Comments on: Darfur and the “anti-imperialists”

By: vildechaye

vildechaye — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:16:58 +0000

what a load of garbage you write Irie. I have not read one word in the thousands about Darfur about wanting blacks to defeat Arabs. All people want in darfur is for the genocide to stop. If that means overthrowing the Bashir govt. in Khartoum so be it, but the motivation is not the defeat of Arabs, why would anybody care; sudan’s regime is hardly a threat to Israel anyway. Mamdani’s argument is NOT serious; he thinks the Western interventionists have influenced the black Darfuris to say what they say — he’s such a colonialist he can’t accept that the natives know what’s best for them; instead he believes they are “instigated” by Western imperialists. How friggin’ intellectual is that? He should have been a sausage maker because baloney is obviously his specialty, not serious academic pursuits.

By: TheIrie

TheIrie — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:59:22 +0000

ami – I do not mean those people, no. With regard to the people I’m talking about, I’ll back track a little bit – it’s not that they don’t care about the victims. It’s that they don’t think about the victims. They’re aim is not to bring peace between the numerous groups of people living in Darfur, it is to stand with the “black africans” and defeat the “arabs”. I’ll repeat that – not peace and reconciliation between two (in fact more than two) warring parties – but defeat of one side. That might seem like a good idea from the US or Europe. But the people of that region have to live with the consequences of what happens. Gene, and you and me do not. Therefore, all I am saying is that if we want to get involved in this, the least we can do is listen to serious arguments from all sides – and Mamdani’s arguments are certainly serious and informed.

By: vildechaye

vildechaye — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 18:13:55 +0000

It’s amazing — but unfortunately not surprising — that so-called anti-colonialists like Mamdani and his acolytes here like the Irie — so blithely write off the words of the actual victims of this genocide (hey, if there’s a genocide in Palestine with 500% Palestinian population growth, surely killing 200,000 Darfuris constitutes genocide, eh?) because they don’t suit their ideological predilections. One might even say that their attitudes are the most colonialist and imperialist of all, as they don’t even deem worthy what the victims of genocide are saying about their genocide, trusting rather to Western-derived (i.e. Marxist, etc.) intellectual theory and ideology. Disgusting, really.

As for “addressing the argument that there is no genocide in Darfur,” (a) i think it HAS been addressed; (b) the only way you can say that is by ignoring the victims of the genocide; and (c) seriously, if this were being done by a U.S.-backed regime, could you say with a straight face that your reaction would be the same?

By: Biff Larkin

Biff Larkin — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:52:06 +0000

“In the two months I interviewed Darfurian refugees in Eastern Chad this spring I heard the same tale over and over again: “The Arabs came, killed my family, raped my wife, burned down my house and forced me to flee saying that the land should be cleared of all blacks”.

For anyone interested in history, as opposed to political correctitude, this is a common, tedious story.

By: Consad

Consad — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 18:26:47 +0000

Here’s a review from Copenhagen University – http://cuminet.blogs.ku.dk/2009/08/22/the-%E2%80%9Cgenocide%E2%80%9D-in-darfur-are-former-colonial-powers-really-to-blame/

“I have lived and worked in Darfur for about a year and I continue to do research into the patterns and origins of the conflict. I have been interested in looking at explanations of the root causes of the conflict that go beyond the seemingly inherent “historical” opposition between “Arabs” and “Africans” in Darfur and Sudan as a whole. I have looked at landowning issues and the marginalisation of Darfur’s Arab tribes as a result of their lack of fixed territory and I have seen, and continue to see, these issues as key to an understanding of the conflict.

However, when I was in Chad for two months this spring interviewing the refugees who have fled from the horrors of the infamous janjaweed militia in Darfur, I was forced to rethink many of my earlier approaches to the conflict. Listening to people I realised that they themselves clearly saw this as a war of “Arabs” vs. “Africans”. If this is how the war is experienced, then this is their truth, and the truth is local, something Mamdani does not take into account in his conspiracy theories of the hegemonic world order behind the Save Darfur campaign.

