Darfur Diaries Interview with Gayle Smith
As a follow up to the Center for American Progress’ screening of Darfur Diaries, Anne Shoup and Paige Fitzgerald interviewed Gayle Smith, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, who had introduced the Center’s screening of the film. Full audio is available here. Gayle Smith served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council from 1998-2001. She has spent much of her career in international affairs in the field and in 1999 won the National Security Council's Samuel Nelson Drew Award for Distinguished Contribution in Pursuit of Global Peace for her role in the successful negotiation of a peace agreement between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Reel Progress: Please describe the situation in Darfur and whether you think it deserves to be called a “genocide.”
Gayle Smith: There is a legal term for genocide that was deliberately coined, both for the reason of highlighting genocide when it occurs, and also to prevent misuse of the term. By that standard, genocide is an intent to wipe out a people in whole or in part, based on their ethnicity, their religion, or some other definition. I think what we are seeing in Darfur is clearly genocide. At the same time, there is a part of me that wonders whether we really need to spend a whole lot of time debating whether it’s genocide. When you have millions of people displaced, when you have hundreds of thousands dead, where you clearly have a government in league with the militia on the ground in Darfur, attacking civilians including young kids, whether or not it’s genocide shouldn’t really matter. The fact of the matter is that a huge number of civilians are under attack by a government that should, in fact, be protecting them.
Reel Progress: Currently there is strong grassroots support and much media attention behind the movement to end the genocide in Darfur. How is the nature of this activism different from activism on other international issues and cases of mass atrocity? How can organizations best capitalize on people’s concern to make a real difference in Darfur?
Gayle Smith: Well I think the activism is extraordinary. It’s smart; it’s been sustained. I think the leadership has really been from two communities—the faith-based community and young people and students. I haven’t seen anything like it since the days of the anti-apartheid movement. I think everyone who’s out there trying to do something is really to be credited, whether it’s traditional advocacy that focuses on the politics or a sort of cultural advocacy, like the women who made the film Darfur Diaries. You’ve got musicians and bands doing things, writers and poets contributing, artists from across the spectrum helping to inform the public and motivating people to standup and say this matters. That’s really what’s important. The conventional wisdom is that, particularly in Africa, the American people really don’t care enough for a politician to take a risk or spend any resources, capital or otherwise, on stopping something like a genocide in Darfur. I think the message that politicians are getting from across the country is that actually Americans do care, and we feel very strongly that our principles and our values demand that we be in the forefront of trying to stop the genocide in Darfur. So I think the activism is a great thing. In terms of building on it, I think there are a few things we need to do. One of the things we hope will contribute is a campaign that the Center for American Progress and the International Crisis Group are going to be launching called ENOUGH, which is an attempt to go deeper on some of the advocacy and bring in a little more field information. Part of what we need to do is build the case for a United States that is in the forefront of preventing mass atrocities in the future. So how, while at the same time advocating an end to the genocide in Darfur, do we build a constituency that, next time we see one of these crisis, and tragically we will, says, “Let’s get out ahead of the curve; let’s prevent it rather than what we’re doing now which is responding late.”
Reel Progress: You touched a little bit on the activism movement and how one of their goals is to influence Congress. What has been done in Congress already and why hasn’t there been a lot of action on Darfur? What does the Congress need to do as far as making policy changes?
Gayle Smith: Well, interestingly, there has been a fair amount of action out of Congress. This is one issue where, at a time when there’s tremendous partisanship on every issue, both domestic and international, there is alignment between Republicans and Democrats. Congress has been leading on this issue rather than the executive branch, the office of the president. The president has been outspoken on Darfur; he’s condemned it and used some tough language, but we have not yet seen the administration put the kind of pressure on Khartoum that would send the message that there is a price to be paid for committing genocide. Right now Khartoum’s calculation is that, frankly, they can do this and get away with it. The worst repercussion that Khartoum has experienced is harsh statements. When they refused, for example, to accept a UN peace-keeping force, the international community basically said, “Well, ok.” If you think that through, what that means is that we are asking the perpetrators of genocide for permission to go in and protect their people, and when they say “No,” we say “Ok.” There is something really upside-down about that. Congress has been pressing the case. I think we’ll see the new Congress press the case even more, but importantly, I think we’ll see both parties demanding that the United States do more and that we use our capital and our leverage to see that other countries work with us.
