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May 19, 2006
Dar Fur - Intra-African Bloodshed or Why I have been banging on against the idiotic "genocide" spin
I was surprised and pleased (in a way, although in another way not pleased, given the subject, i.e. bloodshed) to find in The New York Times an article illustrating why I have been banging on about the idiocy of viewing the Dar Fur situation as a 'genocide' rather than a nasty case of ethnic warfare between sedentary and nomadic peoples in a region fast running up against an ecologic/demographic wall.
I will expand on this later, but this is a perfect illustration of the problem of simple minded declarations, like Kevin Drum's that arguing over Dar Fur is hair splitting. No, it is not, for if you charge in with simple minded ideas of the nature of the conflict, the actors involved, you are going to end up fighting the wrong battles - just like in Somalia, where Black Hat - White Hat American simpletonism fucked their own project.
Posted by The Lounsbury at May 19, 2006 06:40 AM
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MENA Fringe
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Comments
So this means the black Arabs are killing the blacks who are Africans but Muslims not Christians but the Arabs aren't black really and the blacks who are Africans are fighting the other black Africans who are like the black (or non-black) Arabs who are also Muslims but the animists are not Arabs who, again, are Muslims except in the south where they are not Arabs but Africans and Christians when not animists but there it is also genocide but not nomadic and none are Sudanese, but the rebels are...
oh f**k it.
Posted by: matthew hogan at May 19, 2006 05:09 PM
The problem is that a lot of wars, especially "civil wars" (e.g. any war without two sides led by governments clearly responsible for everything their soldiers do on both sides), are like this. The uncertainty (and the cost of making "wrong" decisions) are so high that all manner of oddball and weird cooperative arrangements form, for no other reason that they offer some stability and predictability.
Posted by: kao_hsien_chih at May 20, 2006 02:38 AM
