James North writes:
I remember Mahmood Mamdani
from 35 years ago, when he was the most dynamic leader of the
newly-organized union of graduate students at Harvard. Today he is a
distinguished professor at Columbia, one of our most original analysts
of Africa, most recently of Darfur. He is himself an African (from Uganda) of South Asian descent, and his decades of teaching and doing research all over his home continent command our interest.
His most recent work, Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror (Pantheon), is
really several books in one. A large middle section covers the
ethnic/tribal/political history of Darfur itself in enormous detail,
and will be useful mainly to Africa specialists. But his opening
segment, a brilliant dissection of the Save Darfur movement, should be
read by everyone who thinks they understand what is really going on
today in that area of Sudan.
His conclusion is similarly indispensable, in which he raises doubts
that the Western passion to pursue "justice" in places like Darfur can also promote peace.
First, the facts.
Two rebel movements in Darfur rose against the
Khartoum regime in 2003, which responded over the next 2 years with
murder and repression. Starting in 2005, all the experts agree, death rates there dropped dramatically. But, Mamdami notes, "The
rhetoric of the Save Darfur movement in the United States escalated as
the level of mortality in Darfur declined." He carefully documents that
prominent people in the Darfur solidarity movement, such as the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, are chronically vague about how many died and when.
Since then, the two Darfur rebel movements have splintered into 20
factions, some of which are fighting each other, and the civil war
element which was present from the start has only gotten worse. But the
Darfur solidarity movement continues to see the conflict in one
dimension, as "Arabs" committing "genocide" against "black Africans."
Mamdani says:
What’s more, Mamdami contends, and here the expert opinion is all on his side, that the solidarity movement’s proposals –the most prominent is to send foreign troops – will make a bad situation worse. He says pointedly:
Mamdani then makes a daring and original effort to interpret the origins of the Darfur solidarity movement. He points out that Darfur protests were far bigger than demonstrations against the simultaneous U.S. war in Iraq, in which far more people were then dying. He is not entirely sure why. First he comes close to suggesting that the Save Darfur movement was a deliberate or at least a convenient way to depoliticize opposition to Iraq, especially among students. But then he suggests that Darfur may be a roundabout way for Americans to avoid Iraq:
Whatever the explanation, Mamdani emphasizes that Save Darfur’s moral
outrage interferes with a peaceful settlement. He spends more than half
the book outlining the tangled ethnic, tribal, historical, regional and
environmental history
of the region. The reader’s head is swimming in names, but Mamdani’s
central point has registered: Darfur today is extraordinarily complex,
not reducible to simply "Arabs" vs. "Africans."
Toward the end of the book, Mamdani raises questions about the International Criminal Court (ICC), which last year indicted Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir for "genocide." He points out, reluctantly but realistically, that the demands of "justice" may conflict with "peace." If Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress
had in the early 1990s insisted on prosecuting the responsible
officials in the apartheid regime from top to bottom there would have
been no peaceful settlement. Similar painful compromises and
overlooking of past crimes were necessary in Mozambique and elsewhere.
He does recognize a "kernel of truth" in the International Criminal
Court’s indictment, with respect to "the period of 2003-4, when Darfur
was the site of mass deaths." He says, "There is no doubt that the
perpetrators of this violence should be held accountable, but when and
how is a political decision that cannot belong to the ICC prosecutor."
Maybe Mahmood Mamdani’s own African origins help protect him against
simple-minded moralizing. He is familiar at first-hand with human rights violations; his own family was expelled from Uganda in the early 1970s by the infamous (and at first Western-backed) dictator, Idi Amin.
But for him Africa is his original home, not a distant fantasyland in
which to work out his psychic conflicts. He has earned our respect and
considered attention.
its taken far too long for people to challenge groups like save darfur,which oppose peace in sudan.
Darfur, like Bosnia and Kosovo, became a neocon cause, partly, I think, to show that the U.S. would intervene to protect Muslim victims of ethnic cleansing, to defang the "clash of civilizations" dragon.
