Why I Did Not Fast Today

Over 450 people participated in the Darfur Fast for Life campaign today, but I did not join them myself. This is a difficult post to write, because I count many of those on the list as friends, and I have the utmost respect for them and the others. While I disagree with fasting as a tactic, I do not question the good intentions of those involved.

I am generally opposed to awareness-raising campaigns that involve victim identification or self-inflicted suffering, when the activists themselves are not members of the oppressed population. While the intent is to show solidarity with and draw attention to the victims and survivors of gross human rights violations, the actual effect is to divert attention away from the cause and turn it on to the activists instead. The sacrifice of the activist becomes the primary focus, rather than the cause at hand, and those whose suffering is not elective.

It worries me when I hear of young activists who see self-abductions and t-shirts decorated with AK-47s as the "next cool thing." Surely, human rights activism is in need of innovative new methods of grabbing attention in a world characterized by a notable "lack of give a damn," to borrow a phrase from Bread for the World President David Beckmann. But we have no shortage of creative minds in our ranks, and I believe that we can find a way to elevate our cause without resorting to gimmicks.

(Somewhat along these lines, victim "simulation" exercises have been discredited as methods of teaching the Holocaust.)

But the movement's critics, who've had a bloggers' field day with the fast campaign, are creating their own nits to pick, and at times seem more eager to grind their axes rather than make legitimate points. Oscar H. Blayton writes with indignant frustration over the lack of information on the Darfur Fast for Life website on "who is involved in this organization or how it is structured" -- it's a campaign, not an organization, which the website clearly states on its homepage was initiated by Mia Farrow and joined by a whole host of other individuals. His befuddlement over the absence of a place to make donations is almost nonsensical.

Noted Sudan expert Alex de Waal uses the fast as evidence that the Save Darfur movement, as a whole, is woefully wrong in what they "describe and prescribe" for Sudan. He then goes on to list grassroots activist campaigns that he finds distasteful, without reference to the policy platforms of the different groups. Policy prescriptions can be debated on merits, as can advocacy tactics -- but to confuse such efforts and mock them as "imagined empathy" is simply wrong.

The role of public demonstrations is to raise enough of a fuss that people in positions of influence pay attention when the movement's full-time policy wonks come knocking. This is the basic formula of international human rights movements, from anti-apartheid to Save Darfur. And as Darfuri advocate Mohamed Yahya countered to critics, "this fast movement is not harming you."

I want to re-iterate, to my friends and colleagues, that I mean no disrespect, and only offer my opinions as part of the ongoing conversation to improve our movement and its chances of realizing its ultimate goals.