MuseumDESCRIPTION:
On April 30th, rallies to end genocide in Darfur will take place in Washington, DC, San Francisco, and around the country. Olympic speedskating gold medalist Joey Cheek and former U.S. Marine Brian Steidle will be among the speakers. They talk with Jerry Fowler about their speaking tours around the country, the public’s reaction to their decisions to speak out for Darfur, and the future of the Darfur movement.
TRANSCRIPT:
NARRATOR: Welcome to Voices on Genocide Prevention, a podcasting service of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Your host is Jerry Fowler, Director of the Museum’s Committee on Conscience.
JERRY FOWLER: On April 30th, there will be Darfur rallies in Washington on the National Mall, in San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, and in other cities around the nation. We are joined today by two of the speakers at the Washington rally. Joey Cheek is a speed skater who won gold at the Torino Olympics, then caused an international sensation by announcing that he would donate his winnings to help displaced Darfurian children. Brian Steidle is a former United States marine who was on the ground with the African Union in Darfur, and has spent the past year traveling around the United States telling Americans what he saw there. Guys, welcome to the program.
JOEY CHEEK AND BRIAN STEIDLE: Thank you.
JERRY FOWLER: First off, you have both been traveling around speaking about Darfur. Give me an idea of where you have been and what the atmosphere of the events have been like. Brian, let us start with you.
BRIAN STEIDLE: I have been traveling around for quite a while now speaking about Darfur, and I think the people are genuinely interested in it. If you can get them to come out to an event, then they want to learn about it, they want to know what they can do, and when they leave, they are motivated to go tell somebody else about the issue, and that is what is important. Sometimes we only have fifty people that show up, and sometimes we have three or four hundred that show up, but as long as you can reach one or two in that audience, as long as one or two people leave there and go tell one or two other people, then I usually feel like I have done my job for the day, and now we can go on to the next event.
JERRY FOWLER: Where are some of the places that you have been?
BRIAN STEIDLE: I am in Austin right now. I have done a number of speeches in California, in Florida all over the place; I was in Indiana a little while back; I have done some in Colorado; basically, just all over the place—universities, all the major universities, in addition to church groups and community groups all over the country.
JERRY FOWLER: Joey?
JOEY CHEEK: I have actually just started a college speaking tour. I spoke at New York University on Monday. I spoke at Yale on Tuesday. I just finished speaking at University of North Carolina, Charlotte last night. It has been similar. Obviously, for me, people usually come because I am an Olympic Gold Medalist, and then I try to tell them something worthwhile which surprises folks. My experience, as well, like Brian, is that people are not uncaring; they do not think that there is no need for us to have any interest in this area, but they are usually uninformed—most people I have met—but when they hear about it, they want to help and they want to see pictures and hear what is going on. They want to rectify the situation.
JERRY FOWLER: Joey, when you speak, you are a little bit different that Brian in the sense that people probably come to see Brian to hear about Darfur, but in your case they come to see you in part because of your athletic accomplishments. In question and answer periods, do people follow up on Darfur and want to know more, or do they focus more on your athletic accomplishments?
JOEY CHEEK: Generally, they ask more questions on Darfur, and specifically they kind of ask how I got interested in it and why I am doing this, so in some ways, I guess it has been kind of connected—the athletics and Darfur. I tend to speak—so far at least—we organized these speeches with the local STAND chapters or with another group that is involved with human rights and human rights awareness so typically the groups of students that are coming to watch me speak are also socially aware and curious about things in other parts of the world already.
JERRY FOWLER: You mentioned that one thing people ask—and I know you have probably been asked this now twenty million times, but I will not let that stop me—how did you get focused on Darfur? Once you made the decision that you wanted to do something with your moment in the sun that would have an impact, how did you select Darfur?
JOEY CHEEK: Darfur struck me, one, because I have heard about it for years. I have seen images of what is going on in Sudan for years. Primarily because of my sport, I travel a lot overseas. I am always on the ground in Europe or Asia, and every time I am over there, I see different media than in the United States; you see the BBC, CNN International. I was always struck by how these images were so ghastly, how could there be this many people being displaced and killed, and yet I go home and see nothing, or maybe at the most a little crawler on the bottom of the screen. At first I thought that it must not be that big of a deal—maybe the Europeans are making a big deal out of something—and then I realized that no, this really is happening, and no one in the United States hears about it because it is not news; I mean, it is, but for us, we come home, and it is not news. So, when I spoke with Johann, and they said they had a program in Chad for refugees, I knew right away that that was where I wanted to work, just from prior what I had seen on TV, and of course then, that led to me being connected with the Save Darfur Coalition.
