It is a terrible time to be a potential victim of genocide.
That is, there are so many tragedies and so much violence in the world today that those cases of mass violence that fail to catch the sustained attention of the media and world powers are virtually left in the lurch.
No one in their right mind is going to question or criticize the attention that has been focused on the recent tragedy perpetrated by Islamic radicals in Paris, the madness of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, Russia's murderous actions in Ukraine or North Korea's horrific gulags.
But when little to no attention is focused on other regions of the world where equally horrific crimes are being perpetrated, such atrocities generally continue unabated and the result is the loss of hundreds, if not thousands or even hundreds of thousands, of innocent lives.
Even when certain murderous actions/activity are spotlighted by the media, far too often it is sporadic versus sustained. Concomitantly, the international community generally has a tendency to bemoan the fate of the victims and/or castigate the perpetrators, and then leave it at that.
A critical fact frequently ignored is that the time to fend off genocide is either when genocidal threats are first made and/or when crimes against humanity have begun to be perpetrated. To wait to act until genocide can definitively be established makes absolutely no sense. By then thousands or more will have perished.
Today, at least five different tragedies across the globe constitute potential genocides in the making: in Burma; the Nuba Mountains, Sudan; Nigeria, with an overflow into Cameroon and Chad; China; and Darfur, Sudan.
In Burma, radical Buddhists who are ultra-nationalists and rabidly anti-Muslim have viciously attacked the historically marginalized and ostracized Muslim population, with the Rohingya Muslims suffering the brunt of their fury. Thanks to radical Buddhists, hundreds, and possibly thousands, of Muslims have been killed by renegade crowds; hundreds of thousands have been forced out of the country into refugee camps; untold numbers have been "disappeared"; and Muslims have even been threatened with extermination.
In the Nuba Mountains, the Nuba people are under siege by the Government of Sudan (GoS). Decrying their marginalization and disenfranchisement, as well as the GoS' threat to establish Sharia law as the law of the land, Nuba civilians face daily aerial attacks by Antonov bombers, the destruction of their homes and farms, and malnutrition and starvation as a result of a dearth of food and the GoS' attempt to prevent any humanitarian aid from reaching them.
In Nigeria, since 2009, the Boko Haram, which is intent on establishing strict Sharia law all across Nigeria, has carried out vicious and violent attacks against those it perceives as infidels. They have turned large swaths of the country into places of sheer terror. They have kidnapped hundreds of young girls, forced them into "marriage," and are now using them as human bombs. To date, the Boko Haram have murdered over 5,000 innocent people.
In China, going as far back as the 1940s, tension has existed between the Communist Chinese government and the Muslim Uighurs. When the Communists annexed their homeland, the Uighurs were promised self-rule; instead, the Communists "pacified" the Uighurs. To this day, the Communist government is out to cow the Uighurs, the latter of whom complain of being treated like second-class citizens and suffer economically and culturally because of their ethnicity and religion. They have also suffered extrajudicial killings at the hands of Chinese troops. The government has banned Uighurs from fasting during Ramadan, wearing traditional clothing, and practicing other religious and cultural rituals. The Uighurs argue that their identity, culture, religious beliefs and practices are under attack, and that they are victims of cultural genocide.
In Darfur, Sudan, the black Africans who suffered genocide at the hands of the Government of Sudan in the early part of this new century are under attack again. GoS troops are destroying villages, raping girls and women, and forcing thousands from their homes. Over the past three years, the killing of black Africans has increased exponentially.
What, concrete, is being done about these situations? Not much. Unless one counts talk, talk and more talk! Or a proverbial wringing of the hands.
Why is that the case? And who really cares?
Perhaps, like dogs in dog pounds that are periodically put to sleep when no one claims them, our fellow humanity in far-off places are unconscionably considered equally expendable.
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Samuel Totten, an independent researcher, just returned from the war-riven Nuba Mountains.
Editorial on 01/26/2015