Vanity Fair and celebrity advocacy

Vanity Fair's new issue devoted to Africa, which Lawrence, wrote about below, has received a fair bit of attention. I thought a couple of reactions were worth linking to here. The first is from a blog by Ethan Zuckerman, a research fellow at Harvard Law's Berkman Center. He makes the point, among others, that for an issue that claims to be highlighting the achievements of "71 Africans who are defying the status quo", maybe it would have been nice to have paired a couple of them with a Western celebrity on the cover, instead of the celebrity-celebrity combos they went with.

There's also an interesting discussion on the Darfur blog of the Social Science Research Council, a good source generally for analysis from Program Director Alex De Waal and others. In comments to a brief post on the Vanity Fair issue, De Waal examines the question of celebrity advocacy on behalf of African causes. He takes a balanced view, saying you can look at it as a "balance sheet" between bad effects and good ones. In some cases - he suggests the work that Bono has done on trade and debt - celebrity advocacy gives intelligent analysis a prominence it wouldn't achieve otherwise. In others cases, relatively uninformed analysis by celebrities can be misleading and harmful (Darfur advocacy, it would seem, falls in the latter category). Basically, celebrities bring attention to a problem, but unless the right response to the problem is very simple (and in most of these cases it isn't), that attention can be helpful or counterproductive depending on the quality of the analysis.

Of course most of the critical responses to the VF issue probably come from people who haven't actually read the articles (I hadn't looked at any until just now) and I'm sure many of the articles are quite good, or at least okay. The one-paragraph responses Bono gets from Presidential candidates on Africa policy could certainly be a little more substantial, but it's not any more cursory, for example, than the policy summaries the Council on Foreign Relations website has been doing for the candidates (and they haven't done Africa policy yet). Nevertheless, I think that "judging a magazine by its cover", as Zuckerman puts it, is a perfectly acceptable enterprise in this case.

Sudan roundup

Danna Harman's piece in today's Christian Science Monitor has two parts. The part referred to in the headline is an interesting story - though one that's been told a lot recently - of China's role in propping up the Sudan regime and its modest but growing diplomatic efforts on Darfur. The article opens, however, with a perhaps more fascinating story, but one that hasn't gotten anything like the attention it merits: that while things are fairly calm right now, the North and South appear to be headed on a collision course towards renewing the civil war that ended in 2005. Unless something dramatic happens, the South seems almost certain to choose to secede in a 2011 referendum, and the North seems unlikely to let the South, with the oil it controls, go. Plenty of people are aware that this scenario is more than a distinct possibility, but few have actually been discussing what to do about it. The piece also describes how despite profit-sharing provisions for Sudan's oil, much of which lies in the South, there is little transparency, and the South's share seems to have dropped over the past few months. Unfortunately Harman focuses less on this story than the China angle, but credit to her for highlighting it.

In other news:

• In yesterday's Monitor Harman examines China's investment in Sudan, which she describes as fairly minimal outside of the oil sector. Meanwhile, China's special representative met with President Bashir. And China announced the launch of a $1 billion fund to promote trade and investment by Chinese companies in Africa.

• In the L.A. Times, David Rieff examines the division over what to do in Darfur that has emerged between the human rights advocates and the Save Darfur Coalition on one hand, and humanitarian organizations on the ground on the other. As Rieff points out, this case of" good vs. good" is a division that has emerged in previous debates over humanitarian intervention as well - including in Bosnia and Afghanistan.
  

• The Economist looks at Sudan's oil boom, but cautions that the outlook may not be as rosy as official pronouncements suggest.

• France hosted an international conference on Darfur over the weekend. While the event managed to make friends of Paris and Washington, the conference didn't produce much progress on the crisis. Condi Rice also repeated her assertion that Khartoum's "history" of backsliding on deals means the international community should keep up the pressure.
  

• A new report from the United Nations Environment Program warns that Sudan must address environmental challenges in order to achieve peace.

• The AU has extended the mandate for its peacekeeping mission through the end of the year. China said it will send over 200 engineering troops, as part of "Phase II" of the agreement for a UN-AU joint mission.

• The leader of an SLM rebel faction was killed. The leader of another SLM faction, Ahmed Abelshafi, is in London meeting with the leader of another rebel faction, the SFDA.

• South Africa disapproves of imposing sanctions on Khartoum.

