Re: [Marxism] FW: A FACT SHEET ON THE CRISIS IN DARFUR!

["David Quarter" <davidquarter@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

  Why do you say "David Quarter wrote:" ? As you can see (?) the
subject heading says:  "FW" . In  the actual message, at the very
top, I also wrote: "from Jim Yarker". For the record, I'm not Jim
Yarker. And below the commentary on Sudan is another person's
signature.




**********************************************************************

Louis Proyect wrote:


> David Quarter wrote:
> > FACT: America has actively funded a terrorist rebel militia in the
> > South, known as the "Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA)," to fight
> > against the Sudanese government and spread disenchantment in the south
> > against the government in the north.
>
> I see. Before the USA stepped in to "spread disenchantment in the
> south," everything was hunky-dory. This sort of thing is an
> embarrassment to the radical movement.
>
> After independence in 1956, Khartoum's government tended to reflect the
> strong Arab nationalist dynamic that was at work throughout North Africa
> and the Middle East. When mixed with a "modernizing" sensibility of
> intellectuals and technocrats of a leftwing or CP background in the
> government, the net result was a mixture of paternalism and progressive
> attitudes directed toward the sub-Saharan sections of the country.
> Instead of sending Christian missionaries into the south as the British
> had done, they sent in Islamic preachers, opened Koranic schools and
> made Arabic mandatory. Such national and religious chauvinism led to the
> first revolt, which was led by the Anyanya, a guerrilla group who took
> their name from snake venom obtained by grinding up cobra heads.
>
> If you want to get a different take on how Muslims fucked over Animist
> peoples, see "Ceddo" by Ousmene Sembene, the great Senegalese director.
>
> In "Ceddo", the Animist-worshipping serfs of a small village in 19th
> century Senegal are miserably oppressed by organized religion--mainly
> Islam--and by their feudal overlords. Although the structures are much
> more modest than those found in any feudal society (Islamic services are
> held on the open ground bounded by pebbles), the bonds enforced by
> custom are the same. The ceddo, or commoners, must pay tribute to their
> King in the form of firewood bundles. An Islamic caste also takes
> tribute in the form of slaves, who are exchanged for guns or cloth in a
> general store run by a white man. To round out the microcosm of feudal
> society, there is a single white Catholic priest who is barely tolerated
> by the Moslems.
>
> This mixture of ethnic, class and religious oppression *predates* the
> CIA and Western interference. Remnants of Africa's past are *reinforced*
> by imperialism, but the ruling classes in Sudan, Ethiopia, Nigeria and
> elsewhere have refused to attack the material foundations of privilege.
> If Marxism cannot put a distance between itself and this kind of rotten
> social system, it has nothing to say to the African people.
>
> --
> Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
>
>
>
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