Well, at least the U.S. isn't the only one who doesn't give a shite about Darfur.
George Packer has a dispiriting editorial about the ongoing crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan in this week's issue of The New Yorker (issue of 9 October 2006, published 2 October 2006).
(And can we just say here that "crisis" is an almost offensive euphemism for what is happening in Darfur? When even the current U.S. administration admits that "the death of several hundred thousand people in Darfur" is in fact "genocide," you can rest assured that no one in Darfur is making s'mores, holding hands and singing "Kumbaya.")
"Until recently, it was striking how little the élites of nearby Islamic capitals like Khartoum, Rabat, and Cairo knew or cared about the slaughter of Muslims in Darfur. It almost made their denunciations of civilian deaths in Iraq and Lebanon seem like selective outrage. That has begun to change, though not the way one might expect. Last month, an Egyptian lawyer explained to the [London] Times why Muslim sentiment is so inflamed against the West. 'The people embrace their Arab-Muslim identity and feel an injustice is done upon them in more than one place - Iraq, Palestine, Darfur, Afghanistan, Lebanon,' he said. Darfur, where an Arab government unleashed Arab militias to commit massacres against Muslim African farmers, has joined the growing list of Arab grievances - against the West."
This whisks the cheesecloth from the ugly truth about Islam that Muslim apologists like to peddle: that el Islam is a religion that transcends all ethnic and racial barriers. In truth, Islam in and of itself no more inoculates its believers against racial and ethnic prejudice than does Christianity. (Or, for that matter, any other religion that you care to name.)
Packer goes on to write:
"Unfortunately, the non-Western powers care even less about Darfur than the Western powers do. Arab governments stand behind the Sudanese regime. China, whose forty-per-cent interest in Sudanese oil gives it real leverage over the government in Khartoum, has both economic and strategic reasons to want to see America stymied by Sudan. Russia regards any U.N. intervention as a bad precedent for its own war crimes in Chechnya."
But wait: it gets better.
Ned Goldstein, writing yesterday in the World War 4 Report (a blog which purports to deconstruct the "War on Terrorism"), notes how the Sudanese government has tried to characterize the conflict in Darfur as the fruit of a "Zionist conspiracy," and that the thus far bootless campaign to save Darfur is a "conspiracy" launched by the American Jewry:
"As early as Dec. 21, 2004, Republic of Sudan Radio reported that Sudanese Interior Minister Ahmad Harun, flanked by two other government ministers, 'accused the Zionist entity of supplying the rebels with weapons in the framework of Israel's plan that targets Arab nations.'
"In May 2005, the Sudanese State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Samir al-Shaybani told a Syrian interviewer: 'We can even say that these powers want to dismember Sudan and replace this government with another one that serves their strategic interests, represented in obliterating Sudan's Arab identity. Top among these powers is the Zionist lobby, which considered the Darfur issue primarily a Jewish issue requiring solidarity between the Jews and some African tribes, which claim to be in conflict with Arab tribes. The Darfur issue has thus been depicted within the framework of mass annihilation. The Zionist groups and US Administration played on this theory and dedicated huge resources and large media and diplomatic campaigns to promote this erroneous diagnosis of the conflict.'
....
"In 2004, the Save Darfur coalition was launched in the US. An article in the April 27 2006 Jerusalem Post, describing the April 30 rally in Washington DC, the first large mass action on the Darfur issue, declared, 'US Jews leading Darfur rally planning,' and introduced the 'Save Darfur' coalition that is now placing full-page ads in major newspapers and ubiquitous television spots. 'Little known,' the paper said, 'is that the coalition, which has presented itself as "an alliance of over 130 diverse faith-based, humanitarian, and human rights organization" was actually begun exclusively as an initiative of the American Jewish community.' The paper adds that it continues to be 'heavily weighted with a politically and religiously diverse collection of local and national Jewish group.' In New York, the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan, United Jewish Communities, UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs sponsored the first full-page ad in the New York Times. The paper also noted that while large evangelical Christian groups were in the coalition, that these groups had not done the 'kind of extensive grassroots outreach that will produce numbers.'
"The Washington Post reported April 27 that the rally organizers scrambled at the last minute to add two speakers from Darfur because of objections from Sudanese immigrants that the speakers list contained eight western Christians, seven Jews, four US politicians, several celebrities, but no Muslims and no one from Darfur. James Zogby of the Arab-American Institute participated, explaining that 'it was important that Arab Americans make clear our deep concern with the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. Our presence in this multi-ethnic multi-religious coalition sends this message.'
...
"The Jerusalem Post also said: 'There are critics who say the heavy Jewish involvement might have deterred some other groups from joining. The fact that the aggressors in Darfur are Arab Muslims -- though it should be said that the victims are also mostly Muslim -- and are supported by a regime in Khartoum that is backed by the Arab League has made some people question the true motives of some of the Jewish organizations involved in the rally.'"
So, class, are we clear? Muslim Arabs slaughtering Muslim Africans? Blame the Jews! Said killings being dubbed "genocide" by much of the free world? Blame the Jews! Protests against said massacres-cum-genocide? Blame the Jews! A network of charity and humanitarian groups trying to bring relief to the region? Blame the Jews!
