June 20 2019, 7:00 a.m.
IT WAS 43 years ago,
almost to this very day, that at least 176 civil rights protesters, most of
them young students, were slaughtered in Soweto during a brutal massacre
by the white supremacist government of South Africa.
That was the single
deadliest day of the apartheid regime. When my family and I lived in South
Africa in 2014, we quickly learned that June 16 is still a national
day of mourning there. It’s called Youth Day, and it is literally a federal holiday.
In Sudan, June 3, 2019 will
now be that day. Earlier this month, at
least 100 young civil rights protesters were shot or bludgeoned to
death in Khartoum; many of their bodies were tossed
into the Nile River. Hundreds of other protesters were shot or critically
injured. Experts believe that at least 70 women were
sexually assaulted. Businesses were ransacked. And the space that the
protesters were occupying outside of the capitol was cleared.
Less than two months earlier,
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, a long-indicted war criminal, stepped down
in disgrace after nearly five months of protests over economic conditions that had brought
the entire country to a halt. The protesters were right to call for his
removal. But what followed was painfully predictable. The military, led by many
men who for generations proudly did the work of a war criminal, took over the government
and started cracking down on the protesters.
The protesters were
calling for a civilian-led government. Soon, the military cut off all internet
services to prevent them from communicating with each other and with the
outside world. Then the military cut off cell service. But the sit-in
demonstrations continued. So then the military ordered armed forces to
clear the protesters out, which led to the June 3 massacre. The military has
even admitted it.
For months, the Trump
administration has
said and done virtually nothing. One could reasonably argue that
it’s better to keep Donald Trump far away from Sudan. Hell, he might love
what the military is doing there. With his penchant for dictators and brutal
strongmen, it’s not like Trump would identify with civil rights protesters
calling for free and fair elections. That’s not on-brand at all. This
administration has proven itself to be consistently cruel to all people of
color who seek refuge from dictators here or abroad. And that belies the more
disturbing point. The world is learning that cruelty to human beings is not a
bug in the Trump philosophy on governance, it’s a feature.
The Trump administration has
loudly signaled to the world that it doesn’t give a damn about Saudi Arabia’s
crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, ordering the torturous murder of Jamal
Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist, or a North Korean dictator executing
whoever irritates him on any random day of the week. Maybe you missed the news,
but earlier this week, Israel named a whole
damn town after Trump. It’s literally called “Trump Heights.” But of course
they would. Israeli snipers shot
a staggering 1,350 people last May — killing women, children,
journalists, and nurses — and the U.S. government proudly relocated its embassy
to Jerusalem at Trump’s behest. Trump didn’t do as much as bat an eye at the
slaughter of so many civilians.
Think about it for a moment.
What could the United States say to Sudan with any level of seriousness or
moral ground to stand on? Nothing! Whether or not that calculus went into the
decision for the Sudanese military to order the wholesale slaughter of civil
rights protesters is unknown, but this much is clear: They knew, as the world
knows, that the Trump administration has no inclination whatsoever to do
anything substantive about such abuses.
All of this has made it
difficult to figure out exactly how well-meaning, everyday people around the
world can actually help bring safety and democracy to Sudan — especially since
the internet remains cut off and social media virtually inaccessible
nationwide. This may sound nebulous, but the first thing I ask people to do is
to simply make a place in their hearts and minds to actually care about the
human rights abuses in Sudan. People are understandably suffering from
compassion fatigue. So much is wrong in our nation, and wrong around the
world, that it can be legitimately difficult to make room for one more crisis.
Once you make up your mind
that you are going to care and stick with Sudan, you need to follow, read, and
amplify the voices either on the ground or seriously in the know. Here’s one person to follow. And another. And another. And what you will learn
from them about Sudan will be immensely richer than anything I could ever tell
you. I’m learning just as much as you are, but this much I know: I won’t turn
my head and pretend this abomination is just a bad dream. It’s very real.
The current state of American
foreign policy will have to be completely overhauled (I mean torn down to the
studs) and reimagined in order for the United States to actually be able to
play a positive, substantive role in such a conflict. Of course that will mean
that the president of the United States can’t be a superfan of brutal dictators
and state-sanctioned violence against citizens calling for civil rights and
human rights. But it also needs to mean that presidential candidates and
congressional leaders have to express more courage, clarity, and consistency on
the human rights abuses of “allies” like Israel. The words of Martin
Luther King Jr. ring true here: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice
everywhere.”
The most prominent leaders in
our nation rarely seem to operate from that philosophy. It’s easy to imagine
that they are as overwhelmed by the state of the nation as the rest of us, but
the current crisis in Sudan, and the historic abuses and carnage suffered
there, simply have not gotten the attention it deserves. When everybody is in
campaign mode, trying to give red meat to their base and focusing on domestic
policy issues, it just seems like the crisis in Sudan gets squeezed out. Our
job is to make sure that doesn’t happen.
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