JERRY FOWLER: You mention Johann who is Johann Olaf Koss who is in some ways your inspiration, who created this organization, Right to Play after he won gold medals at the Olympics. In your remarks after you won your gold medal, you displayed a certain level of savvyness about the news cycle and wanting to take advantage of the fact that there were cameras pointed at you and that that was a relatively brief period you had there. In looking back on the last couple of months since then, did you expect to get the amount of attention that you actually did get? Has it lived up to your expectations?
JOEY CHEEK: Rarely do the media exceed my expectations, but in this case they did. I genuinely believed I would make a donation, we would raise some good money because people would think it was kind of neat, and I would get some pretty good media hits during the Olympics, and then it would be gone. In the United States, everyday there is a new Gold Medalist, and everyday there is that new story, but this has just continued. Every time I come back in the United States after another function or another event, I do a whole other media tour—I am in New York; I am doing CNN, NBC, ABC, C-SPAN, all of these major news outlets, speaking about whatever situation it is that I have seen. If it is Zambia when I was in Zambia, now this speaking tour for colleges on Darfur and the rally on April 30th. It has legs, as they say in the media world, and I am thrilled, but I am surprised. I had no idea that I would still be able to raise awareness and talk about this.
JERRY FOWLER: Brian, I guess you have had a somewhat similar experience when you first went public a little over a year ago. There was a burst of media attention, but you are still getting coverage in the media.
BRIAN STEIDLE: Yes, absolutely, and it definitely surprised me. I think that Darfur is around to stay, and it is going to continue in the news until the issue is resolved. I think that is attributed to organizations and people like yourself, Jerry, who keep it in the news, who keep pushing it. I do not think it is going to stop. I am not going to stop; I am going to keep talking about it. I am the guy that sits next to you on the plane and starts yapping your ear off about Darfur, and you are like, “Man, I wish I had a different seat.” That is what is needed. We need people out there on the ground, spreading the word, talking about Darfur, and it is not stopping; it is continuing on, and I think it has even picked up momentum in the last two or three months.
JERRY FOWLER: Brian, one thing that I think is sometimes not appreciated completely is the affect on a person of being exposed first-hand to what was happening on the ground in Darfur, and kind of the cost that that imposes. I was just looking back at a lot of your pictures—which are on our web site—and I was just struck by the horror of what you witnessed. I know that in between speaking engagements, you are going to New Hampshire and you are working on building boats with your brother-in-law. Can you just talk for a minute about what it is like to have witnessed these incredible crimes, and continuing, is some way, to have to relive that witness by having to retell the story to other people?
BRIAN STEIDLE: It is not an easy thing, but those things were never meant to be seen; they were never meant to happen, and they are the most horrific things that I have ever heard of, let alone seen, in my life. You have to step away from it a little bit, but as I was saying before, if I can be the vessel to bring that word to people; and it is a long road. I dream about it all the time; I look at the pictures everyday when I go to these presentations, and I remember. Every time I look at them I remember not only what it looks like, but I remember the smell. I remember what the weather was. I remember the sniper marks on the government of Sudan’s official’s faces, the Janjaweed that did the killing, the smoke in the air. You remember all of that, but if I can try to relay that to somebody else, and try to get them to understand, to stand in my shoes on the ground, and see what horrific things are happening, then I think that they are going to be motivated to do everything in their power to stop what is happening there, and that is what I do. I am just the vessel that takes it out to them.
JERRY FOWLER: I think a lot of people know—and I mentioned it at the beginning—that you were there as a member of this African Union force that is on the ground, and you were basically a contract employee, arranged for by the United States government to be there. I know that some of your former colleagues have criticized you for coming and speaking out. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
BRIAN STEIDLE: As part of the African Union, the African Union considered everything I did to be classified or confidential and did not want me to share it. They have since made all of their employees sign agreements not to share any of the information. They did not make me do that, which is why I felt that it was necessary to share it and was able to share it. Some of the people that I worked with through the State Department or other African Union monitors on the ground felt that I should have kept my mouth shut. The State Department has asked me to not show my photos on three separate occasions because it is making their dealings with Sudan more difficult because Sudan feels that I was an official of the United States government even though I was a contractor. I am acting on my own, and not on behalf of the government of the United States, and the Sudan government does not really understand that. It has been a tough going. My former employee, who I am not able to mention, threatened legal action against me to put a gag order on me that I was not able to talk or share these things, and it has not happened. I think it has not happened because there has been a lot of support from lawmakers, from Congressmen and Senators, and other institutions that I think, I hope, would stand behind me and support what I am doing.
JERRY FOWLER: What about you, Joey? One of the things that made your story so remarkable was that it was unusual to have someone in your position really turn the spotlight on Darfur. What was the reaction of your teammates and the other Olympians?
JOEY CHEEK: For me, it has been almost universally positive. I feel that I am standing up for something that is easy for someone in my position to stand up for. I am not taking any political sides. I am not really doing anything too taboo or anything. It is just me saying something that I think should change, trying to help out the folks like Brian who are the actual heroes in this case, people who really lived it on the ground and saw what is going on, but everyone I have talked to have been very positive about it and a lot of people and Olympians have wanted to help out and have offered to give time or money or whatever so from my crew of folks, they have been very supportive.
