An Alternate View

Mahmood Mamdani gives us a refreshingly iconoclastic representation of the situation in Darfur in his essay: The politics of Naming, Genocide ,Civil War, Insurgency in the 8March London Review of Books. Noticing the difference in terminology between conflict in Sudan, Congo and Iraq he asks; what's in a name? A favorite subject of mine as well.

Lacking enough information I can not personally judge the use of the term "genocide" as it is applied, most assiduously by journalists such as Nicholas Kristoff but also by religious groups, human rights organizations and even our own George Bush (that well known humanitarian), to the civil war in Sudan. But Mr. Mamdani surprised me, and upset my own assumptions by asking; how do we explain the dominant narrative that violence in Darfur is perpetrated against "Africans" (the victims) by "Arabs"(the evil racists) ?How do you tell an African from an Arab? These meanings are contested and the UN commision report noted that"many Arabs in Darfur are opposed to the Janjawiid ,and some Arabs are fighting with the rebels..At the same time many non-Arabs are supporting the government and serving in it's army. The various tribes that have been the object of attacks and killings do not appear to make up ethnic groups distinct from the ethnic groups to which persons or militias which attack them belong." Mamdani also notices how well this "de-politicization" of the conflict facilitates it's absorbtion into the broader, poisoned discourse of "The War On Terror". I am reminded of Susan Sontags warnings against "demagogic appeals to cultural democracy that accompany...the ever tightening grip of plutocratic capitalism."

Accurate numbers are a real problem but assuming Darfur deaths somewhere in the range of 2 to 5 hundred thousand, it pales, horrendous as it is , to the over 4 million deaths in Congo since 1998 yet international intervention is discussed only in regards to Darfur.. We are led to understand these events in the context of the Rawandan massacres,described always as "senseless", even "evil" violence with, again, obvious victims and obvious perpetrators. And again we are urged to forget issues of power and politics, issues with which the US was itself involved with it's support of the RPF and it's commanding officer ,Paul Kagame.

Again,I don't pretend to know the situation in depth but a new perspective is challenging. Mr. Mamdini closes with this: "imperial interventions claim to have a dual purpose: on the one hand, to rescue minority victims of ongoing barbarities and, on the other, to quarantine majority perpetrators with the stated aim of civilizing them. Iraq should act as a warning on this score. "