If you are in a war zone and you are a European and your country is small, poor, not so important on a global scale, and unable to sustain itself without outside help, you will still receive a lot of attention from the international community and they will do everything to help you.
If you live in a war zone and you are an African and your country does not have oil and mineral reserves, the international community will simply ignore your suffering and pleas for help.
If this is not true, then why did the international community ignore the Rwandan genocide and why is it ignoring the ongoing conflict and suffering in Darfur, while sending tens of thousands of troops to Bosnia and Kosovo and spending billions there?
In 1994, around 1 million people died in Rwanda in only 100 days. Philip Gourevitch writes that “the dead of Rwanda accumulated at nearly three times the rate of Jewish dead during the Holocaust. It was the most efficient mass killing since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
While everyone knew about this, no one did anything to stop it. Some, like the Bill Clinton’s administration, even prevented others from intervening.
The United Nations, under the pressure of the United States and Britain, demonstrated that no one was interested in stopping the Rwandan genocide by ordering a reduction of UN troops in Rwanda from 2,500 to only 270 soldiers in the midst of the brutal slaughter.
A week after the reduction of UN forces in Rwanda, the UN Security Council, under the pressure of the United States, authorized an increase of international presence in war-ravaged Bosnia, adding 6,550 soldiers to about 24,000 troops already there.
It didn’t matter that after only 22 days of the genocide more people had been killed in Rwanda than during the entire Bosnian war, where about 100,000 people died in four years, including civilians and soldiers on all sides.
Article comments
1 - Jan from the USA
Everything you say is true. I don't believe that the USA had any business in Bosnia either. Bill Clinton just picked an easy target where he could show his strength, and deflect from his problems at home. Americans rallied around a short and painless war.
Intervening in Africa was a non-starter. It would have cost too many American lives. It's not the Europeans or Americans fault at what goes on in Africa. It can't be blamed on colonialism or the white man. Africans are responsible for themselves. They have to stop genocide themselves.
We in the west did like the movie Hotel Rwanda, though. We did feel bad about the genocide, but had no power to stop it.
The world never intervened when the Jews were killed either. Roosevelt knew what was going on, but there was so much anti-semitism in the USA, that the American government wouldn't even bomb the train tracks leading to the concentration camps. USA's entering the war had nothing to do with saving the Jews.
Is it racism that prevents people from caring about Rwanda? Yes and no. American blacks never seem to be that interested in what actually happens in Africa, either. They are more American than African in reality.
So no one cares. That's life. Life is unfair. Stop complaining and just try to make your little part of the world better. That's all a human being can really do in the last analysis.
2 - Krutic A
The problem is that Africans don't care about Africans so it is a little hypocritical to expect the world to bend over backwards for them.
Moreover the only thing that Africans hate more than each other is having white troops occupy their land to keep the peace. Everyone knows how Somalia went in the 90s.
So Africans are the biggest hurdle for Africans. So throwing money at Africa has the same net effect as throwing your money in quicksand.
3 - Dan Miller
What, dear lady, would you have us do?
The present situation in Zimbabwe is horrific, probably even worse than that in Somalia years ago. Should we invade, risking the opprobrium of the rest of Africa? Should we send diplomatic envoys to negotiate with Mugabe? Should we send diplomatic notes?
If we intervene, however mildly, we will seen as vicious imperialists; If we don't, we will be seen as uncaring swine.
This is a conundrum, and perhaps you have the answers. If you do, I am sure that they would be more than welcome.
Dan Miller
4 - Clavos
If we intervene, however mildly, we will seen as vicious imperialists; If we don't, we will be seen as uncaring swine.
I don't have any answers Dan, but drawing your hypothesis out a little further, much of the world already regards us as vicious imperialists, so maybe it's time to try out the uncaring swine role for a spell.
Hobson's choice...
5 - Baronius
Europe has NATO, a military alliance, to call on when things get crazy. Not that NATO isn't packed with do-nothing countries, but they'll sometimes resort to the use of force.
Africa's best bet is the UN. There's a group you can always rely on. (Yeesh.) Most international organizations want to solve things with money and negotiations. If those don't work, they'll try more money and summit meetings.
Part of the problem with Africa is how it attained its independence. Since Europe left, everyone's afraid to intervene there and step on the toes of the locals. Compare it to Central and South America. They've got us nutty gringos protecting them from outside influence (outsiders other than us). They've got minimal ethnic conflicts, partly because the Spaniards shot, infected, or slept with most of the natives. For the most part the borders in Latin America have been stable. And they've got one religion.
It isn't so much that whites think that Africans don't matter. It's that whites can't figure out how to help.
6 - Dr Dreadful
NATO is a mutual defense organization. The treaty states that if any one member is attacked, the others will come to its defense. It's a testament to the strength of the treaty that this has never actually happened.
The US intervention in the former Yugoslavia was conducted under the auspices of the UN. It did peripherally threaten NATO members Greece and Austria, which would, at a stretch, have been a justification for action.
We can't send NATO troops to Africa because no African nation is remotely capable of attacking a NATO member. So it has to be done either by invitation or through the UN because any direct military intervention, however good the intentions, would be (probably rightly) perceived as imperialistic.
7 - Savo Heleta
In 1994, the Clinton administration prevented others at the UN to do anything about Rwanda. They forced the Belgians to remove their troops. When the UN decided to send African troops to Rwanda, the US and the rest of the Western world did not want to give the equipment on time. The genocide ended and 1 million people died.
