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Citizens of the World – Team-Up to Save Darfur
By Adrian Turner, London
My newspaper today is quiet. Sat on the train trundling towards the north of England, I go through the usual inconvenience of a two-minute wrestling match with a broadsheet. The other passengers loll silently in unison in their seats, as I noisily fold the epic pages of the paper and try my best not to elbow my innocent neighbour repeatedly in the chin.
My newspaper today is quiet. Among the quotidian stories, my newspaper murmurs of four multi-millionaires who have decided to stop funding the country's (mis)leading political party, the sale of a Monet for £40.9m (US$70m) and a new yellow-card cautioning system for cricketers behaving badly on the field of play (...for slurping their tea perhaps?).
"China should choose to cease funding the Darfuri leadership for the sake of its own people, its own future, its own happiness." -Adrian Turner
Such articles are dovetailed between double-page ads, such as page ten's Panasonic feature. Apparently the next generation of "media-hubs" (see "TV sets") are with us and if I don't buy one then I'll probably never kiss a girl again. Disappointing. My newspaper today is just about mustering a whisper. It seemingly cannot be bothered to shout. And so, as is becoming increasingly common, I am finding myself learning of genuinely important events in the world through non-conventional sources of information. I discovered the suffering in the Darfur region of Sudan in such a way. Step up Team Darfur.
For a moment here, I'm not going to offer you opinion; just facts. Let me read to you for moment through the bleak poetry of information...
"More than 400,000 people have been killed in the Sudanese conflict"1
"2.2m people have been displaced from their homes"2
"The International Criminal Court found evidence that the Sudanese government is involved in recruiting, funding, arming and directing the Janjaweed militia, responsible for huge numbers of civilian deaths"3
"The Chinese National Petroleum Company (CNPC) has invested $15bn in the Sudanese government-controlled oil fields"4
I have laid out these statistics somewhat conspicuously, perhaps vulgarly, but they allow me to paint a picture which I believe you should see. If I avoid vulgar finger-pointing then let me be more diplomatic; the current foreign investment policy of the People's Republic of China in Sudan is at best... ‘morally neutral.' They have continued to fund the non-democratically-elected leaders of that nation despite otherwise universal condemnation of those same Sudanese rulers. Innocent civilians have been massacred by militias supported by that government and that government can only function when supported by what is effectively Chinese state money.
This is clearly an issue of global proportions, but Team Darfur - in which I include myself - believes that it has a global solution. A team of international athletes, all of whom generate more publicity in an Olympic year than the average bear, has begun a campaign to increase international pressure on China so as to leverage it into changing its policies in Sudan. The People's Republic of China can exercise a foreign policy that carries a conscience I know it possesses. But it will not be easy.
Given China's autonomy and the dependence of the rest of the world on its manufacturing capability, it becomes practically impossible to leverage them financially or politically. Look around the room you are in, take out everything in the room that was made in China and you'd probably only be left with about a third of your things. Stand-up! That chair too!
What will happen to China however is that its people today and even its children of tomorrow will suffer the guilt of fuelling the deaths and suffering of hundreds of thousands of mostly innocent civilians.
Every nation is a collection of individuals and every sane individual finds it hard to live happily with a stained conscience. Aside from inducing indignant threats to future national security, the actions of our nations today determine our social and socio-psychological problems for decades, even centuries to come. China should choose to cease funding the Darfuri leadership for the sake of its own people, its own future, its own happiness. As my grandmother used to tell me; "Robbed rings rub raw".
My life in sports has taught me three vital, timeless truths, each of them key to my existence and my happiness. The first is a sense of cause and effect over my own future; that one really can influence what will occur in future space and time. Train hard, train smart... get results. The second is that one can do more future-shaping with help from others; the team is definitively more influential than the individual. And the third truth is that it is always better to try and fail than not to try at all.
"A collective of athletes like Team Darfur can be an incredibly powerful influence over politicians and international decision-makers. Publicly and/or privately highlighting what is occurring in Darfur and taking a few key actions that each athlete can effect, it IS possible to influence our own politicians and international statesmen who in turn WILL influence the Chinese leadership.quot; -Adrian Turner
A collective of athletes like Team Darfur can be an incredibly powerful influence over politicians and international decision-makers. Publicly and/or privately highlighting what is occurring in Darfur and taking a few key actions that each athlete can effect, it IS possible to influence our own politicians and international statesmen who in turn WILL influence the Chinese leadership.
Another thing essential to any sporting success is a clear vision of what you want to achieve. Team Darfur's vision is for the Chinese government to cease funding the morally bankrupt Sudanese rulers. The vision is for the people of Darfur - and of China - to have lives that are free from avoidable suffering and free from collective guilt and that they have the chance to experience an overlooked but fundamental human right: excited anticipation for tomorrow. I have a feeling that Team Darfur will not be quiet.
Adrian Turner was Great Britain's International Swimmer (1997-2004) and is currently the Director, Total Swimming Ltd.
1. (source: Ronan Farrow, Wall St Journal, March 28, 2007)
2. (source: www.iafrica.com April, 2008)
3. (source: www.bbc.co.uk)
4. (source: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/sudan1103/26.htm)
