The “Butterfly Effect” is the idea that meteoroligical patterns are chaotic because even the flapping of a butterfly’s wings can contribute to changes in these patterns. In other words, things are interrelated and the actions of one can affect another.
Well, the recent change of heart in the Sudan may be the butterfly effect on steroids.
We have seen the leadership of that country refuse to budge on allowing a U.N. peacekeeping force into its Darfur region to quell the genocide there. It was able to do so, in large part, due to the backing it had from the Chinese government.
However, when some Hollywood luminaries and activists threatened to tie Beijing’s hosting of the 2008 Olympics to the Darfur genocide, China began pressuring the Sudan to allow peacekeepers in the region.
Now, without a superpower watching its back, Sudan finds itself finally capitulating to the U.N. request that it bring in 3,000 troops to augment the 7,000 African Union troops already there.
This is by no means over. The U.N. wants even more troops and police in the region but, so far, Sudan’s President, Omar al-Bashir, is pushing back, claiming it would violate Sudan’s sovereignity.
But, hopefully, this is a step towards stopping the death and displacement of people whose only crime is being black.
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