• Progress on a peace deal signed between Khartoum and rebels in Sudan's East has stalled.
  

• Lawyers and human rights advocates are defending another journalist arrested in Khartoum.
  

• The cellphone company Celtel plans to expand its operations into Sudan.

Sudan roundup

The big news is that Sudan announced that it would accept a UN-AU hybrid peacekeeping force of around 20,000. Maybe. It's not clear how big of a role Khartoum will allow for non-African troops or UN command. The U.S. in particular has expressed concern - you can read a State Department statement here.

Despite the tough talk, the U.S. is still $1 billion short on its contributions to UN peacekeeping. The Guardian also explores the CIA's use of Sudanese citizens to infiltrate radical Islamist groups in the Middle East. Steve Fake and Kevin Funk discuss the contradictions in America's Sudan policy for Foreign Policy in Focus.

Eric Reeves, writing in The New Republic, was not impressed with Sudan's announcement, noting that there have been several previous "breakthroughs" that never panned out, and there is little to suggest that this time around will be any different. The L.A. Times expresses a similar sentiment. Rebel groups have also greeted the announcement with skepticism. John Prendergast and Colin Thomas-Jensen of the ENOUGH campaign are calling on China, France, and the U.S. to take advantage of a "perfect diplomatic storm" to unite in pressuring Khartoum. India, Pakistan and - interestingly - China, are considering the possibility of deploying troops for the force. Norway is also thinking about sending engineers. But as The Economist points out, there aren't likely to be any additional troops on the ground before next Spring.

In other news:

• Sudan topped Foreign Policy's annual ranking of states most in danger of failing, beating out Iraq and Somalia. I'm not quite sure how Sudan is more at risk of failure than Somalia - unless being failed already reduces the "risk of failure". But it's certainly in bad shape. Sudan was dead last (or on top depending on how you look at it) in terms of refugees and IDPs, group grievance, delegitimization of the state, and human rights.

• Scott Baldauf has an interesting profile of Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi in the Christian Science Monitor. Turabi was instrumental in bringing Omar al-Bashir to power, but has since become an outspoken critic of the regime and proponent of relative religious moderation. Genuine ideological conversion or opportunistic populist?

• Southern Sudan's SPLM is delaying a conference to bring together Darfur rebel groups, as some key actors haven't yet come on board.

• The Financial Times, describes a public-relations visit Khartoum organized for foreign journalists. Meanwhile, Sudanese journalists are protesting in Khartoum against the arrest of four colleagues.

• Oxfam is pulling out of the Gereida refugee camp, Darfur's largest, in a response to the increasing violence. Sixty-eight aid vehicles were ambushed from January to May of this year, a new high. Twenty-three of those attacks involved abductions. Another aid worker, with ACT-Caritas, was also recently killed.

• The BBC reports on the growing number of Sudanese learning Chinese, particularly in Khartoum.

• Ronan Farrow, in the Wall Street Journal, profiles Suleiman Jamous, "the Nelsom Mandela of Sudan."

• The American Bar Association is training Sudanese lawyers in anticipation of future war crimes trials.

• UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon discusses the ecological dimension to the Darfur conflict. A panel of UN human rights experts produced some report that tells Khartoum what it can do to address the conflct.

• In the latest well-intentioned-but dull op-eds: the idea of an oil-for-food program for Sudan keeps popping up; James Smith, in The Guardian, provides the latest call for divestment; and Jody Williams and Desmond Tutu urge the EU to take a more active role.

• A new documentary on Darfur was screened at the SilverDocs film festival in Silver Spring, Maryland.

• And In celebrity news, pop stars are teaming up with Amnesty International to release an album of John Lennon songs that will benefit Darfur. Contributors include U2, R.E.M., Green Day, Jack Johnson, Ben Harper, and Youssou N'Dour, the latter adding some African credibility. And The New Statesman has a story on George Cloony and his journalist dad's trip to Darfur.

World Refugee Day

In an interview commemorating World Refugee Day today, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Antonio Guterres, warned that conditions for asylum seekers worldwide have worsened due to changes in immigration policies accompanying the War on Terror. Mr. Guterres noted that western countries’ policies, which are meant to keep out terrorists, often keep out people who are genuinely seeking asylum as well.

