bashir?

I'm throwing this out there with no clear answer of my own --- and eager to hear your thoughts. (And I should also note: I am not accusing activists of anything here --- just raising the question of a possible critical omission from consideration.)

[Photo from the BBC: "Some of the protesters singled out ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo for criticism, calling him a "tool of the West" and burning pictures of him."]

[Many thanks to Danny and Serg for their help with the title of this post.]