JERRY FOWLER: Are you bringing any of your teammates to the April 30th rally?
JOEY CHEEK: Actually several of them have already started training again, so if I can convince them to give up a couple days of training and come down to DC, I think, for sure, a couple of my retired teammates will come by.
JERRY FOWLER: You, yourself, retired. This is kind of ignorance on my part, from my perspective, you are not very old, but are you old for a speed skater?
JOEY CHEEK: No, I could have pretty easily gone to another Olympics. I am 26 now; I would have been 30 at the next games. Technically, I guess right now, I am at my physical peak, though I could probably have a couple more good years where I could continue to skate well, but this year I was an Olympic champion and I have really accomplished all of my athletic goals that I have set for myself, and I am ready to do something new and different. I want to help out Save Darfur as much as possible and I am going to start school in the fall, so I have a lot of things on my plate.
JERRY FOWLER: I know there was a lot of coverage about where you were going to start school. Have you made a decision yet?
JOEY CHEEK: I am close. I have narrowed it down to just a few choices, and I have about nine days to decide, so I have to decide in nine days or otherwise I start losing my spots at schools, so I am glad I have that deadline.
JERRY FOWLER: Deadlines help, I find that, but I will just put in my little plea for Stanford or Princeton.
JOEY CHEEK: Those are two of the finalists of the top three.
JERRY FOWLER: You cannot go wrong with those two. Looking past college, do you see yourself in a political career? What are the goals you are setting for yourself now?
JOEY CHEEK: Obviously, I have to make it through school, first. I am not doing anything too stupid to disqualify me from public life. Personally, I am still an idealist. I think that politics have become so virulent and so in your face lately, but I think that many of the politicians that I have met in real life, after I have met them, I have much more faith in the political system and in politicians in general because most of them have been very bright and caring people who are interested in what they believe in. They may not believe what I believe, but they want to actually see good in the United States and see good in the world. In many ways, it has reassured my faith in our system, even though it does not always look like it from the TV commercials. So, yes, that is something I could be interested in one day, but it is not going to happen soon.
JERRY FOWLER: What about you, Brian, though, this idea of faith in the political system? You have dealt with a lot of government officials; you have been on the Hill a lot; you have obviously spoken to people inside the Administration. What is your view of the way government works?
BRIAN STEIDLE: I did not really have too much faith in it. I did not really understand how it worked. Back in high school, someone told me to write a letter to my Congressman; I was like, “Ok, dork,” I was like, “Who writes a letter to their congressman?” But, I understand now that those things are so important, and I wish I had done them years ago, but they are there to serve us. We have a voice, we tell them what we want them to do, and they have an obligation to do it because it is a service job. They have been put in their position by us, and I definitely have much more faith in the political system and in democracy as a whole now that I have been out on the road. I truly believe that that is what we have. The people of the United States have our voice, and that is it, and if we can stand up and we can say what we want, then those politicians will do it, and they have all told me that they would do it. They said, “We just have to hear from our constituents. If they tell us what they want, we are going to do it.” That is what they are there to do, and I believe that the majority of them—I agree with Joey—are genuine individuals who really care about doing what is best, and I did not really have that opinion until I started to get to know some of them and actually spent some time with them.
JERRY FOWLER: Joey, of course, is looking forward to school. What is next for you? I understand there may be a book and a documentary in the offing?
BRIAN STEIDLE: There is. There is a documentary; hopefully we will have that out towards the end of the summer, and also, we are working on a book. We will have that probably out in the spring; a full memoirs of my time, six-months in Darfur, and we are going to continue on this Darfur cause. I am still assisting my sister’s organization called Global Grassroots. We have identified some projects in Rwanda, and we are going to be heading there September, October, to spend about a month initiating projects with some women’s associations there dealing with the after-affects—12 years later—of their genocide. I am just going to be continuing on with this type of work, move from one coast to another.
JERRY FOWLER: I will not be seeing you on April 30th; I am going to be speaking out at the rally in San Francisco by the Golden Gate Bridge, but both of you will be here in Washington on the National Mall. At what time does the rally begin?
BRIAN STEIDLE: I believe it is 2:00 p.m.
JERRY FOWLER: 2:00 p.m. Joey Cheek, the Gold medal winner from the Torino Olympics, and Brian Steidle who is the former United States marine who spent time on the ground in Darfur, thanks so much for being with us?
JOEY CHEEK AND BRIAN STEIDLE: Thank you for having me.
NARRATOR: You have been listening to Voices on Genocide Prevention, a podcasting service of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. To learn more about the Museum’s Committee on Conscience, visit our website at www.committeeonconscience.org.