Of the fifteen countries that welcome the largest number of refugees, at least ten have changed their immigration policies since 2001. Some countries restricted the benefits of various visas available to asylum seekers, such as protection visas, temporary humanitarian visas, temporary visas, and return pending visas.

New rules approved in Australia in 2001 divided residents into two categories: those who were resident in Australia before 2001, and those who arrived in Australia after 2001, allotting fewer benefits to the new arrivals. Regulations passed by the Council of the European Union in 2002 require that all asylum seekers be vetted for any contact to terrorist organizations before being granted refugee status.

A number of advocacy groups argue that the recent immigration reform proposals in the United States will have a negative effect on asylum seekers, allowing immigration officers to detain refugees for extended periods of time and to bar from asylum and prosecute any refugee who used a false document to escape his or her country.

UNHCR estimates that 40 million people are currently living away from home because they fled from violence and persecution. About one fourth of the world’s refugees and displaced people come from Africa. Although the total number of refugees decreased by 12 percent from 2005 to 2006, the number of internally displaced persons, or IDPs, increased by 22 percent in the same period. One reason for the decrease in the global number of refugees is that 1.1 million refugees went home voluntarily in 2005, including 752,000 to Afghanistan and 70,000 to Liberia. In contrast, the increase in IDPs is due to the violence in Iraq, Sudan, and Somalia, conflicts that have displaced about 1.6 million, 1.4 million and 400,000 people respectively.

In other refugee news, just three days before World Refugee Day on June 17, the British aid agency Oxfam announced that it was permanently pulling out of the largest refugee camp in Darfur due to security concerns. The refugee camp, Gereida, houses about 130,000 people. Oxfam was one of the largest aid agencies operating in the camp.

Darfur roundup

The cozy relationship between Washington and Khartoum on counter-terrorism finally seems to be coming under some scrutiny. The L.A. Times reports on how Sudan has cooperated with the U.S. in providing intelligence on the insurgency in Iraq. But while most observers think the new U.S. sanctions won't do too much to harm Sudan's booming economy, some financial analysts are saying that Khartoum could take a hit. Meanwhile, the U.S. has a new charge d'affaires at its embassy in Khartoum, Alberto Fernandez.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has stated that Darfur is his top priority, and he is currently visiting Sudan in an effort to make some progress on that score. New President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed a meeting on Darfur in Paris for later this month, but Khartoum has rejected the idea.

G8 leaders ruled out the use of military force - beyond the proposed UN-AU peacekeeping mission - to halt the violence. At the same time, however, a British Foreign Office official hinted that military action has not been ruled out.

The Sudanese government is meeting with the AU and UN in Addis Ababa. UN envoy Jan Eliasson has a new "road map" for reaching a peace agreement. The map doesn't appear to be terribly detailed. The ICC's chief prosecutor has asked the UN Security Council to increase pressure on the Khartoum regime to hand over the suspects it wants for war crimes in Darfur.

The International Crisis Group's Gareth Evans and Donald Steinberg, writing in The Guardian, argue that the recent softening of China's position on Darfur is reflective of a broader shift in Chinese foreign policy toward an approach more acceptable to Western norms.

In a setback for efforts to organize the disparate rebel factions, Abdelwahid Al-Nur said that his Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) would not participate in the conference of Darfur rebel groups being organized later this month in Juba.

The Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) condemned the contention by Sudan's ambassador to Washington that the Darfur rebels are terrorists. The ambassador is ostensibly an SPLM member. The rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) praised the SPLM's statement, saying that the ambassador's comments had risked losing support for the SPLM among Darfur rebels.

The World Food Programme has received an additional $18 million for its transport activities.

Arab pop stars have joined their Western peers in promoting Darfur's plight.

Meanwhile, conditions on the ground aren't getting any better. Oxfam has said that increasing violence in Darfur has caused aid access to drop to its lowest levels since the the first phases of the conflict. And the UN reports a couple of incidents of militias attacking civilians in villages.

New contributors

Some days ago, three new names appeared under the ‘Contributors’ heading just to the right of here. And you may have even noticed unfamiliar bylines turning up beneath some recent posts. Today, though, we’d like to officially welcome the three new contributors to Africa Matters. Please allow us to introduce Julia, Lawrence, and Shelby:

Shelby is a graduate of Emory University in Atlanta. She has been in Liberia for six months working with an international human rights organization. Prior to this she worked with a Nigerian human rights organization in Abuja, following activities of the Nigerian legislature. Shelby enjoys fried plantains, Liberian English, and third-hand copies of The New Yorker that occasionally find their way into her hands.

