Re: [Marxism] opposing views on Darfur

["Lenin's Tomb" <leninstombblog@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 4/8/07, Dbachmozart@xxxxxxx <Dbachmozart@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> (http://www.blackcommentator.com/224/224_mamdani_darfur_genocide_denialist_mngxitama_guest.html)

Andile Mngxitama's attack on Mahmood Mamdani is a grotesque slander,
and a complete and utter failure as an argument, relying on bald
assertion, wild overstatement and mischaracterisation.  He accuses
Mamdani of "Arab settlerist" sympathies for not accepting the
'genocide' narrative (because he insists that the term has a specific
meaning, and that language matters), for not accepting that the war
boils down to an Arab colonialist enterprise (which it doesn't, it is
a struggle by the Nile Valley ruling class to keep its booty).  He
accuses Mamdani of tribalism, but insists on the sterile Arab-Black
African dichotomy - Arabs living in Sudan are therefore alien,
colonist settlers, in toto, without qualification or exception.  He
describes the victims in Darfur as "Black Africans" as if the
perpetrators are not also Black Africans.  As far as Darfur is
concerned, both groups are African, both are black, both are Muslims
and both are Darfurians.  As Alex De Waal pointed out, depicting the
conflict in this way has been tactically useful for the Khartoum
government: "While insisting that the conflict is tribal and local, it
turns the moral loading of the term 'Arab' to its advantage, by
appealing to fellow members of the Arab League that Darfur represents
another attempt by the west (and in particular the U.S.) to demonize
the Arab world." Far more importantly, this focus on marauding Arab
militias, racialises a multifaceted struggle that is political and
economic in origins.

What is more, when Mngxitama really wants to do some damage, he
accuses Mamdani of legalism, and proceeds to ask, effectively, if the
facts really matter.  "Does it really matter whether it was 200,000 or
700,000 people killed in a single region?"  Yes it does, it really
makes a difference.  Does it really matter if there is a plan to wipe
out Darfurians?  Yes it does.  Can one carry out indiscriminate
massacres without planning genocide?  Yes, one can.  Truth matters.

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