On the Significance of Determining whether Darfur is Genocide
In his latest contribution to the debate “what should Obama do about Darfur?” in The New Republic, Alan Wolfe poses the question, why does it matter whether what is happening in Darfur is genocide or not? Wolfe frames the question in terms of its implications for U.S. policy to stop future genocides. If Darfur today is indeed a case of genocide (as Eric Reeves contends) then it must be the place and now must be the occasion for the U.S. administration to take a stand and fashion its policy against genocide. On the other hand, he writes, “if it turns out that Darfur is the wrong place to apply the genocide narrative, doing so could cause far more harm than good.”