Lawrence studied African affairs at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service. He spent a year living in Dakar, Senegal, and his thesis looked at whether the U.S. media’s coverage of Darfur affected foreign policy. Lawrence currently works at Burson-Marsteller, a public relations firm in Washington, DC, doing corporate responsibility consulting. In the fall, he’s off to the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism in New York, where, ironically, he’ll be living in Little Senegal.

Julia graduated from Stanford University, where she focused on poverty reduction and conflict resolution in Africa. Previously, Julia has worked on a natural resource management project in Ghana; more recently, she has been working for the International Crisis Group, first in Brussels and now in Washington, DC, with occasional research trips to Africa. In her capacity with ICG she works full-time as a policy analyst for the ENOUGH project, a campaign to confront genocide and mass atrocity worldwide; their initial focus is on the conflicts in eastern Congo, northern Uganda, and Darfur.

We’re really excited to have these three new posters join us at Africa Matters—they bring with them such a wide and interesting range of experiences, and we’re looking forward to reading what they have to write. We hope that expanding the site like this will lead to more consistent content, plus we’re eager to have a more diverse set of perspectives and areas of interest represented on the blog.

... Also, while we’re introducing people, we realized we never properly introduced ourselves. So, here goes:

Derek has been living in Nairobi, Kenya, since January, working on the promotion of democracy and good governance in South Sudan. Derek is also interested in Somalia and West Africa, especially pertaining to issues of conflict, elections, and democracy at large.

Caitlin and Aaron are the co-founders of Africa Matters. Caitlin graduated from Stanford in 2006. She is interested in economic development, education, and environmental issues in Africa. Caitlin hopes to work to improve international development effectiveness through evaluation and accountability. Caitlin lives in Nairobi.

Aaron is based in Kampala, Uganda, where he works for an organization that assists conflict-affected communities around the country. Generally, Aaron is interested in U.S. policy toward Africa, particularly regarding democratization, foreign aid, conflict intervention, and the intersection of the three. He, too, is foraging for copies of The New Yorker.

So that’s who we are. We’d like to reiterate that any opinions expressed on this site are ours alone; we neither represent nor aim to advance the positions of our employers or anyone else. But we will do our best to keep an eye on the news from around Africa and to continue passing on interesting stories and thoughts of our own.

Thanks for reading.

- Aaron, Caitlin, and Derek

Explosion in Nairobi kills 1

An explosion in downtown Nairobi at about 8:15 am has left one dead and 31 injured, six critically.
Local media are reporting that the blast, which occurred next to the City Gate restaurant and the Ambassadeur Hotel in the city center, was an attempted suicide bombing, although this is not confirmed. The Ambassaseur Hotel is mostly frequented by Africans, and is located at a busy intersection where Citi Hoppa busses and communal taxis pick up passengers.

Witnesses say the explosion occurred as a man who appeared to be carrying grenades tried to jump on to a bus. Other witnesses reported that someone standing in a bus line exploded a grenade, and some say they thought an object was exploded remotely. The rush-hour explosion shattered nearby shop windows and was heard throughout downtown.

The site is roped off and traffic is backed up as police are investigating. The attack follows weeks of violence surrounding the government crack down on the Mungiki sect, a secret cartel that is rumored to have political ties. There is no evidence that today’s attack is related to the Mungiki violence.

Africa Matters bloggers in Nairobi are safe.

Darfur roundup

The UN and AU have reportedly reached agreement on moving forward with a 23,000 strong peacekeeping force, though the bodies haven't yet given their formal approval. Abdul Mohammed, an Ethiopian working for the Darfur Darfur Dialogue, says the AU isn't getting the credit it deserves for its work in Darfur.

France's proposal for a humanitarian corridor through Chad, protected by Western troops, suffered a setback when the Chadian government said such a proposal was unnecessary.

German newspaper Der Spiegel has a profile of International Crisis Group expert-activist John Prendergast. In the piece, Prendergast points out that the North-South and Darfur conflicts are both based on tensions between the center and periphery, and that America's support for Sudan's role in the "War on Terror" is keeping it from exerting real pressure on Khartoum.
And The Boston Globe has a profile on Smith College Literature professor Eric Reeves, and his obsession with the Darufr crisis.

Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu urged the international community to impose tougher sanctions on Khartoum, saying such measures can be effective, as they were in South Africa.

The Council on Foreign Relations features an interview with Sudan's Ambassador to the U.S., John Ukec Lueth Ukec. Ukec, who was formerly a Southern rebel with the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) comes off as saner than he did in a recent press conference. Still, he's going to have a hard time being taken seriously when he says Khartoum's relationship with the Janjaweed is the same thing as the American relationship with insurgents in Iraq.

And Amnesty International has launched a new "Eyes on Darfur" website that uses satellite images to monitor sites in Darfur for signs of attack and human rights abuse.

Senegal Update

Senegal, often lauded as a model for West African democracy, has faced several setbacks since Abdoulaye Wade was reelected President in February. Last week’s National Assembly elections were boycotted by the main opposition parties, leading to a sweep for the ruling Sopi Coalition. Voters stayed home in protest of irregularities in the presidential election and Wade’s failure to deliver on promises from the 2000 campaign. The resulting single-party legislature removes any effective check to Wade, who already has a strong grip on power. Ironically, Wade historically came to leadership seven years ago as a long-standing opposition candidate promising change.

Given a surge of would-be immigrants fleeing by boat, crumbling universities, a poor economy, and suppression of political and media critics, the election boycott is not surprising. Nonetheless, Senegal remains a relatively stable country, and recent investment and infrastructure projects give renewed hope to its fledgling economy, at least in the long-term.

South of the political turmoil in Dakar, renewed fighting between rival rebel groups in Senegal’s Casamance region has displaced thousands. Insurgents in the lush area sandwiched between the Gambia and Guinea Bissau have fought for increased autonomy for years, but a 2004 peace agreement seemed to end the conflict with Dakar and divisions within the MFDC, the key rebel group. While the clashes are between local militants, the fresh round of violence threatens to pull in government troops, a major step back in progress on the long-running, low-level insurgency.

Darfur roundup

The big story on Darfur this week has been the Bush Administration's announcement of new sanctions on Khartoum, which Aaron and Lawrence have already mentioned here. The State Department's John Negroponte outlined the five things the US is trying to get Khartoum to do: 1) Stop bombing; 2) accept the UN-AU hybrid peace force; 3) cooperate on the peace process; 4) provide more space for humanitarian operations; and 5) disarm the janjaweed militias.

The Economist provides an overview of the targeted companies and individuals, doubting whether the new measures will have much of an effect. Since the mid-90s, the US has maintained fairly extensive sanctions on Sudan. But Sudan has had little trouble selling its oil and developing strong commercial ties with Arab countries and, especially, China, and has recently maintained one of the highest growth rates in Africa. According to the magazine, getting the Europeans on board might help a little, but without the support of China, Khartoum won't feel much pressure.

Britain strongly supports the new sanctions. France and the EU are both open to discussion on adopting the measures. But China, along with Russia and South Africa, have been cool to the announcement. Salva Kiir, president of Southern Sudan and a former rebel who has been supportive of international pressure on Khartoum over Darfur, has also spoken out against the sanctions. The Government of Southern Sudan plans to hold a conference in Juba in mid-June to bring together the different rebel factions.

Eric Reeves, a professor of literature at Smith College and a prolific Darfur commentator, released a barrage of articles blasting the timidity of the new sanctions. In The Guardian, he writes that the announcement signals to Khartoum that the Bush Administration is not willing to do anything more serious. Noting US envoy Andrew Natsios's admission that the sanctions are largely symbolic, Reeves argues that the US has already gotten its view across, and it needs to start acting on that view by doing something that actually punishes Khartoum. Reeves makes a similar argument in The New Republic. In a Washington Post op-ed, he provides a more emotional and personal plea for action.

Donald Payne, chairman of the House Subcomittee on Africa said the sanctions were "a small step in the right direction but a far cry from what's needed."

The Sudanese government criticized the new sanctions, but said they wouldn't have much effect. The Washington Post's Dana Milbank provides a pretty amusing look at the press conference given by the Sudanese Ambassador to Washington, who said the situation in Darfur is rosy and threatened to cut off the world's cola supply.

