The End of Apathy

If someone were to sit down and literally document every last difference between living here in United States and living in a refugee camp I imagine that would be one extensive list, a list full of the things that we take for granted, a list that none of us would want to read.

I am going to go out on a limb here but I believe that the vast majority of Americans are sick and tired of feeling like they need to feel guilty for living the way we do, for having easy access to all we could possible need and want. You don't think we have it that good? Try a three day fast for Darfur and I can tell you, from experience, that you will quickly realize just how accessible food is in our society. But it is not our fault we were born here and they were not right? Why should we feel bad about that? We shouldn't and that is why I see people become angry or defensive when I bring up the topic of Darfur.

People don't want to hear about it, know about it or learn about it so they literally chose to be ignorant about it. If they don't know then they feel that they have some presidential type of plausible deniability and they can sleep at night. They don't want to feel guilty and they don't want to care. I see it in people day after day.Even mention the word "Africa" and you can literally watch the light go out in their eyes.

It is this very desensitization to gross atrocities, poverty, to Africa, that manifests into more then a high burnout rate for activists. You see within in this void of self imposed ignorance breeds the very thing that fuels some if not all of histories greatest atrocities and that thing is apathy. Think about it, without apathy what do you think the odds are that the holocaust would have happened or lasted as long as it did? What about the genocides in Rwanda, Cambodia, and Bosnia?

I have been an activist for the people of Darfur for over 3 years now. I have raised money for the groups on the ground working directly with those effected and I have talked to politicians and their advisers but for sometime now I have felt like I was missing something. Like all my efforts were not completely wasted but not completely utilized either. It was not until I was asked to speak to my son's summer school class that I realized how to better serve this cause.

At the same time that I was scheduled to speak to his class, Gabriel Stauring and the I-Act team were doing daily video and blog updates while on another trip to the refugee camps in Chad. I have made it a habit to watch and read their updates since I can't go to the refugee camps yet and this allows the refugees and their stories to come to me, to us all. I have long admired the passion that Gabriel has for his work and he has surrounded himself with a truly amazing team. Anyway, through Facebook and Twitter I contacted him and asked him if he would be willing to send this class a video message, a closing statement to my presentation, directly from the refugee camp. I was overjoyed when they said they would. And it was when I showed the class this video, sent from the refugee camps directly to them just the day before, that I saw the light in their eyes come on. They got it. And so did I.

You see the only way to fight apathy is to climb that seemingly insurmountable wall of resistance and to educate. But I am not talking about just educating the international community but those affected as well, the refugees. Education is the great equalizer. That is not to say that the political and humanitarian activism are not key parts to the puzzle of peace for Darfur, they are but education was my missing puzzle piece. Each piece of this puzzle; politics, humanitarianism, and education, provide a necessary element of peace. Politics provide a safe environment for peace to grow, humanitarianism provides the people with hope and education provides them with a future. Without any one of the elements there is no lasting peace.

We should keep signing petitions, keep making phone calls, and writing letters. We should keep throwing parties, keep selling cookies, and keep raising funds. But if we are truly going to help provide the people of Darfur some type of realistic peace we can't forget to educate. We should host a movie screening, talk to a class of kids, keep listening to their stories and support refugee education programs. Do anything and everything we can to fight the apathy that fuels the atrocities we wish to end.

What have you done to educate people about genocide? About Darfur? What interesting and "different" ways have you fought apathy?


Corey Dragge is a long time activist and has worked with various Darfur related organizations. Currently living in Las Vegas, Nevada he has started a genocide education project in hopes of speaking to at least one class in every high school in Nevada.

The End of Apathy