In countless interviews people would talk of how the Arab militias told them that the country should be “cleared of all blacks” and that “you are slaves and must leave” while burning, raping and killing their way through Darfur. Mamdani has taken very little time to hear how victims of the conflict themselves have put events into language. For the Darfurian population in the refugee camps of Eastern Chad, the perpetrators are indeed the “Arabs” set out to kill “blacks”. You cannot write off the local experience of blatant racist violence happening here and now as a continuation of a false dichotomy that has its origins in colonial historiography. It is an oversimplification and an exaggeration of the impact of colonial divisions on contemporary realities in Darfur. It is also an arrogant lack of respect for local knowledge and experience of the war on the ground by the people who have suffered through it.

In the two months I interviewed Darfurian refugees in Eastern Chad this spring I heard the same tale over and over again: “The Arabs came, killed my family, raped my wife, burned down my house and forced me to flee saying that the land should be cleared of all blacks”. If I were to follow Mamdani’s line of thought my reply would be: “No, you are not victims of the Arabs. The janjaweed are themselves victims of British colonial historiography that have falsely introduced a “native” vs. “settler” paradigm, which you can clearly find in MacMichael’s “A History of the Arabs in Sudan” from 1922”.”

By: ami

ami — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 17:51:07 +0000

TheIrie: you say much of the calls for intervention is not ‘about’ the victims. what about the calls from the victims themselves for intervention, or do you take the mamdani view that this is false consciousness on their part?
regarding the mewling about demonization of the Arab Sudanese, what of the Arab Sudanese who wept to me that he felt so ashamed to be Arab as he had been brought up to regard Darfuris as subhuman till he came t England and got to know them here (and has since risked his life to help them) Should I deny him the authenticity of his own experience, (rather than assure him that he is a good and brave person which is what I did)

By: SueR

SueR — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 16:49:11 +0000

As you well know Gordan, the inmates of Belsen were prisoners and slave labourers. If I had been alive then I would have argued for the RAF (or any airforce) to blow up the railway lines. I would also have argued/supported partisans fighting against the Nazi war machine, and if I had lived in an occupied country, I would like to think that I would have joined the Resistance. Having said that, I don’t think Europe or America should be thinking of taking over any part of Africa, because as we are seeing in Afghanistan and Iraq, it just doesn’t work. The people resent you and it doesn’t solve underlying problems. I would love to see peace in Dafur, I spent ten months in the Sudan in 1981 and there was civil conflict between the Dafuris and the Khartoum Government so the roots go deep.

By: Lbnaz

Lbnaz — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 16:27:57 +0000

Anti-imperialist Warmongering and Saber Rattling 101:

Hugo Chávez recently warned that the "winds of war" were blowing in South America, and called on his military to "prepare for combat" against neighboring Colombia

By: Gordon

Gordon — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 15:00:54 +0000

“I think it would be a mistake to recolonise any part of Africa. Let the people decide for themselves and if they make mistakes, tough titty as we say.”
I am not one of you lefties and if I lurk here it is,nevertheless, because what I read here makes a good deal of sense, usually.
But what you say SueR passes all limits. Did those who “lived” in Belsen “decide for themselves”?
Shame on you!

By: Lbnaz

Lbnaz — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 14:47:44 +0000

Yes, yes, but, given that he has commented here that the ONLY case that he is aware of in which a Human Rights NGO has politicized death toll stats by exaggerating them is the Save Darfur Coalition, what does Conor Foley think? Oh and by the by, interesting who Wikipedia lists as some of the critics of the Darfur campaign:

[Muslim Media Network] characterize the Save Darfur Coalition as Jewish-organized. The Conservative political commentator Justin Raimondo characterizes the Save Darfur Coalition as a "motley collection of liberal do-gooders, Hollywood glamour-pusses, and Christian zealouts". Yoshie Furuhashi, a Monthly Review editor, has criticized the "Save Darfur" campaign for U.S. intervention as 'imperialism' in humanitarian guise, combined with a strong tinge of anti-Arab prejudice [citation needed]. Republican presidential candidate and Congressman Ron Paul has criticized the Save Darfur coalition, callings its aims "unconstitutional" and claiming that it would be counterproductive to intervene in the Civil War in the Sudan because it would prolong it. Congressman Paul also opposes the Iraq War on similar grounds.