Not on Our Watch (27 page)

John, as usual, was the first person I called when this brainstorm hit. I wanted to make sure that the people we were inviting not only had the ability but also the will to make noise in their respective fields and keep the light shining on Darfur. We’re fortunate to attract a pretty impressive group first time out. Present at the gathering, in addition to John, Gayle (now a senior fellow at the Centre for American Progress with 25 years’ experience in Africa), and myself were Jeff Swartz, social activist and CEO/president of Timberland, along with his personal assistant Carolyn Casey; David Rubenstein from the Save Darfur Coalition; Nick Kristof, Pulitzer–Prize winning columnist from the New York Times; Samantha Power, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide; Tom Sheridan, political strategist; and rounding out the crew, Senator Joe Biden and his assistant Norm Kurz.

We don’t have a ton of time today—only about two hours—everyone’s schedule is tight, so we get right to it, permission given and liberties taken to throw everything out on the table no matter how ridiculous or radical, in search of steps toward solutions for Darfur. Some suggest American boots on the ground to back up or perhaps even replace the African Union. Others scoff at that idea, believing the presence of US troops to be a detriment to the region, further exacerbating the problem and potentially pulling us into yet another dangerous conflict with no end in sight. Gayle suggests we bring the mountain to Mohammed and sponsor trips for refugees, specifically refugee women, to the United States to interface with influential politicians on the Hill, giving them the opportunity to personally tell their stories to a captive audience. Multiple suggestions, multiple debates focused on creating a movement in the US to confront genocide and other mass atrocities such as those happening in Darfur, culminated in the creation of the ENOUGH Project. Oh, and birthday cake too.

We all leave cautiously optimistic, knowing better than to celebrate a victory. This was but a small step on a long journey against a ticking clock. How much time do we have to put this campaign into effect? Will there be anything to protect if we wait too long? In what state will Darfur be when you read these words? Caution is certainly warranted. John and I make tentative plans to meet up later, and I head back downtown. If I had the discipline, I think, I would write a book about it. I imagine many people looking for a way to move on this would be comforted to know that they are not alone. Perhaps our exploration of methods could inspire others to seek their own, providing a jumping off point for multiple movements. Nice dream.

The remainder of the day passes uneventfully, and soon the hour creeps up on me where, were I at home, I would be surrounded by family and friends, blowing out candles and hugging my kids. Matt’s beautiful apartment now feels like an enormous gilded cage. My daughter’s protests are hitting home. How could I have allowed myself to be in New York, alone, on my birthday? Gone are the days when I could just pick up the phone and put New York on notice.

‘It’s Don. Birthday. Tonight. Do yourself a favour, holla at your boy.’

Nope. That’s Jay-Z who’s juiced up like that. Whenever I spent an extended amount of time in this city in the past, I was a theatre geek, preparing a role and then performing it eight times a week. I never went out. I know about four people here now, but only have two of their numbers. First I call Miles.

‘Yo ...’ My caller ID’s not blocked; he’ll recognise the number.

‘D. What’s up? You in town?’

‘Yep and it’s my birthday. What are you up to?’

‘Shoot, hangin’ with you.’

‘Word ’em.’

We kick around a couple ideas but are really content to just go listen to some good music and have a very chill night, which leads me to my next call.

‘Maestro.’

‘Mr Cheadle.’

‘What’s up, Wynton.’

‘It’s you, man.’ Mr Marsalis’s voice even sounds like jazz.

‘Hey, check it out, it’s my birthday tonight and I wanted to know if there was anything happening at your spot.’

‘It’s your birthday? Ah, man. I wish I’d have known. I would have put something together. You know what? Give me an hour.’

I didn’t want him to go to any trouble; I was honestly just hoping for a cool little hang, but he was gone before I could stop him. Almost an hour to the minute and Wynton calls back.

‘Hey, man, come on through the club at 9pm.’

I call John and Miles to give them the info. Maybe this night won’t suck after all. Even ‘actor-vists’ should get to celebrate their birthday.

When we arrive at Dizzy’s, a club in Jazz at Lincoln Centre, I see a table down front with my name on it and the five other people I know in New York: Courtney Vance, Jamal Joseph and his wife, Gayle, Terry George and his wife, all of them called by my managers back home. It’s a great impromptu surprise. Wynton sidles up to me. ‘Cool?’

