The "G" Word

Rwanda.  The word still hangs over Senator Romeo Dallaire whichever venue he attends. It's both his fame and his ghost and he's bent on exorcising the latter by shrewdly using the former. The memory of the 800,000 slaughtered over a decade ago drives him to find the will to action to keep it from ever happening again.With that in mind, Romeo, along with a few others, such as the recently released Robert Fowler, presented a paper called the Will To Intervene (W2I). A logical and powerful follow-up to the Responsibility To Protect doctrine passed by the UN in 2005, W2I provides nations a key way forward to prevent genocide from occurring through active prevention.There has been a fundamental hypocritical shadow hidden in the soft underbelly of international action concerning genocide. While the West has seen fit to take action on genocide primarily by working through groups like the International Criminal Court, it can't summon the resolve to actually protect the people most affected by such a scourge. Those who made such decisions didn't have to live with their consequences, nor even pay for them. Thus we have indicted Sudanese President Omar Bashir through the ICC, but we have yet to have a protective presence on-the-ground for those Sudanese citizens in Darfur most affected by the conflict.This is vital for us to understand. How do we square the joy experienced with Bashir's indictment with the misery, even death, it was destined to bring about for thousands of suffering people in Darfur itself. Put more succinctly: How can we function as moral agents in an international order when the consequences of our actions are felt by others and not ourselves?There is a distinction between being brave and being blind, between courage and cowardice, and it is remarkably fragile and thin. Thinking ourselves stronger and more heroic than we really are, we assemble in rallies or lecture halls and call for justice in places like Darfur while remembering Rwanda. We find strength in numbers, erudition in distance, bravado in concepts. Believing we are mighty, we sign petitions, phone our political representatives, and ultimately hope for some kind of intervention. But it's always somebody else - the UN, our troops, NATO. It's never us, and therein lies the hollowness of our efforts. We are human rights soldiers without sacrifice, diplomats without deeds, and advocates with no action over there. We sincerely believe in those who are suffering from genocide, but we aren't there; that's the point. Worse, we have no plans to be there with them. We often press for higher powers to act, and when they don't, they receive our condemnation. We fail to see our own hypocrisy. We call for action but refuse to support those parties calling for an increase in foreign aid. We think that by calling for lower taxes we can somehow do more to help the destitute around the world.Suffering little in our isolation in the West has left us free to voice our ideals from the rooftops. We can pray and not get jailed; gather in groups and not be disbanded; peacefully oppose our governments in the streets and not be charged. We think our blessings have made us courageous when in reality they have only made us fortunate. We aren't as tough as we think.Romeo Dallaire and I have talked about this before and he is aware of our weakened condition as a citizenry and as a political class. But he's now turned his ghost in for a plan, one that would require Canada and others to be there on the ground, regardless of cost, if we are going to charge tyrants through venues like the ICC. I've pledged to assist in any way I can; we must all do the same. It's not about remembering the past, but rather about resolving to protect. Memories without action are often the breadcrumbs of our lack of moral sinew. The "G" yet remains with us.