I don't see anything wrong with not doing position-taking on every issue. If I had taken a position on, say, the current goings-on in Cote d'Ivoire today, I would be speaking out of total ignorance, which would help neither the people of Cote d'Ivoire, my fellow activists in the USA, nor anyone else including myself.
About Rwanda, what would have made position-talking empty wasn't total lack of knowledge on my and other US leftists' part. I did study its problems, analyzed US intervention in it and Central Africa in general, considered what was said by a variety of leftists here and elsewhere, etc., to the limited extent that time, accessible publications, etc. allowed me; so did many US leftists. We all had half-knowledge at least (which is dangerous in itself, btw). The problem was that there was no visibly rising movement for or against anything concerning Rwanda, unlike oppositions to the invasion of Iraq and other issues about which we did get organized. Let's suppose we had called for a demonstration against US support for the RPA in 1990; hardly anyone would have come, as very few would have known about it. Let's suppose we had called for a demonstration against US opposition to UN peace-keepers. Some would have come, if we had really worked hard and gained support in black communities. Then again, undoubtedly not enough to stop mass killings in time. In a truly unlikely event that the US government had dropped its opposition to UN peace-keepers influenced by a hypothetical success of demonstrations against it, it would have found a way to turn them to their advantage, just as it had turned a "No War, Let Sanctions Do Their Work" position advocated by some before the Gulf War to their advantage. -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>