As most of you surely realize, I am a deeply cynical person when it comes to the media. Rarely do I read something that moves me emotionally. Sure, there are columns like yesterday’s Lawrence Martin column that make me pump my fist and say “fuck yea!” or something equally poetic, but I am rarely moved by a column or article.
John Ibbitson’s piece today on Darfur, however, succeeded in getting to me. For those of you armed with a Globe insider password, you can find the column here, the rest of us can use and abuse the magic of Google and find it here.
I’m going to write about this bad boy for MediaScout today (link to follow) but I just want to quote a passage here:
If the slaughter in Darfur continues without meaningful intervention, then Responsibility to Protect will be stillborn, another in a long line of well-meaning attempts to write international law that turned out to be a waste of time.
Amen borther. The pen is a mighty tool, it’s a shame it’s so often wasted.
Update: Here‘s the MediaScout link I promised. Shameless, I know.
Canadian troops were forced to watch the carnage in Rwanda and in Bosnia. Never again, we keep promising, and then comes another again.
That is my personal favourite line from the Ibbitson piece. While it is inspiring writing, it is difficult to deal with how right he is. The Darfur situation is not getting better any time soon. Maybe when the death toll of this genocide gets to the same numbers Rwanda did we might wake up.
thank you for posting this. how decision makers in this country can choose to skip over stuff like ibbiston’s piece and drive by all of the things he is saying leaves me a little bit breathless with rage. speaking with someone about the canadian decision making system last night i realized just how angry most of the informed people i talk to are about this situation. we should be addressing this head on because we ALREADY LEARNED THIS LESSON but instead we are actively tightening our blinders to avoid seeing the situation for what it is. how many times does it have to be that obscene numbers of innocents die before the international community gets its collective head out of its collective ass?
sorry for ranting. glad you’re posting these things. keep up the good work joe. shed light on the dark corners!