‘Are you serious? This is the shizzit!’

‘Cool.’

Wynton joins his band onstage, and after a Louisiana second-line-style rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ I’ll never forget, his band goes on to play a blistering set until about 1am. That would have been enough right there, but the basketball degenerate in all of us takes us next door after the show, revealing the true depth of Wynton’s addiction: a portable hoop sits off to the side of a practice room currently set up to host a donor’s banquet. 15 tables, fully appointed with tablecloths and place settings, surrounded by chairs, sit carefully positioned about the room. Within minutes the whole shebang is unceremoniously dragged to the side, and dressed as we are—linen shirts, slacks, Gucci shoes, and all—we pick teams and play three on three until 3am. It will go down as one of the greatest birthday celebrations I’ve ever had.

Walking down the boulevard to catch a cab, steam coming off our overheated heads in wispy plumes, John throws a fastball.

‘Buddy, buddy, buddy ... what do you think about a book?’

Conclusion: Never Again

You get from the world what you give to the world.

Oprah Winfrey
[1]

It sounds silly, almost Pollyannaish: send a letter, stop a genocide. But it is true.

You have heard lots of bad news in this book: genocide, crimes against humanity, famine, mass rape. In Congo, the deadliest war in the world since World War II continues to unfold. In Somalia, the legacy of Black Hawk Down and CIA support for the warlords continues to fuel civil conflict and conditions of anarchy. In northern Uganda, the highest child abduction rate in the world creates legacies of violence and trauma that will take generations to unpack. In Darfur, the Genocide Convention was officially invoked by the Bush administration, with no effect but to desecrate the very intentions of the Convention.

The good news is that all this can be changed.

We believe the only way that our government will move toward a more constructive position is if the political will to do so is increased. The only way that political will can be increased is through citizen action. All of us are capable of writing letters and making phone calls to our elected officials.

The most frustrating aspect of this work is seeing that it wouldn’t take much more effort for the United States and other nations to play a much larger role in confronting mass atrocities, especially in Africa.
The keys are the Three Ps for Preventing Atrocities and the Six Strategies for Change
. In punishing the perpetrators, we could provide information to and cooperation with the ICC and move their indictments forward dramatically. In promoting the peace, we could name special envoys to help resolve the conflicts in Congo, northern Uganda, and Somalia in a much more focused way than current efforts allow. And in protecting the people, we could ensure that peacekeeping missions have at their centrepiece civilian protection in word and deed.

The failure to act effectively to end the carnage in Sudan, Somalia, northern Uganda, and Congo highlights how little progress the world has made since the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. These debacles also remind us that the world body charged with leading the response to crises of this kind—the UN Security Council—remains largely unwilling to confront the perpetrators of mass atrocities in the world’s peripheral zones. Divisions within the Security Council over whether to act remain huge, and the divisions themselves become an excuse for inaction.

But we must remember that the UN Security Council is not some bureaucratic entity. It is composed of 15 governments, five of which are permanent members with disproportionate power: China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. So when someone says the UN isn’t doing anything, it is these five governments that should have to answer why.

US leadership is often the key variable in whether genocide or other crimes against humanity are prevented or stopped. (Often the other members of the Security Council wait to see what the United States will do, and if silent or disinterested, the matter is closed.) Any past, present, or future US president is unlikely to take the risk of acting in these situations unless he or she is pressured by Congress. Congress won’t hammer the president unless constituents back in home districts throughout the country are turning the heat up on their members.

JOHN:

I have worked in the White House, State Department, Congress, and the UN. I’ve seen firsthand this continuum of pressure and its results. When citizens write letters and press their agendas in a coordinated way, Congress responds. And when Congress presses the president to act on a foreign policy issue, the president responds. When citizens are silent in the face of the world’s horrors, as they were during the Rwandan genocide, it is almost certain that the president will not act. It was incredibly frustrating when I worked in government to see so little noise being made outside in support of vigorous US action in reaction to major crises in Africa. And it remains frustrating now that I’m on the outside to watch my government stand idly by in the face of monstrous atrocities because we still can’t make enough noise. This has to change. This is why I’m working with Don on this book and on the ENOUGH Project. This is why I do what I do with my life.

