Why the numbness?

The difference between 9-11 and the Darfur killings is… What is it? If it is unknown to you, you are not alone. How did we all FEEL after 9-11? Did we feel the same about Darfur? No! Governments did not feel the same either. After 9-11 many things changed, including safety measures and money laundering prevention. But after Darfur, only minor changes took place.

For every person killed in 9-11, there were about 100 people killed in Darfur; this means that for every person you remember from 9-11 with a picture in your home, you probably would have to have two walls full of pictures of people dead in Darfur.

Was 9-11 a genocide? To UN scientists, it was, and it was recognized as so immediately by the world and most world governments. Was Darfur a genocide? To the same scientists it was, but even when the press was informing day to day with pictures and media coverage, people over the world remained silent, astonished, not able to determine if it was genocide indeed. The same happened with governments around the world: they watched, and looked away.

There are studies made by experts from the UN and other instances that coincide stating that the reason why this happens lays in the psychology of genocide and what happens with our brain with big numbers: numbness. To make it simple, they state that the brain is not able to make an image of a big number of people.

This fact makes it easier for people to give money to charities that share stories of people in trouble, who they can picture in their minds, instead of supporting the millions of victims from genocide, which cannot be pictured in their mind frame.

For me, we also need to study the ecology of the Sudan and the US populations. The real difference lies in the survival strategy of each society. I call it the ECOLOGY OF SOCIETIES. Ecology comes from the Greek word ‘oykos’ (home), just as the word economy. For this reason, many have named ecology as ‘The Economy of Life’. One stem of ecology, the Dynamics of Populations, studies the causes and modifications of the abundance of species in a given environment.

According to the ecological theory, there are two strategies that affect this abundance: k and r. The dramatic truth that we refuse to see, is that these strategies of survival of populations used in ecology, can be also transmitted into human populations. Let’s see:

k survival strategy

Low reproductive rate (implicit in the fertility index)
Paternal care to descendants
Big corporal dimensions
Long generational time
Stable habitat
Low or constant mortality rates
Low migration
Defensive mechanisms development
Inter specific competition
Small number of siblings
Late reproduction

r survival strategy

High reproductive rate
No paternal care to descendants
Small corporal dimensions
Short generational time
Unstable habitat
High mortality rates
High migration
Inexistence of defensive mechanisms
Intra specific competition
Big number of siblings
Early reproduction

“Ecología y Formación Ambiental”. Vásquez, Guadalupe Ana María, McGraw Hill, 1996

If we translate these characteristics into the populations of the US and Darfur, we will see that the US easily fits into the k strategy of survival, while the Darfur society fits into the r scheme.

Besides the psychological reason exposed by UN scientists, there is also a physical and ecological reason why Darfur numbed us all: their implicit survival strategy. Does this mean that we have to look away just because Darfur society lives within the r survival strategy? Not at all. Realizing they actually have a survival strategy that is different from the US one (and in the larger view, different from most industrialized countries), will make us take more integral steps into the prevention of genocide inside this type of societies.

One more aspect that should be exemplified here is how most developing countries are in reality immersed into a change of survival strategy, and the stages of this development is what makes them different. As human beings, we need to take full action over these aspects.

Animals have been studied by us through this perspective for about four decades now, and ecology has taken great steps towards the preservation of natural heritage. How successful have we been in terms of doing the same with human heritage?

Isn’t it true that ‘The Economy of Life’ needs to be used to redefine our economic horizons? Isn’t it true that genocide definitions and scarce legislation have not been enough to prevent Darfur happenings? What are we waiting for to apply the ecological science into economy and living standards of underdeveloped populations?
Do we want another Darfur in South America or anywhere else?