Reel Progress: Why haven’t some of the other atrocities currently being committed in places like the Congo, Northern Uganda, and the Central African Republic garnered as much media attention or inspired as much public activism as Darfur?
Gayle Smith: That’s a really good question and I think there are a couple of answers. One is that the crisis in Darfur is so dramatic—the image of the Janjaweed militia on horseback and thousands of civilians fleeing across the borders is one that really sticks in people’s minds and one that the media directs its attention toward. The crises in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has been going on for years now, and in northern Uganda, have not garnered the same kind of media attention. As well, I think the advocacy community is focusing on a key issue because, quite frankly, it’s easier to get action under such a scenario. When you’ve got a key issue and a key question, you can mobilize people fairly simply. It’s harder when you start adding other issues to the equation. Now that’s one of the things we want to do with ENOUGH, in part because there are real atrocities unfolding in those countries today. We also don’t want to be in a position that every three or four years we stand up to another advocacy movement to demand that we do more to stop atrocities in the next country and the next country and the next country, but that we move the movement toward prevention. The last thing that I would say about this is to underscore the media part of the equation. Unless and until we have regular coverage of these kinds of issues, we’re not going to be able to sustain or even spark the interest of the American people. If you don’t know about it, you’re not really going to do anything about it. And while we’ve had some coverage—there have been some good reporters that have gone in northern Uganda; CNN did a big piece on the Democratic Republic of the Congo—so long as those are one-offs, you can watch it, you can be moved and appalled, you might do something, you might think about doing something, but you’re going to move on to the next issue the next day. So part of what we need is more coverage, but particularly regular coverage.
Reel Progress: So one of the elements of prevention is exposure to these mass atrocities?
Gayle Smith: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Reel Progress: This goes hand in hand with what we are trying to do over at Reel Progress, giving exposure to issues such as the genocide in Darfur through films like Darfur Diaries. Do you think films can also be a good way of galvanizing a movement to prevent mass atrocities?
Gayle Smith: I think it’s a really, really important way. For those of us who live and work in Washington, we can very easily fall into the wonky, boring, policy language and analysis that people go by around here. And if you are outside Washington or if politics and policy is not your full-time business, which is true of most people, having the point of entry being something that is very policy-bound or Washington-bound is sometimes difficult, not very accessible, and frankly, not all that interesting. I think that film allows for a number of things. It allows for people to see the people involved in the conflict and understand their stories. If you look at Darfur Diaries, if you look at Dave Eggers new book about Valentino Achak Deng, What is the What, these kind of works turn victims and statistics and numbers into real people. I think that is enormously important, because if we are going to be effective, we’ve got to find multiple ways to make this story accessible to as many people as possible. I think films are absolutely critical to that and I think we’ve already seen from Reel Progress. We tend to get a different audience, one that is moved and that includes some people that say, “Hey, I’ve really need to do my bit.” I think it’s a great thing.
Reel Progress: As a final question, what can people do who have seen the news reports or movies like Darfur Diaries and are interested in getting involved in this movement. What can they do themselves to really make a change?
Gayle Smith: Well, I think there are a number of things, and one of the key things is to stay informed. Unfortunately there are going to be more crises like this over time, and the more we know and the earlier we know it, the better position we’ll be in to prevent or stop it. There are a number of good groups out there. We have worked very closely with the Genocide Intervention Network, for example. There is a tremendous divestment effort underway with the Divestment Taskforce that is looking at targeting the financial resources of the perpetrators of genocide in Darfur and ensuring that investments aren’t indirectly supporting these people. All of these are important. Again, we will be launching ENOUGH very soon, and one of the things we will be offering to people is a way to get at these issues at multiple levels. There are many ways to influence the outcome. There are the direct ways of calling on the President and the Congress to do more on Darfur. There are the budgetary ways. There are lots of ways we spend money that affect whether or not we do the right thing in Darfur. There are ways to call on our media to do more. If the media hears from its viewers that they are interested in this, just like politicians, they will be influenced to devote more attention to this issue. So, I think what’s important is keeping ourselves informed and maintaining a level of activism. No amount of activism is too small. You don’t have to be a fulltime activist to make a difference. I firmly believe that only if we make clear to the powers that be, whether in political office or in the media, that we are serious, we are here for the long-term, we’re smart, we know where the bodies are buried and we’re not going to let go until we are the leaders of prevention rather than some of the last to respond, will we meet success. So just stay engaged, and don’t ever think that a small bit of activism is not enough. Every bit counts in a really big way.