Now or Never

For much of 2004, humanitarian groups ramped up their operations in Darfur. These efforts temporarily blocked the genocidal aims of the Sudanese government from coming to full fruition. Sudan's leaders would like nothing more than to see these groups leave the country, so that disease and malnutrition can finish the work that government-backed militias started three years ago.They may soon get their wish. There is considerable evidence that many humanitarian organizations are on the brink of withdrawing from Darfur--or at least suspending operations. The consequences of such a withdrawal will be stark: hundreds of thousands dead. As a result, the reality facing the United States and its allies is simple: If we really believe that something should be done to save Darfur, then we have to do it now. Soon, it will be too late to do anything at all. Withdrawals have already begun in West Darfur, the area where attacks on humanitarian workers and their convoys have been most frequent. Across Darfur, humanitarian access is more restricted than it has been since April 2004. There are simply more and more places humanitarian workers can't go, forcing many residents either to flee toward already overcrowded camps or go without aid. The African Union force in Darfur, which has no meaningful mandate to protect civilians or humanitarian workers, can neither secure humanitarian corridors nor provide adequate military escorts to humanitarian convoys. The growing number of attacks on aid workers, even those of the International Committee of the Red Cross, reflect the understandable belief by all combatants that the international community does not care enough about its humanitarian operations to protect them. After the recent French riots, many have found a convenient glass-and- concrete scapegoat: Le Corbusier. One of the leaders of the modernist movement, Le Corbusier was also the forefather of the modern high-rise, low-income apartment complex. Those "machines for living" sprouted by the dozens on the outskirts of French cities and were soon imported by U.S. public housing authorities. The banlieues, as they are known in France, quickly became the hub of the country's pathologically poor and disenfranchised immigrant classes; their dark hallways and looming mass became synecdoches for squalor and crime. "We are victims of our architecture," a French political scientist told The Washington Post. Colin Amery, writing for Bloomberg, called Le Corbusier an "evil genius" whose "sterile buildings were cheap to build and helped to keep the proletariat at a distance." And bizarrely, Jack Kelly, a columnist for the Toledo Blade, mistakenly but pointedly called Le Corbusier a Stalinist, perhaps because no one but a heartless collectivizer could have imagined such a design. But blaming Le Corbusier for the banlieue riots is like blaming the inventor of the automobile for the SUV. Not only do the banlieues--which were built without his input--look nothing like what he intended, but those "machines for living" he did construct are today considered some of the finest, most sought- after addresses in France. Ultimately, the fatal flaw lies not in the architecture but the system that operates within it. * Eric Reeves, an English professor at Smith College, has written extensively on Sudan.

By Eric Reeves; Clay Risen