American Grafitti: Americans are not the only isolationists

When people hear about the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, most recognize the tragedy of the situation but feel helpless to do anything about it. Earlier this month in Oxford, however, people from across the region came together to challenge the status quo and work to ease the suffering. The event was Hands Up For Darfur Awareness Day, which took place at the Oxford University Union and featured a forum discussing solutions to the conflict, hosted by Jon Snow.

The day was organized by Hands Up For Darfur (www.handsupfordarfur.co.uk), an Oxford-based student group working to promote activism regarding the crisis in Darfur as well as raise money for aid organizations active in the region. Started in 2006 by a group of enterprising undergraduates from Oxford University, the day was the culmination of nearly a year's toil.

Watching these young women (and one man) put together an event of such magnitude, I couldn't help but be impressed. To take the initiative - to see something wrong in the world, and say 'I'm going to do something about it' - is not a natural inclination. It's far easier to feel a genuine but fleeting pang of regret before getting caught up in one's daily rituals and concerns and forgetting about the wars in faraway places. This is not to vilify the latter for, in large part, this is just a reality of life.

I used to think isolationism was a very American phenomenon. Americans fare pretty poorly when it comes to our knowledge of world affairs. And Europeans love to throw up the statistic that about 80 per cent of Americans don't have passports (I, myself, had never heard this statistic before moving to the UK). There is no doubt a fair amount of truth to the notion that Europeans are more worldly, and better travelled than those from the States. Part of this is simply pragmatic. It is far easier to ignore foreign events when they are occurring multiple time zones and oceans away from you than when they are happening only a few hundred miles from your doorstep. And to put that damn passport cliché to rest, the reality, people, is the US is a huge place. Just travelling from one coast to the other takes six hours by plane - that's a lot of turf to explore, without ever leaving the country. Moreover, flying a family of four over to Europe is not only time intensive, it's expensive. So this is not purely a lack of curiosity regarding the outside world, as much as Europeans would like to embrace that stereotype.

But to return to my point - as yes, there is one - no-one, not Americans, not Europeans, nor any other group, has a monopoly on isolationism. I've heard British politicians admit, off the record, of course, that if they thought their constituents cared about Darfur, they might do more about it. The same thing is true in the US. We in the West all like to talk a big game, but when it comes to actually doing something about injustice in our world, we tend to place our priorities elsewhere. It's not that these sorts of situations, Darfur or others, are not complex. It's not, as the Awareness Day forum made clear, that there are simple solutions. But if more people agitated for change, then perhaps those who have some influence would listen. A handful of girls from Oxford are bucking human tendencies and making some noise. Not everyone has the time or resources to throw together these sorts of events. But everyone has hands, and you can raise them for Darfur.

[Oxford Mail, 12/02/07]