But first of all, Noam Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival is topping the the bestseller lists, after Chavez told people to read it during his recent UN speech. In the interests of increasing dialogue and, uh, blog traffic, you can check out my review of the book here.


The invasion's already begun - UN berets at a Save Darfur rally, New York City

The campaign for a Darfur intervention is reaching fever-pitch. On Sept. 17, rallies across North America demanded a UN peace-keeping force for the wartorn province of Sudan. In Toronto, retired General Romeo Dallaire said,

“Darfur is tasting, smelling, looking in every way, shape or form, like a repetition on a similar scale of what happened in Rwanda 12 years ago,” he said.

“We are going to witness again, with blood on our hands, the destruction of human beings who are exactly like us.”

The message is powerful, and not easily dismissed: the west is sitting on its hands. Our complacency and racism blinds us to a genocide in the making.

I don't doubt Dallaire's sincerity - he was deeply traumatized after his experiences in Rwanda and feels he's making up for it. The thousands of young people who came out to support Darfur are driven by empathy: the gut reaction to 'do something', when faced with other people's tragedy. I also hate how the left is always cast as a 'naysayer'. Liberals often claim "At least we're doing something!" I'd love to agree with the eager young activists who think that here, finally, they can make a difference.

But this campaign is deeply suspect. However noble it might sound, its politics, economics and ideology come from the Right. At its heart is the same old message that's played out in Iraq, Palestine and Haiti: imperialism.


"Funny how there's no one else here..."

What's at stake

The Dallaire article lays out the usual explanation:

The UN says more than 200,000 people have been killed in the conflict and more than two million have fled their homes.

The conflict began in early 2003 when ethnic African tribes revolted against the Khartoum government. The Arab-dominated Sudanese government has been accused of unleashing Arab militiamen known as Janjaweed, who have been blamed for widespread atrocities, including rapes and killings.

There is tremendous violence in Darfur. But the conflict didn't begin in 2003. It wasn't caused by "ethnic African tribes". And the Janjaweed aren't "Arab militiamen". To get to the truth, we need to learn the history that's lost beneath the spin.

This is another episode in Africa's longest-running civil war. It formally began in 1955, but it dates back to when the British carved up Sudan during colonial rule. According to the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, the British followed standard divide-and-rule tactics, deliberatly fostering ethnic and religious tensions:

The Northern Sudan was thus ruled as a colonial territory along Islamic/Arab lines with its future and cultural orientation towards Egypt and the Arab World, while Southern Sudan was ruled as an African colonial territory where African culture, language and Christianity were all encouraged to flourish in exclusion of anything Arab or Islamic, and with its future and cultural orientation towards Africa.

In 1947 the British reversed their policy, and made Sudan an independent nation again, with predictable results: "The failure of the colonial authorities to allow the people of the "Closed Districts" to exercise their right to self-determination is one of the main factors that contributed to the first civil war in the Sudan (1955-1972)."


"This land will be civilized, so help me God."
"Damn, my arm's tired."

That war killed at least 750,000 people. The north and south held an uneasy truce until 1983, when the Sudan People's Liberation Army was formed in response to government provocation, and the war began in earnest. The fortunes of the government and SPLA waxed and waned; numerous peace processes were attempted.

However, this wasn't limited to two sides. Both the ruling and rebellious factions suffered splits. The SPLA had been severely damaged after a failed offensive in 1990; the 2003 campaign was led by an SPLA breakaway, the Sudan Liberation Army.
During the most recent 'Naivasha' peace process, the government was split between those who supported it, and those who thought it made too many concessions to the rebels. The later created the infamous 'janjawid militias'.

Arabs vs. Africans?

The western media has spun this as a racial conflict. But as Prof. Mahmood Mamdani argues, race has little to do with it:

all parties involved in the Darfur conflict - whether they are referred to as "Arab" or as "African" - are equally indigenous and equally black. All are Muslims and all are local.

Arab is both a cultural identity adopted by nomads, and a political project by the government to define a Sudanese nation. Within that, 'Islam' has been used by religious political parties seeking power; within that, there are traditional, Sufi based parties and internationally-focused, 'political Islam' groups. The government was run by army officers and an Islamist movement; when they fell out in 1999, a faction organized the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) to regain power. It had created the Janjawid before this; now it purged them, leaving a looser, uncoordinated structure, "localized and multi- ethnic" and without central control.

Meanwhile, the SPLA first used the identity "African" to characterize the conflict as recently as 1990. There is no single identity in the north or south; this is why Mamdani suggests that it's politics, not religion or race, that's responsible for the atrocities. It makes it very difficult to call Darfur a case of genocide or ethnic cleansing.

Tomorrow: the role of the west.