Life is so simple once you find that switch labeled "cognitive reasoning" inside your skull and flip that sucker to "off."
(And can we just say here that "crisis" is an almost offensive euphemism for what is happening in Darfur? When even the current U.S. administration admits that "the death of several hundred thousand people in Darfur" is in fact "genocide," you can rest assured that no one in Darfur is making s'mores, holding hands and singing "Kumbaya.")
"Until recently, it was striking how little the élites of nearby Islamic capitals like Khartoum, Rabat, and Cairo knew or cared about the slaughter of Muslims in Darfur. It almost made their denunciations of civilian deaths in Iraq and Lebanon seem like selective outrage. That has begun to change, though not the way one might expect. Last month, an Egyptian lawyer explained to the [London] Times why Muslim sentiment is so inflamed against the West. 'The people embrace their Arab-Muslim identity and feel an injustice is done upon them in more than one place - Iraq, Palestine, Darfur, Afghanistan, Lebanon,' he said. Darfur, where an Arab government unleashed Arab militias to commit massacres against Muslim African farmers, has joined the growing list of Arab grievances - against the West."
This whisks the cheesecloth from the ugly truth about Islam that Muslim apologists like to peddle: that el Islam is a religion that transcends all ethnic and racial barriers. In truth, Islam in and of itself no more inoculates its believers against racial and ethnic prejudice than does Christianity. (Or, for that matter, any other religion that you care to name.)
Packer goes on to write:
"Unfortunately, the non-Western powers care even less about Darfur than the Western powers do. Arab governments stand behind the Sudanese regime. China, whose forty-per-cent interest in Sudanese oil gives it real leverage over the government in Khartoum, has both economic and strategic reasons to want to see America stymied by Sudan. Russia regards any U.N. intervention as a bad precedent for its own war crimes in Chechnya."
But wait: it gets better.
Ned Goldstein, writing yesterday in the World War 4 Report (a blog which purports to deconstruct the "War on Terrorism"), notes how the Sudanese government has tried to characterize the conflict in Darfur as the fruit of a "Zionist conspiracy," and that the thus far bootless campaign to save Darfur is a "conspiracy" launched by the American Jewry:
"As early as Dec. 21, 2004, Republic of Sudan Radio reported that Sudanese Interior Minister Ahmad Harun, flanked by two other government ministers, 'accused the Zionist entity of supplying the rebels with weapons in the framework of Israel's plan that targets Arab nations.'
"In May 2005, the Sudanese State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Samir al-Shaybani told a Syrian interviewer: 'We can even say that these powers want to dismember Sudan and replace this government with another one that serves their strategic interests, represented in obliterating Sudan's Arab identity. Top among these powers is the Zionist lobby, which considered the Darfur issue primarily a Jewish issue requiring solidarity between the Jews and some African tribes, which claim to be in conflict with Arab tribes. The Darfur issue has thus been depicted within the framework of mass annihilation. The Zionist groups and US Administration played on this theory and dedicated huge resources and large media and diplomatic campaigns to promote this erroneous diagnosis of the conflict.'
....
"In 2004, the Save Darfur coalition was launched in the US. An article in the April 27 2006 Jerusalem Post, describing the April 30 rally in Washington DC, the first large mass action on the Darfur issue, declared, 'US Jews leading Darfur rally planning,' and introduced the 'Save Darfur' coalition that is now placing full-page ads in major newspapers and ubiquitous television spots. 'Little known,' the paper said, 'is that the coalition, which has presented itself as "an alliance of over 130 diverse faith-based, humanitarian, and human rights organization" was actually begun exclusively as an initiative of the American Jewish community.' The paper adds that it continues to be 'heavily weighted with a politically and religiously diverse collection of local and national Jewish group.' In New York, the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan, United Jewish Communities, UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs sponsored the first full-page ad in the New York Times. The paper also noted that while large evangelical Christian groups were in the coalition, that these groups had not done the 'kind of extensive grassroots outreach that will produce numbers.'
"The Washington Post reported April 27 that the rally organizers scrambled at the last minute to add two speakers from Darfur because of objections from Sudanese immigrants that the speakers list contained eight western Christians, seven Jews, four US politicians, several celebrities, but no Muslims and no one from Darfur. James Zogby of the Arab-American Institute participated, explaining that 'it was important that Arab Americans make clear our deep concern with the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. Our presence in this multi-ethnic multi-religious coalition sends this message.'
...
"The Jerusalem Post also said: 'There are critics who say the heavy Jewish involvement might have deterred some other groups from joining. The fact that the aggressors in Darfur are Arab Muslims -- though it should be said that the victims are also mostly Muslim -- and are supported by a regime in Khartoum that is backed by the Arab League has made some people question the true motives of some of the Jewish organizations involved in the rally.'"
So, class, are we clear? Muslim Arabs slaughtering Muslim Africans? Blame the Jews! Said killings being dubbed "genocide" by much of the free world? Blame the Jews! Protests against said massacres-cum-genocide? Blame the Jews! A network of charity and humanitarian groups trying to bring relief to the region? Blame the Jews!
Life is so simple once you find that switch labeled "cognitive reasoning" inside your skull and flip that sucker to "off."