Change in policy will come only if every one of you who reads this book, and everyone you can bring with you, makes this the beginning of a personal commitment, not the end.

If we stand idly by, the responsibility for the continuation of these tragedies will be all of ours. So there it is. Write a letter, stop a genocide.

Not all of us have to be human rights or peace activists who risk their lives in harrowing trips to the field to get the truth out. But it is important that we tip our caps to those who are, so that we can learn that truth. The work that human rights and peace activists do can be very difficult and dangerous. For example, the conflict prevention organisation I work for, the International Crisis Group, and other human rights groups, have undercover personnel in conflict zones who risk their lives every day.

This danger was brought home again in 2005 when my dearest friend in Somalia, Abdulkadir Yahya, was gunned down in front of his family after the publication of a Crisis Group report on the scope of the terrorist threat in that country. His main counterpart and great friend, Matt Bryden, had to move all the way to South Africa because of direct threats against him by those who had been exposed in the report. Yahya’s passing symbolises the remarkable commitment of many activists on the front lines in Africa and around the world, people who risk their lives every day to stand up for human rights and peace.

On one of my plane rides criss-crossing the US to speak to audiences about these issues, I sat next to a man who was really into his movies, which he was playing on his DVD player. At one point, though, during a particularly boring scene from an unmentioned movie, the guy began to check out what I was reading out of the corner of his eye. He finally broke and said, ‘How do you take it? Going over there to those places? It just seems hopeless!’

I pondered his question for a moment, and then told him it was just the opposite. ‘I see people struggling to survive, to prevail, with courage and determination that would shame us for any thought we might have of hopelessness. During every one of my visits, one person after another tells me: ‘This is unacceptable. We are human beings! Go back and tell your people to help us end this horror.’’

So you, readers, are the ‘people.’ And we have lots of work to do.

We need to write letters, help the divestment movement, go to candidates’ debates and raise questions, call in to television and radio shows and ask why they aren’t covering the issues, write letters to the editor, and many other things. We need to employ again and again the Six Strategies for Effective Change:
Raise Awareness, Raise Funds, Write a Letter, Call for Divestment, Join an Organisation, and Lobby the Government.

Since returning from our trips to Africa together, we have spoken at meetings around the United States in which people of all colours and from all walks of life get together and pledge some of their time and energy to fighting genocide and other mass atrocities. It is in rooms like these that social movements are born and incubated. Everyone in those rooms—and potentially everyone reading this book—is part of a larger whole, a long line and history of citizen activism that has the capacity to protect human life, and in the process to change the world.

Our elected leaders and media need to know that we voters and consumers care about crimes against humanity and the people affected by these atrocities, and that it is our national interest to confront the crises.

Our politicians need to know that if they ignore Darfur, northern Uganda, Somalia, Congo, and places like them, there will someday be a political price.

Let’s say a normal temperature for any foreign policy issue would be 98 degrees. On Darfur, activists managed to turn the heat up to 100 degrees, and lots happened, but not enough to immediately stop the genocide. Our goal has to be to develop a committed constituency of citizens in each country who are willing to dedicate a small portion of their free time to turning the temperature up to 102 degrees, to where the politicians will be unable to ignore their responsibility to protect human life, and the prime minister and/or president will be unable to shirk his responsibility to lead the efforts to prevent or confront mass atrocities wherever they are being committed.

We need to tell them, ‘We’re mad as hell and we aren’t going to vote for you anymore!’

Remember: There is no organised K Street lobby firm in Washington, DC, that is working on behalf of genocide. No lobbyists are swarming Congress and the White House, or any parliament building in any country in the world, looking for support for war criminals or child soldiers or mass rapists.

Our obstacles are the Four Horsemen Enabling the Apocalypse: apathy, indifference, ignorance, and inertia. We can and shall overcome these.

The battle is joined. We—the anti-genocide constituency—on the one side versus indifference and other priorities on the other side. Who wins this battle will determine the fate of millions of Africans in the coming year, and millions more in future conflicts.

That is an awesome responsibility we all have, now that we know what is happening and now that we know what needs to be done.