Hooray. I've been saying these things for four years. The Save Darfur movement is curiously a big Jewish thing. Ditto Israeli. Why? Does Israel needs Sudan's water?
For those who can't get to the book right away, Mamdani first wrote about Darfur, bringing up these issues in this great piece i 2007 for LRB: The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency
Chomsky long ago explained why situations like Darfur get much more attention than Iraq–in the case of Darfur, the villain is one of our enemies, the Evil Fundamentalist Muslim Arabs. In Iraq, we are responsible. So, naturally, among good mainstream types it becomes our duty to denounce genocide committed by our enemies.
Every culture is hypocritical in this fashion. As best I can tell, the Muslim world in its turn is disproportionately upset over Israel's crimes, while being much less concerned about Darfur. They are our mirror image.
Supurb post. Thank you Phil.
I know next to nothing about Darfur, only that I grew very suspicous of Kristof and other media figures' incessant bleating on the topic immediately after they eagerly helped push us into the Iraq war.
Their commentary was devoid of specifics, and seemed to be a deliberate distraction, particularly since we obviously were in no condition to start a new military operation in Africa.
Monahad, there were many instances where prominent academics and actual witnesses in Darfur were debunking all the stories about the atrocities that was being trumpeted by George Clooney and all the other Hollywood farces who only see Blacks as exotic beings for them to coddle to better Western living. It's just there wasn't any star power and less likely any attention was going to be credited to anyone NOT denouncing a regime that was partly responsible for the violence that created massive deaths and displacement in southern Sudan.
David F. emphasised what many have seen themselves in as regards to Darfur: they know "next to nothing", and that really is because there is very scant (accurate) reporting on what is going on there, so it was so easy to inflate numbers when there was little for anyone to counter with (in the mainstream). I really had to dig deep and scour so many sites and listen to the proper people in order to properly put everything in context. (ICCWatch is a good place to start.)
I think what everyone should know is that there are thousands ( don't know the exact number but about 30,000 I think) that live in Khartoum who were Darfuris. They found refuge in the capital of the very government that was attempting genocide on them. That's how ludicrous this charge on al-Bashir really is.
This commentary omits the clear-cut Zionist involvement in the so-called "SaveDarfur" movement that was discussed in ealier posts. Mamdani is also pretty discrete about it in his book and articles — for understandable reasons.
The vile Charles Jacobs, founder of CAMERA, the David Project and American Anti-Slavery Group (which concentrated on Sudan), has his fingerprints all over Darfur activism and he may well have been a major behind-the-scenes organizer. The cause was moved forward and financed by the Holocaust Museum and other Jewish/Zionist groups.
Of course, plenty of well-meaning idealists were drawn in via Amnesty and STAND, but the movement would never have gotten off the ground without the organizational thrust and financing from the Zionists.
Why? What's the downside to vilifying an Arab regime, helping to further demonize Muslims and even charge them with racism against "Africans" — with Zionists as the champions of anti-racism and multi-culturalism, the latest angle of pro-Israel propaganda. Anyway, it has been a Zionist strategy of long standing to stir up ethnic divisions and support non-Arab or non-Muslim minorities in hostile states.
The Save Darfur movement is not a peace movement.
Do you read yourself?
I'm glad he brought up the hypocritical use of the term "punishment" not reconciliation.
The same distinction applies to Israel/Palestine. But, how many Darfurians were killed over the past decade (what 500,000)? How many Palestinians?
And you want to dismiss the importance of Darfur, as frustrating as it is resolve?
How cynical are you?
Can't you do two good things even if they aren't perfectly compatible?
Why did the Arab League seek to protect the president of Sudan from trail under the ICC? He was indicted. He will get to present evidence in a prospectively fair trial. Or, do you believe that International Law is of no merit?
If one wishes to learn more about Mahmodi's views about Darfur in a shorter version see:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n05/mamd01_.html.