In the Washington Post, Julie Flint warns of the

dangers inherent in much of the uninformed comment on Darfur that emenates from the United States - driven, very often by activists who have never been there and who perceive the war as a simple morality tale in which the forces of 'evil' can be defeated only by outside saviors.

She describes how rebel-controlled areas of Darfur are rebuilding without international assistance, and rebukes Bush for criticizing the rebel groups that haven't signed the flawed Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA). And Democracy Now features an interview with Columbia professor Mahmood Mamdani, who is similarly critical of Western portrayals of the conflict.

Conor Foley, writing in The Guardian, rebuts the charge that humanitarian organizations in Darfur aren't speaking out against the actions of the Khartoum government. He notes that most aid organizations have refrained from calling for Western military intervention not because they're afraid to but because they think it's a bad idea. But as a recent Reuters poll shows most humanitarian agencies operating in Darfur do not feel that they can speak out openly.

The tension between aid groups on the ground and advocacy groups in the US is also discussed in a New York Times piece on the recent leadership shake-up at the Save Darfur Coalition. The Washington Post also profiles the group and its success in mobilizing support on the Darfur issue.

The Hudson Institute's Nina Shea, has a tirade against Sudan's President Bashir in National Review. While Bashir is surely worthy of the condemnation, this piece doesn't contribute a whole lot of value to the debate.

Nick Donovan in the London Times, along with Human Rights Watch, have suggested creating a trust fund for oil revenues currently going to the Khartoum government. The money would pay for aid and development in Darfur until Khartoum cleans up its act. File under not going to happen.

An Egyptian soldier, who was part of the first deployment of a UN contingent, was killed last week. Egypt, though, went ahead and sent 78 more troops. Nigerian newspapers also reported that six Nigerian soldiers were killed. An AU officer said that the the full UN support package would likely take four months to deploy. In the meantime, the EU gave an additional $54 million to the AU mission. The African Union hasn't approved the proposed UN-AU peacekeeping force, objecting to the control the UN would have over the mission. AU troops clashed with former rebels from the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), after a road accident. Three AU troops were injured and SLM gunmen reportedly seized 13 vehicles.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has appointed Francis Deng as his special adviser for the prevention of genocide and mass atrocities. Deng is a former Sudanese diplomat who was Kofi Annan's special representative on IDPs from 1992 to 2004. He is currently the director of the Sudan Peace Project at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP)

A new UN report says over 110,000 people were displaced in Darfur from January to March.

The stars of Ocean's 13 are campaigning for Darfur.

And finally, Arab Media and Society features an interesting critique of the coverage of the Darfur conflict in the Arab press.

Blair's legacy in Africa

A piece in this weekend’s Economist examines Tony Blair’s legacy with regard to Africa. Politically, Africa has been good for Blair, but how good has he been for Africa? This past week, in the waning days of his tenure as prime minister, Blair took a tour of the continent—to Libya, Sierra Leone, and South Africa—“in an attempt, perhaps, to remind people that there is more to his legacy than Iraq.”

Blair’s stubbornness on Iraq and his relatively enlightened approach to Africa are not so incongruous—indeed, his positions on intervention in the names of democracy and human rights seem among the most consistent in politics. When the British intervened in Sierra Leone in 2000, it was a failed state engulfed in a diamond-fueled conflict, but when Blair visited this week, he saw a country that is peaceful and slowly improving, if still fragile; this presents a marked contrast to the result in Iraq, yet the principles beneath the interventions appear the same.

In his column last month, David Brooks called Blair “the world’s leading anti-Huntingtonian.” “Blair’s decision to support the invasion of Iraq grew out of the essence of who he is,” Brooks wrote; Blair is the face of one pole in the debate over the prospects and possibilities for mending the world’s cultural divides—he, according to Brooks, represents those who believe “the process of globalization compels us to be interdependent, and that the world will flourish only if the international community enforces shared, universal values.”

“Globalisation is a fact,” Blair posited in 2006. “But the values that govern it are a choice. ... It is our task to fashion an international community that both embodies and acts in pursuit of the values we believe in: liberty, democracy, tolerance, and justice. ... The rule book of international politics has been torn up.” Yet, while Blair has often followed his words with actions, the results have not always matched the rhetoric. In contrast to the apparent success in Sierra Leone, is the failure to rally African opposition to Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe. “Zimbabwe’s neighbours have preferred the solidarity of the liberation struggle against what they still tout as white imperialism. Zimbabwe is one case where Mr Blair’s brand of easy Western morality has come up short against the realities of African big-man politics.”

