A friend recently asked me: Why, lately, have people been on a rampage of concern about Darfur and the ever-present "invisible children?"
I told him it was probably something in the Vitamin Water, or maybe part of a ploy to get information for an ethnic studies course's extra credit assignment.
But I felt I owed my friend a more thorough understanding of the sing-song, save-an-African mentality. After all, he lets me pretend I know more about basketball than I actually do.
So I took up his question with another friend over dinner that evening. We were puzzled at first. These far-off humanitarian disasters and umpteen-times-removed international crises are often perpetrated by foreign powers with little-to-no ties to the United States.
Recalling America's history with pro-Palestine organizations, we reasoned that these African catastrophes are completely dissimilar to the Israel-Palestine conflict, in which Israel's apartheid regime receives unconditional political and diplomatic cover from America and a yearly flood of military and economic aid by way of American tax dollars.
The Israel-Palestine conflict is dissimilarly controversial, with partisan rabidity being the name of the game, whereas the Africa stuff is an easy moral non-quandary everybody can agree on.
Then the light bulbs flickered: Caring about the depressing situation in Africa is a hard-edged variation of breast cancer awareness.
Like pink breast cancer awareness ribbons, red heart disease awareness t-shirts and yellow LIVESTRONG bracelets, the tactics behind "fighting" for those dying, however they may be dying, in Africa don't face any opposition on any level.
No one disagrees that breast cancer is bad, and, in fact, Austinites can vote to fight breast cancer by saying "yes" to Proposition 15, just as nobody disagrees that the slaughter of poor Africans is bad. It's a fundamental non-dilemma.
And these rough-and-tumble suburban warriors can work and pray and care so hard because, as American taxpayers, (or at least infrequent voters) their opinions on these particular issues matter for absolutely nothing.
But I'm not attacking anyone for caring about other people's lives.
Mothers and their children, over-attentive boyfriends and the girls who rip their hearts out, Guy and Susanna Clark - some people really are overcome by strong and positive feelings for others. This element of human nature truly is a beautiful thing, most sarcasm aside.
But in situations where whatever soulless group of Africans with rusty, Soviet weaponry is busy herding another group into killing fields, such caring is fruitless.
I'm not saying there aren't effective forms of protest or causes worth supporting, but to many activists, having a positive impact on the situation in Africa is not the point. The point is to prove you care by wearing your heart on your sleeve. This ensures a position in the social activist clique, with constant invites to the coolest parties with bad synthesizer redux, highly-cultured world music, conscious rap and clever Bjork or Bob Marley remixes. Code words: "raising awareness." By the way, did you hear about the latest raising awareness fundraising party? It's at a co-op on Pearl Street.
The only solution to this problem in Darfur is military action. Diplomacy, protests and Bono don't cut it. What Darfur needs is a good, old-fashioned invading battalion of marines armed with bubblegum, condoms and the New Testament/Koran/Torah/Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. But the U.S. is not doing that because there's not a political will.
The only will is coming from the peacenik types who populate "actions" to "save" Darfur. They're generally averse to whatever military aims the United States sets for itself (and for good reason), but it just doesn't jibe.
So, you can hold rallies. You can burn your fingertips and spill mountains of petroleum-based wax at candlelight vigils for despondent souls who will never know you exist. You can enjoy the sneers from the inattentive consulates and the ink on the sides of your palms from letter-writing campaigns. You can feel so good about feeling so bad.
But the world is burning and no matter how many John Lennon covers Green Day makes, no matter how much money is wasted on thousands of white roses, no matter how many hip causes you have tattooed on your hip before the laser removal of reality sets in, your activism and that $5 you donated will only put you out a falafel wrap and fries unless you direct it toward people who actually care what you have to say.
Why not join the Peace Corps? At least then there'd be a trade off: The natives get Western work ethic, technology and guilt, and you get a formidable assortment of communicable diseases. If you're lucky they might even be sexually transmitted.
Kalmbacher is a journalism junior.
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