There is a zionist angle to this that he does not cover. It is part of Israeli foreign policy (as it was of British foreign policy) to support civil war and partition in Arab countries. They succeeded in Iraq. If the insurrection their hadn't tied down US troops so long they may have succeeded in Sudan.
Uncovering Israeli finger prints on the Save Darfur movement is not easy, but it doesn't take long to find American Jewish groups as being very active in that movement. What convinced me that support of Darfur's rebellion had formal zionist support was when the Washington Holocaust Museum, clearly an organization dedicated to promoting Israel, declared the civil war in Darfur a "genocide" perpetuated by the central "Arab" government against the "African" tribes.
The key word is intervention. Are you an interventionist or are you a non-interventionist? Israel is a centerpiece of American Intervention. It has all the propaganda buzzwords: Democracy, Arabs (scary people), Womens and Gays in Peril, Special Relationship, etc. etc. Tangled foreign alliances.
A major pre-requisite for joining the establishment circus is strong belief in Intervention Of All Sorts, especially foreign intervention. A consequence of Imperial Exceptionalism. Israel falls in this realm.
From Israel to Darfur to Iraq to Af-Pak, intervention is the name of the game. The same thing goes for economic, monetary, domestic issues, you name it: Government intervention on all fronts.
Non-intervention is in the sphere of deviance, outside of the sphere of acceptable debate. To get M$M spin Ron Paul, antiwar.com, and the Austrian School need not apply.
Right now Obama supporters who cursed the name of Bush the Warmonger (and rightly so) are praising further intervention with Obama's Af-Pak escalation. Bring up non-intervention and you'll get labeled a Racist Genocide Lover by in-the-know Neoliberal Interventionists, who will whine and cry about how callous you are towards "Human rights in Darfur", especially if you mention the upcoming escalation, and all while conveniently avoiding the Genocide Propaganda re: Kosovo. Then come the questions and accusations about everything from Abe Lincoln to Ayn Rand.
Now that Obama is on the throne doing kingly things he needs such distractions, just as Bush did, and just as The Hasbara Brigades have been doing for decades.
Michael Scheuer wrote a recent article about non-intervention, which he is a proponent of, and the War on Terror (sig). There are a lot of people across the phony "left/right" divide that favor non-intervention as well, although it is rather disheartening to see people who were shedding tears about BushCo's foreign interventions supporting "Af-Pak". Must have been crocodile tears.
As long as non-intervention remains in the sphere of deviance, our fate lies in the Imperial Graveyard called Afghanistan.
Good Quote:
Besides finding no value in the world view of Islamists or other Muslim faithful, Mr. Zakaria finds no fault in U.S. policy in the Muslim world. He leaves readers believing Islamists have no rational basis for attacking America. On this point, Mr. Zakaria unwittingly shows the foreign-policy continuity from Bush to Obama, which amounts to: Islamists and other Muslims attack us because they hate how Americans live and think, and not for what Washington does in the Muslim world. Here Mr. Zakaria is at his most obtuse and – with his praise for such "thinkers" (?) as Gerecht, Gerges, Kilcullen, etc. – at his most use to bin Laden and other Islamists as what the Cold War-era called a "useful idiot."
America's vulnerability to Islamist militancy has steadily risen since 2001, because Republican and Democratic leaders and their academic and media acolytes have lied to Americans about their enemies' motivation. We are at war not because of our secularism and gender equality, but because we try to force those values on Muslims at bayonet-point, while wholeheartedly supporting those who Muslims see as Islam's worst enemies: Israel and such Arab tyrannies as Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
It is commonsense to conclude we cannot learn to live with radical Islam until we understand it and see the stark decision at hand: either amend foreign policies to make them consonant with U.S. interests or face endless wars. Sadly, Mr. Zakaria's advice brings Americans no closer to that understanding. It viciously denigrates the "world view" of Muslim believers and leaves America vulnerable to a foe sure of why he is fighting and confident that U.S. leaders have no clue why America is losing.