There is a particularly poignant moment in the film
Hotel Rwanda
that summarises our philosophy about our involvement in confronting genocide. Paul Rusesabagina is addressing the residents who have taken sanctuary in the hotel, and he is exhorting them to call everyone they know outside of Rwanda to help save their lives. Nothing else has worked. Pictures, pleas, facts, international conventions, and UN resolutions have all produced a cowardly retreat by a world unwilling to stand up to evil. At one point Paul proclaims, ‘
We must shame them into helping!’

In 2005, when we were in Darfur with Paul, we agreed that the time had come again to start shaming people into responding.

We need to shame our elected officials by writing letters, by holding demonstrations, and by joining in coalitions and telling these policy makers that they have failed to uphold the responsibilities of their office. We also need to shame our friends and families into helping us make a difference.

Galvanising to help protect the lives of millions of Sudanese, Congolese, Ugandans, and Somalis should provide all of us enough empowering shame to at least change the direction of the policies of the UN and governments around the world, to become an upstander and not a bystander.

This movement can grow into something more timeless and relevant to the prevention of future mass atrocities. Ultimately, individual citizens—you!—can make that difference and ensure that ‘Never Again’ means something.

As human beings, we simply cannot allow another 6 million freshly dug graves in Africa because of preventable actions. Mass atrocities can be successfully confronted and ended.

It is—in the end—our choice.

DON:

Bzzt, Bzzt. The vibrating BlackBerry irritatingly drummed the oak, its e-mail alert waking me from my dreams. I hate when I forget to put my electronic leash on Quiet. I’m a light sleeper and already have my wife’s tri-weekly snoring bouts to contend with (love you, honey). Now my desire for slumber was in direct conflict with my cat-killing curiosity about what information the new message held. I fooled myself for a couple of minutes that I could delay my satisfaction and wait until I awoke in the morning to read the thing, but who was this feline kidding? I extended my tired paw toward the nightstand and prepared for death. Forcing my eyes to focus, I read the message, deserving exactly what I got:

‘Hey, buddy. Got one for you. Last minute because we couldn’t get clearance. I’m going to China to meet President Hu and the next day to Egypt to meet with President Mubarak about Darfur. I think it would be something if you could be there. I know it’s a long shot. But we got word only 10 minutes ago. Let me know if there’s even a chance to do it. Talk to you.

‘Sexiest.’

Dammit. Why did I look? I should have just deleted the thing out of spite for the late hour it was received. Sure, I had enlisted George’s help when I believed the California divestment bill was going south but that was only because I figured Batman and Mr Freeze might be simpatico—onscreen, comic-book-character rivalry notwithstanding. But this request was payback-plus, over the top: Clooney one-upmanship of the highest order. What nerve! What gall! What an opportunity! I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I hit him back on the spot.

‘I’m in.’

Now to sell it to the Fam. The kids were easy. I didn’t even have to spin the trip. Daddy was going abroad to meet with world leaders, working for peace in Africa. ‘Cool, bring us back a scarab beetle.’

I anticipated more massaging would be necessary for wifey but was pleasantly surprised. She consented so quickly that I seriously thought about hiring a detective to keep tabs on her while I was away but then played back the tape of our lives together over the past 14 years. Bridgid’s record with regards to support of both me and of those in need is without blemish. I made some calls, postponed some meetings, packed a bag, and a mere 12 hours later found myself smack dab in the Middle Kingdom.

An airport is an airport but as soon as we collect our bags and hit the streets we realise that we are someplace entirely different than any of us has ever seen. The city of Beijing is a sprawling metropolis with enormous, wide-open streets that can easily accommodate four tanks side by side, the sun only breaking through the hazy atmosphere of soft coal smoke for the briefest of moments, making it impossible to tell even approximately what time it is without a watch. We weave through the busy streets to the Grand Hyatt Beijing (just a ten-minute walk from Tiananmen Square—Spooky) where we pick up the rest of the delegation, principally Joey Cheek, Olympic Gold medallist speed skater who donated his $40,000 prize money to Right to Play, an athlete-driven international humanitarian organisation, and Tegla Loroupe, a long-distance track and road runner, and a global spokesperson for peace, women’s rights, and education. We barely have time to make each other’s acquaintance before being hustled to the office of Assistant Foreign Minister He Yafei. Our busy schedule also includes meeting with the local film community as well as a photo-op with the Olympic committee and Chinese athletes too, so there’s no time to waste.