Unlike some visiting speakers, New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof didn’t come to Cornell (on April 5) to boast about his long list of achievements (he’s the winner of not one but two Pulitzer Prizes) or offer inspirational sound bites. As he’s done in dozens of columns since 2004, Kristof talked about something a little more important: genocide in Dafur.
Kristof was hosted by two genocide-awareness student groups, STAND (Ithaca College) and STARS (Cornell), as part of their “Dream for Darfur: A Two-Day Academic Symposium on the World’s Darkest Olympics.”
He began with a slideshow of photos and video clips taken during his eight visits to the region. At times his talk was hard to stomach. But his personal account added to the impact of his message—challenging the audience to provide more aid—and underlined the reality of the situation. “Rural parts of Darfur have been completely obliterated,” he said. “This year alone, 1,000 people a day have been displaced.”
Kristof also discussed China’s controversial aid to Sudan’s government. Other countries can—and should—leverage the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing to prevent China from doing more harm, he said. (Kristof knows something about China and its politics. He and his wife, reporter Sheryl WuDunn ’81, won Pulitzers in 1990 for their coverage of the Tiananmen Square democracy movement.)
“One of the problems in the Darfur advocacy world is fatigue” he said. “I hope you all will resist this fatigue and keep trying.”
Link to Kristof’s NYT bio.
— Chelsea Theis