Poor Witty. Always confused.
But, how many Darfurians were killed over the past decade (what 500,000)?
As awfull as it is the number is closer to 150,000.
And you want to dismiss the importance of Darfur, as frustrating as it is resolve?
The civil war in Darfur began between nomadic, herder tribes and the more settled farmers. It has something to do with the desert encroaching on grasslands creating a situation where too many people are competing for diminishing resources. What exactly can western armies do to resolve this crisis?
Why did the Arab League seek to protect the president of Sudan from trail[sic] under the ICC? He was indicted. He will get to present evidence in a prospectively fair trial. Or, do you believe that International Law is of no merit?
International law and the ICC? Please do not confuse the ICC with the International court of Justice. The ICC is used by Western powers to prosecute her enemies (and her enemies only). The Arab league knows full well who controls that court and they know that Moslem leaders cannot expect justice there. Even the more neutral ICJ is helpless against western power. Remember they ruled the the US was in the wrong to sink Nicauraguan ships in the 1980s (a ruling that still stands) and which the US has completely ignored. One of the perks of being the world's only super power. But please do not come in here spouting the virtues of international law.
"Or, do you believe that International Law is of no merit?"
At present it seems to be applied mainly to the easy targets–the dictators we don't like. When Bush and Cheney and some Israelis are tried for their crimes we can start talking about international law as though it was something more than victor's justice.
As for Darfur, it deserves attention, but quantitatively it is on a smaller scale than what has happened in the Congo, yet Darfur receives far more attention. Nicholas Kristof (who is sometimes worth reading, but often is not) even claimed that a few hundred thousand deaths in Darfur were of far more moral consequence than millions of deaths in the Congo, because the former occurred as part of a "genocide", while the latter did not. This is sheer moral idiocy. Darfur deserves attention, but it obviously receives much of the attention it gets for propagandistic reasons.
Though when it comes to human rights issues, what else is new?
Witty,
The use of bodies like the ICC are ineffectual and viewed largely as a tool for Western powers to consolidate their prestige over developing nations. Look at who has been indicted and prosecuted for war crimes and even the ICC has its limits since it only has jurisdiction over states that ratify them (Israel being a very vocal omission here.). So if you don't see the body as anything but hostile, what's the point of even allowing it to try you?
The timing of the indictment is troubling and duplicitous. al-Bashir should face a court BUT AFTER the conflict is over, not during. Now you see the folly of prosecuting a sitting official; think of what Israel would do if Ehud Barak were ever indicted.
PS The track record of UN courts like the ICTY and the ICTR and the ICC is very, very shaky. It resembles more like a kangaroo court with anonymous witnesses that the defense is unable to cross-examine. It is instances like these that make it the right hand of every Western nation to get their fingers on territory and regimes that they view as useless.
@ syvanen,
The link you provided does not work.
Saleema,
Try removing the final period(after the html) in syvanen's link, or use this link:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n05/mamd01_.html
Also, here's another series of questions and answers with Mamdani on Darfur.
http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/whats-really-happening-darfur-interview-mahmood-mamdani
And here's his answer on the widely varying estimates on the number of people killed in Darfur.
So, in other words, according to expert opinion, the WHO's estimate of 70,000 dead, with rough 14,000 of those dead being killed in violence, is the most accurate of the estimates, and the Save Darfur's numbers of 400,000 are highly inflated.
tree, I agree that most of the deaths were not directly due to violence, but were the result of disease and malnutrition that were the direct result of the civil war. These deaths must still be counted in the total. In Iraq the number of people killed by the US forces or the warring civil factions is probably less than 100,000 but the total number killed because of the US invasion is still approaching a million. This should be understood when doing these estimations.
Still in Darfur, there would be tens of thousands of deaths just due to the drought which is the basic cause of the civil war.
