Sample STANDFast Op-Eds from Last Year
Op-Eds have been an important tool since DarfurFast began. Check out these op-eds written last year, one by Scott Warren, STAND’s former director, and one by Sabina Carlson, STAND’s Education Coordinator.
STANDFast is different this year with an expanded civilian protection program in Darfur and Burma. What does that mean? There’s even more to talk about in your op-ed! Use these as examples, and write about STANDFast. Write about the targeting of civilians in Darfur and Burma. Write about what your STAND chapter is doing. Write about what each student can do.
Once you’ve written an op-ed, send it to media@standnow.org! The STAND Media Team will look it over and help you improve it. Also, be sure to check out STAND’s tips for writing op-eds.
Scott Warren '09: It's time to be idealistic, again
Posted: 12/5/07
In the last three years, I have written seven op-eds in The Herald concerning the genocide in Darfur. This one will be the hardest to write.
It has nothing to do with five semesters of college classes deteriorating my writing skills. And sadly, Darfur still provides plenty of writing material. But rather, it's hard to write this column because in the last three years, the situation in Darfur has only worsened. A once internationally hailed peace agreement is acknowledged as a complete failure. The Sudanese government is showing opposition to an eminent United Nations peacekeeping force. The Janjaweed militia groups are still attacking civilians, who are being displaced at record numbers. The International Crisis Group notes that "violence is again increasing, access for humanitarian agencies is decreasing, international peacekeeping is not yet effective and a political settlement remains far off." People are still dying. And, worst of all, the situation has spilled into the rest of the country, as a landmark Comprehensive Peace Agreement between North and South Sudan is in danger of falling apart. If things don't change, Sudan - already considered the world's most failed country - will be in a state beyond repair.
When I arrived on College Hill in September 2005, activism around the issue was just starting to heat up. As idealistic as a Brown first-year can be, I was convinced that student efforts could - and would - end the genocide. Working with members of the Darfur Action Network, we organized a massive lobbying campaign aimed at then-Senator Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., held rallies, sent angry e-mails to officials until Brown and the city of Providence divested from Sudan, participated in die-ins and held town hall meetings. We literally saturated the campus with Darfur awareness and action.
Two and a half years later, while the situation is the same, my mentality is not. While I'm now the national student director of STAND, a student anti-genocide coalition organizing over 800 high schools and colleges throughout the world, I have found myself at a loss for what students should do next. I sometimes feel as jaded as a life-long Chicago Cubs fan. When are we going to end this thing?
While some point to the fact that movements, from Civil Rights to Apartheid, take a long time, I don't buy that argument for two main reasons. First, with all due respect to the movements of yesteryear, people are dying right now in Darfur. We cannot afford for this to be a long, drawn-out movement. Second, my growing cynicism has nothing to do with the activists behind this movement. This movement has been absolutely unprecedented. Thousands of Americans now care about a conflict occurring thousands of miles away. We've gotten robust sanctions, divested more than 50 universities and 22 states from companies facilitating genocide in Sudan and led a campaign that has sparked China to take action in Darfur. I'm not mentioning these as huge successes - while genocide is still going on, we're ultimately failing. I'm citing these as proof of what activists in this movement can accomplish. It floors me.
Today, we will continue that trend. Student activists at over 800 schools representing 50 states and 11 different countries are taking matters into their own hands. If our government is not protect civilians in Darfur, we will. Students will be fasting from a luxury good, such as coffee, chocolate or cigarettes, and donating the money they would have spent to the Genocide Intervention Network's innovative Civilian Protection Program. All of the money collected today will go to protect civilians in Darfur by establishing firewood patrols outside of the camps, preventing countless rapes and attacks that occur when Darfuri women travel outside of these camps to collect firewood to cook food for their families. Students have spearheaded this effort, which will undoubtedly save lives and raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Civilian Protection Program.
While this will make a difference, I also completely acknowledge it won't stop the genocide. And while most days I feel more like a cynical 40-year-old than a bushy-tailed 20 year old, there is hope for Darfur. Like a jaded Cubs fan, I'm not giving up hope, but rather going after that $200 million free agent. It's all or nothing, baby. There is no next year.