Other outcomes have proved mixed. Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi was on Blair’s Commission for Africa, but more recently he presided over flawed and violent elections. And though Sudan acquiesced to a U.S.- and British-backed peace deal for the south in 2004, President Bashir has remained obstinate on the issue of U.N. intervention in Darfur.

On Blair’s end, though, the results have been rosier. “New Labour’s technocratic approach at home never satisfied the old yearning to build a New Jerusalem that lurks in the breast of every Labour activist. Africa gave them a ‘great cause’ to rally round, and helped Mr Blair through some of his worst patches over Iraq. Furthermore, scaling up [foreign aid] and debt relief are among the few issues on which Mr Blair and his successor, Gordon Brown, are in absolute harmony.”

The Economist concludes that, tacked onto the successes Blair has seen, such as in Sierra Leone and in the bargain with Muammar Qaddafi to resume diplomatic ties in exchange for Libya’s abandonment of its nuclear program, “if all the ‘scaling up’ of aid agreed at G8 summits does eventually help to reduce poverty and disease on the continent, Mr Blair’s African legacy might yet turn out to have been important.” But that’s a big “if.”

For Brooks, the question that will determine Blair’s legacy is: “Is this human community real?” “Over the past three years, people on the left and right have moved away from Blair and toward Huntington. There has been a sharp rise in the number of people who think it’s insane to try to export our values into alien cultures. Instead of emphasizing our common community, people are more likely to emphasize the distances and conflicts between cultures.”

But perhaps there’s a third pole that rejects Huntington’s end, but differs from Blair on the means. The Blairite and Huntingtonian camps offer a contrast in weltanschauung, but both push a one-size-fits-all, sweeping generality with their attitudes toward globalization—cultural barriers are either insurmountable or readily dissolvable. And this lack of nuance has real implications. In the scaling-up of foreign aid, as we have seen in the invasion of Iraq, if we ignore the details and the context, no amount of idealism can produce positive results. But this still doesn’t imply futility.

Tony Blair’s record in Africa and beyond demonstrates exactly this—solid principles can still lead to a mixed bag of outcomes, depending on the realities on the ground and the way we approach them. While Blair may be, eventually, lauded for championing an augmentation in aid or laughed at for standing by Bush on Iraq, this will be determined less by the principle that liberty can be bruit about the world than by the way we enact that doctrine.

Globalization is a fact. And liberty, tolerance, democracy, and justice are all as attainable as they are essential. But, while they may be exportable, they are not imposable. Blair’s geopolitical failures are not a knock on his vision but on his method; in intervention of any sort—be it military, economic, or political—process counts.

Iraq and Africa are very much related, and it would be unforgivable if we failed to cull from the disaster in the former lessons for our approaches to peacekeeping, development, and diplomacy in the latter. The moral of the story in Iraq, and the maxim we ought to apply in Africa, is that, while our ideals may be grand, our methods mustn’t be grandiose. That should be Blair’s legacy.

Plan B Response

President Bush’s announcement of increased pressure on the Khartoum regime – “Plan B” – provoked a wide range of responses. On one end of the spectrum was John Ukec Lueth Ukec, the Sudanese ambassador to Washington. His farce of a news conference at the National Press Club Wednesday became an hour-long rant in which he described a situation in Darfur that “bore no relation to reality,” as the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank put it.

On the other end of the spectrum was the ENOUGH Campaign's response. The group’s statement asks several difficult questions about the efficacy of the new sanctions:

“Three people? After four years? And not one of them the real ringleader of the policy to divide and destroy Darfur? And once again the U.S. is going alone? This is not leadership. This will not create missing leverage. This will not build multilateral pressure. And this will not end the crisis in Darfur.”

Several important news outlets took note of this assessment, and tempered their coverage of the White House’s announcement with ENOUGH’s major point: the current Plan B is too unilateral in nature and too weak to have an impact on the violence’s perpetrators.

Finally, the Save Darfur Coalition was lauded by the Washington Post for its lobbying efforts. The article credits SDC with keeping Darfur on the public agenda and with spurring President Bush's decision to impose the new sanctions.