I did not mean to be disagreeing with you, but merely to show that the mortality figures are all over the place, with the lower figures having been determined to be more accurate, and that the figures include those who died of malnutrition, dysentery and other causes, which may have been indirectly related to the conflict, but they were not killed directly in the conflict. And determining exactly how many people would have died anyway due to the advancing desertification of the area is difficult. Most people don't realize this.
Harvard Book Store: Mamdani, Darfur
A native discusses the agenda behind Darfur:
link to sudanesethinker.com
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"These deaths must still be counted in the total. In Iraq the number of people killed by the US forces or the warring civil factions is probably less than 100,000 "
No. Iraq Body Count has counted civilian deaths reported in the media and that is close to 100,000–the true figure is undoubtedly higher, but how much higher is unknown. The Lancet paper that came out in October 2006 said the violent death toll (not total deaths, but violent deaths alone) was around 600,000. A paper which came out in the New England Journal of Medicine covering the same period (up to June 2006) said the violent death toll at that point was 150,000 (or between 100,000 and 225,000). The Iraq Body Count toll at that point was 50,000.
So it is plausible that the true violent death toll is between two and twelve times that of Iraq Body Count. Then add the nonviolent deaths.
As with many (most) of the conflicts in Africa these days, the conflict in Darfur is a resource war (in this case, for oil), with certain countries (the US and Israel among them) backing Rebel factions, and other countries (like China) backing the government of Sudan. That is why it is so important for Western governments and the Western media to demonize the Sudan government, while ignoring the human rights abuses being committed against the indigenous farmers by the Rebels. The farmers are being cleared off their land by both the Rebels and the government of Sudan. They are an inconvenience to both sides in the conflict. But the governments that support the Rebels don't want us to know that.
Of course, certain groups also don't seem to be able to pass up an opportunity to demonize Arabs as well.
Also minerals, if memory serves, uranium is one of them. I read the whole thing originated in
a civil war between tribes due to encroachment of desert on formerly fertile land.
Looks like the USA is involved with Israel in Sudan, part and parcel of Shrub's last gifts to Israel,
in this case, stopping aid to Gaza via Sudan–no stopping the ever-expanding linkeage between Uncle Sam and Uncle Hymie for the world to see, and the US Congress & MSM to keep
from the USA masses:
"Answering accusations from a Sudanese minister that the US Air Force had killed 39 people in a January attack in that nation, US officials say that in fact it was the Israeli military that launched the attack on a convoy of trucks northwest of Port Sudan city.
Reportedly, the Israeli planes used a US base in Djibouti to stage the attacks, as part of the agreement between Israel and the outgoing Bush Administration made in mid January. Israeli officials would neither confirm nor deny the attacks.
The trucks attacked were said to be smuggling small arms to Hamas, and while an exact date for the attack was not given it appears to have been shortly (perhaps just days) after the Israeli military halted its ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. Everyone in the trucks, said to include Ethiopians and Eritreans, was reported killed, and an unknown number of civilians were also said to be wounded in the attack."
link to news.antiwar.com
Yes I agree that Darfur is a more complicated conflict than one is led to believe, you can hate me but here are the facts. Unlike Americans and Europeans, Arabs have never apolologized for the arab slave trade, much less have they offered any appropriate reparations or grants the way Europe has. Maybe someday you can blog about Arab hypocrisy as well as jewish hypocrisy (just a thought.)
Janey, no problem. Nobody on this blog has defended Arab hypocrisy. This blog is concerned
with the pros and cons of the USA's "special relationship" with Israel, and whether that one-sided
foreign policy is in the best interests of all Americans, and, secondly, whether or not it is in the best long-term interest of Israel. Please school yourself on the intricacy and blank check cost of this special relationship–any support the USA gives any Arab state is severely more at arms length & never without lots of strings attached. Start by googling "Aid to Israel." Then google
"US vetoes regarding Israel."
Then read W & M, including the footnotes.
School girl naivete isn't helpful here.