We don't need American or NATO intervention in Darfur. I can see what's happening in Afganistan and Iraq and I hope the West never intervenes in Sudan. Their intervention would just create more mess.
There are UN troops in Darfur, around 10,000 by now, and all they need to start protecting refugees is 24 helicopters.
No one is calling for the West to intervene, but if they could find 1,000 fighter jets for Kosovo, can't they borrow the UN forces 24 helicopters?
8 - Zedd
Baronius,
"Part of the problem with Africa is how it attained its independence. "
Africa's problem is that they HAD to attain independence. You keep missing the glaring realities man.
Nation building is hard work. Continent building is colossal. There is nothing happening in Africa that would happen anywhere else where matter exists if catastrophe had occurred to the same magnitude.
It's only been since the 60's. Not only that, African countries are not allowed to fully engage internationally. Europeans (Israel included) are supported and prodded along and welcomed into the field, bank rolled until they can stand on their own two feet. Even under those circumstances, they wobble along for quite some time. Look at Israel, they are still in conflict, making really ridiculous choices when they know exactly where they are geographically.
Know your world. You are a big boy now.
9 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Actually Baronius' statement Part of the problem with Africa is how it attained its independence... is right on the money, but he doesn't go far enough in his analysis.
A tribal map of Africa would be very different from a map of the "countries" of Africa, and a tribal deconstruction of the continent would probably bring it peace - and peace is what is needed before any serious development and improvement of living conditions on this poor beleaguered continent can occur.
10 - Dan Miller
Clavos -- #4
"I can't agree with that too much!" to quote the late lamented senator who's trademark was a coonskin hat.
Dan
11 - Baronius
Zedd, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. Write this off as poor phrasing, nothing more - because apparently I misstated my point about NATO too.
The nations of Africa have a heck of a challenge. Racial conflicts, AIDS, advancing Islamic extremism, these things are tough for long-established countries to deal with. We see tribalism ripping apart Georgia and the Indian subcontinent. AIDS is a problem everywhere except China, according to Chinese government press releases.
And as you rightly point out, there aren't many places in Africa with a stable, historically-grounded government.
Add to that the fact that African aid is mostly in the form of money. Assistance in nation-building looks too much like imperialism; trade deals smack of exploitation. So like a distant uncle, we play it safe and send cash (which goes to the people who are strong enough to confiscate it). We haven't figured out how to successfully intervene in Africa.
12 - Baronius
As for NATO, I wasn't calling for them to get entangled in Africa. What I meant was that Europe has several structures which allow it to deal with its own problems. There isn't a comparable structure in Africa.
How do you form such organizations? Well, first you have to form nations, countries with a common internal culture. Then they have to slaughter each other for centuries. Next, you need a couple of madmen to nearly take over all of Africa. After that, you need a gigantic power on the contintent's edge who promises to overrun you. Then you'll unite.
That costs 15% of your population every generation for about 1400 years. If there's a shortcut, Europe didn't find it.
13 - Zedd
Baronius,
You are right.
There are structures in place in Africa that are manned by really smart people who have the best interest of the continent in mind.
Europe is not self sustaining. To illuminate the point here, where are the minerals in Europe to sustain its appetite?
Europe uses Africa, The Middle East, Asia and South America to sustain itself. Europe is not self sufficient. Europe is manipulative and controlling; benevolent just enough to elude the cruelty radar but shrewed enough to pillage what it needs.
What was crude about Bush's actions in going to Iraq is not that they were unique but that they were blatant. Europeans and their progeny (us), manipulate the world, re-write events as they occur all for the benefit of remaining on top, mainly for economic reasons (from businesses to missionaries, the disinformation has a benefit).
Westerners, average citizens, are duped by the constant shell game that goes on, they don't know the extent of it and are dulled to the point of not really caring. What happens is that they (individually) are cheated from a wonderful oportunity to use the great wealth that they have been afforded becuse of simply being born at this time in history. What a sadness to live ones entire life not knowing how your world truly is and not having the oportunity to affect it in a significant way, making your existance matter. You live your life concerned about and preoccupied by the flag and The Pledge. sad...
14 - adaniel
I think comparing the international relations of Bosnia-Herzegovina (or, at the time of the war, rather the former Yugoslavia) with that of Rwanda is certainly a good rhetorical comparison, but only up to a point.
I believe that the African countries have much deeper problems that Bosnia-Herzegovina. In Africa, the state borders were drawn in the Berlin Conference where colonialists divided up a continent they had not known to interest zones. The UN took these borders seriously, and when the colonies declared independence, it recognized sovereignty to whoever in the capital was in whatever colonial territory. Many of these states were never able to function as states, and the rulers of the capital many times could never extend their power to their notional sovereign territory. I think solving African war conflicts would need a much deeper involvement of the majority of the U.N. and also a commitment from groups of African peoples.
In Europe ethnic groups have well formed territorial claims and all European territories have gained some form of statehood.
It may look unfair that more money is being spent on stabilizing Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo or Cyprus than on some African countries, but there are two important differences: the people and the institution of these countries support the present of peace-keepers, and there is a chance of lasting peace. If you could somehow calculate success in peace-keeping missions I think you would find that more lives are saved in Bosnia or Kosovo with one US dollar than in most African missions.
15 - Ruvy
Excellent points made in comment #14 - points which back up what I wrote in comment #9.