Raising Cain: On the Moral Obligation to End Genocide and Mass Atrocity

I'd like to call your attention to a great post by Timothy Morgan on the Christianity Today blog: "Will Obama Pass the Genocide Test?" Morgan writes that, as the conflict in the DRC is rapidly evolving, the world is already looking to America's new administration for guidance. How will Obama respond to the latest test of the "world's resolve to prevent another genocide?"

Morgan spoke with a senior foreign policy official in the Bush administration, who passed on words of advice to the global evangelical community. His comments, however, apply to the movement as a whole:

"The more people who follow what is going on ... the better. The more they're kicking up dust in the press and with their elected representatives the better. Because my view, Tim, is there are lots of things the United States of America has to deal with, a lot of things at home as this economic meltdown shows, and also a lot of challenges beyond our shores. And the first priority of this President and the President-elect is our national security and protecting vital interests.

"One can argue these issues of moral necessity are less compelling. What's made America great are the values and the faith upon which we were founded. Therefore, those values and that faith have to animate our foreign policy. But they get crowded off the stage by the immediate.

"If it's mischief by Russia in Georgia, if it's Ahmadinejad in Iran trying to get nuclear weapons, the list goes on ... Our humanity and, frankly, the American ideal compel us to deal with difficult issues especially when it grows to the point where you have massive ethnic cleansing and genocide.

"So my view is the more people that are raising Cain the better. And the more they do to try to get members of the House and Senate to raise Cain the better, I think 99 percent of Americans fundamentally want the same thing even if we disagree on the best way to get there.

"We just need to keep some of the Americans engaged and recognize that we have a moral obligation to act."

It's refreshing to hear politicians speak of "moral obligations" vis-à-vis genocide and mass atrocity. During my post-college stint in legislative politics, I quickly learned that the moral argument is often insufficient---it's frustrating, but even the most morally compelling of situations have to been argued in terms of self (read: economic) interest in order to be successful. I can argue up and down on the "strategic" reasons for U.S. involvement in Darfur and the DRC, but sometimes it's nice just to say, "It's just the right thing to do."

Whether your sense of moral obligation is faith- or secular-based, it behooves us all to join together and push our government to commit to ending genocide and mass atrocity.

[Photo: A man reach out to help two displaced children cross sharp lava rock in a camp for displaced people, Thursday, Nov. 13, 2008, in Kibati just north of Goma in eastern Congo. The city of Goma has been besieged by rebels loyal to renegade Gen. Lauren Nkunda since he reached the outskirts of the provincial capital, and the rebels have promised to fight any African troops that aid the Congolese army.(AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo)]