DarfurFast will show millions across the world how much students care about Darfur. In the next year, we need to show the world that it's now or never. The United States government absolutely must make this issue a priority. While President Bush showed a surprising interest in Sudan early in his administration, he is now spending more time replacing administration officials than taking action to stop genocide. And the current U.S. envoy to Sudan is a part-time Georgetown professor who is probably spending more time creating finals for his classes than he is on focusing on the impending United Nations force in Sudan.
So, President Bush and Congress, follow the lead of the students. Appoint a full-time envoy to the region. Fund the peacekeepers in Sudan. Organize a multi-lateral diplomatic effort to secure peace. Ensure that Sudan has democratic elections in 2009. Make ending genocide in Darfur a priority!
I'm treating today like opening day. I'm fasting from cynicism and retaining my idealism. Because if 800 schools simultaneously taking action around the world for Darfur doesn't inspire you, what the hell does? Today, I'm realizing that activists have the potential to end genocide in Darfur this year. Today, I'm hopeful. Today, I want to feel like a 20 year old again. Today, I hope that you'll join me in fasting, donating to the Civilian Protection Program and ensuring that we make this the year to end genocide. Because, at the end of the day, I don't want to be a Cubs fan. I want to be a 2004 Red Sox fan.
Scott Warren '09 urges you to donate to Darfur at Darfur Action Network tables located at the Ratty or the PO.
Sabina Carlson '10 - It takes less than we think to save a life
Published: Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Updated: Sunday, August 17, 2008
In the five years since the first major conflagration that sparked the genocide in Sudan's western state, many people may have grown tired of hearing about the genocide in Darfur. Yet it is overwhelming, nonetheless, for how does one stop a genocide in its tracks? Where the United Nations has failed, where the United States has stumbled, where the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been frustrated and where the African Union has had its hands tied, how on earth can students "save Darfur?"
The answer is: Where the United Nations has failed, where the ICC has been frustrated and where the United States has had its hands tied, students are, in fact, the greatest hope we have to protect the people of Darfur.
And on Dec. 5, students will have the chance to save even more lives in Darfur than these powerful entities have saved. Students will have a chance to save a life for the price of a latté. That chance is called DarfurFast.
In refugee and Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camps, Darfuri families must gather firewood for cooking in order to feed their families. If a man leaves the relative safety of the camps, he may be killed by the Janjaweed militias. If a woman leaves the camps, she may be raped by the militias. Thus, each day, a conscious decision is made among the lesser of two evils, and it is the women who are sent out to risk rape each day in order to gather firewood to feed their families.
But there is still hope to protect the women of Darfur: an organization called the Genocide Intervention Network and its Civilian Protection Fund, which protects displaced Darfuris. The Fund is one of the few organizations still doing work on the ground in Darfur when most others have pulled out due to instability and violence. It has developed comprehensive, effective and cost-efficient strategies for protecting lives.
For $1 a day, the Fund provides a propane cooker to a displaced family so that women have the fuel they need to cook for their families without venturing outside the camps to gather firewood. Every dollar is one more day a mother can stay home with her family - that's the cost of a pack of gum.
The Fund supports African Union Firewood Patrols - patrols of African Union soldiers who escort women from the camps to where they gather firewood and back to the camps, ensuring that they do not become rape victims. To protect one woman from rape over an entire year is $3 - that's the cost of a latté.
On Dec. 5, hundreds of students across the world will be fundraising for the Civilian Protection Fund. These students are all a part of "A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition" (STAND). As part of the fundraiser, STAND chapters from across Massachusetts will be competing to see who can raise enough to "protect" the greatest percentage of their school.
And on Dec. 5, Tufts' STAND, a committee under the aegis of Pangea, will be asking, "What would YOU give to stomp out genocide?" For weeks, STAND members have been running bake sale after bake sale and selling hand-made T-shirts at the dining halls for $7 (with a $6 profit; every shirt saves two women). Our goal is to raise enough money to protect the equivalent of the 3,000 women here at Tufts.
In that light, we are encouraging people to think: What would you give to protect your best friend? Your roommate? Your sister? Your girlfriend? Your cousin? Your mother? Your classmate?
We wouldn't think twice about giving whatever it took. And since it takes the cost of a latté to save that same life in Darfur, we are hoping everyone would be willing to give.
