[Peace-discuss] Informative Letter in today's DI by Aisha Sobh re Darfur

[David Green]

Letter: Take action on Darfur

Posted: 2/21/06

This week marks Darfur Awareness Week for some campus
and community groups. Americans abhor the treatment
that ordinary Sudanese have faced for decades. It is a
tragedy, and Muslims feel this like other people. It
is important to understand the history of the area, to
avoid black and white labels that appear to put Arab
Muslims against Black Christians or indigenous African
religious adherents. This is a gross inaccuracy that
will serve political interests that desire hatred and
misunderstanding. Only by understanding the roots of
the problems in Sudan, can there be success in finding
solutions. 

This is precisely what the United Nations Mission in
the Sudan is attempting to accomplish. It is a
difficult road that requires much mediation,
particularly when developing countries are bearing the
brunt of dangerous work, and western nations are
continually reneging on their promises of help.
Besides the war, some of the roots of this situation
are the colonial vestiges of Anglo-Egyptian rule, a
government administration unable to meet even the
basic demands of infrastructure for all but a few in
Khartoum, (typical of underdeveloped countries), an
Arabized (yet Black African), urban minority in the
north ineptly ruling over a majority mosaic of
infighting ethnicities, religions, tribal and
political affiliations, and regional alliances. There
are shrinking resources, rapid urbanization (and the
accompanying loss of familiar cultural norms),
increasing desertification, enormous oil potential
attracting greedy corporations and nations who will
fight over the concessions, the hardening of racial
identities by outside forces (who have also created a
new market for the slave trade and corruption through
the 'buying back' of slaves, serving cynical militias
and destroying indigenous ways of reconciliation)-but
it is not a simplistic 'Muslims versus Christians.'
For more information, read Tufts-Fletcher Forum of
World Affairs for Winter 2006. Educate yourself.


Aisha Lamb Sobh 

Graduate Student 

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