Here at Enough, we often swap emails with interesting articles and feature stories that we come across in our favorite publications and on our favorite websites. We wanted to share some of these stories with you as part of our effort to keep you up to date on what you need to know in the world of anti-genocide and crimes against humanity work.
U.S. Institute of Peace Sudan expert Jon Temin makes a case in Foreign Policy for taking a longer view approach to Sudan that grapples with the underlying governance issues the country faces. Temin writes:
Of late, Sudan is too often viewed through the lens of its relations with South Sudan, not as a deeply troubled state unto itself in need of comprehensive reform. Because of Sudan's propensity for large-scale violence, often perpetrated by the government and its allied forces, diplomatic engagement with Sudan suffers from chronic short-termism, as efforts to end hostilities and find "quick wins" crowd out sustained, long-term strategies to promote genuine reform and address root causes of instability.
In a column for The New York Times exploring whether social change is on the verge of an Enlightenment, author David Bornstein sounds optimistic, describing the time as a period when “fanciful thinking” took a back-seat to “a more rational understanding of cause and effect.” Bornstein offers a variety of examples, many of which are directly applicable to the promotion of human rights.
We’ve seen, for instance, that if we want to mobilize people to protect the environment [or human rights], it’s probably less effective to issue dire warnings than to organize campaigns that tap people’s sense of pride in their heritage [or common humanity].
The 2010 murder of prominent Congolese rights activist Floribert Chebeya remains an unsolved mystery, though most indications point to the high-level involvement Congolese government officials. Now a policeman who says he was present when police suffocated Chebeya has spoken out to France24 with new details about the killing.
Foreign Policy's Passport blog picked up on this surprising bit of African Union news: Haiti is slated to become the newest member of the A.U. in January.
The campaign group Avaaz speaks to the world’s oldest Holocaust survivor about staying optimistic despite witnessing some of the very worst acts humans commit against one another.