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Bashir, Darfur and Using "Black" to Hide Genocide
You know all those business books - some of them really great - about the leadership lessons of Robert E. Lee and the leadership lessons of Ernest Shakleton and the leadership lessons of some other really great folks? There is also a terrifying book on the Art of Seduction which catalogs the dark side of human connivance, the ways that the bad eggs seduce us to accept evil (Hitler) or accept violence against ourselves, or go along with racism, sexual mutilation of women, sexual exploitation of children, ad nauseum ad infinitum.
The author of that latter needs to add another gem to the chapter on political sleeze. Omar al-Bashir, president of the Sudan, who is an Arab in charge of a mostly-Arab government of a roughly half-and-half Arab and Black African nation. The south is black and the north is white; the north is Muslim and the south is Christian and animist; the north has nothing and the south has oil; the north is in charge and the south finally got pissed and started an armed rebellion. In exchange for a pathetically minimal amount of home-rule, the south got quiet. The president of South Sudan died in a plane crash; Dr. John Garang would have been a great help in teh present agony had he lived; I dedicated my new book to him for good reason.
The area near Darfur has always been black farmers, situated near the western border about halfway between north and south. They got tired of high taxes and absolutely no say in their government and started being constantly-complaining pains in the butt, complete with some poorly-armed rebellion. THis was manna from heaven for the Arabs in Khartoum, a golden opportunity to do what they had been wanting to do for a long time - wipe out the troublemakers completely. [Note: intention to wipe out an ethnic group completely is the definition of genocide.] The plan was textbook perfect. First the Sudanese Air Force came in to blow the villages sky high. Then the government-sponsored and -armed "militias" were sent in to kill everyone who had survived the aerial bombardment. It's beautiiful. The Air Force is official; the militias are not. Officially, they are just patriotic Sudanese who decided one day to take those troublemakers to task. With advanced weapons. Which they somehow managed to buy on the open market, from their villages in the middle of God Knows Where, with an annual income of under $5/month.
And not just kill, of course. The rape squads who lie in wait outside the refugee camps, waiting for the women to come out to walk for miles to get water and firewood have been having their own effect. Women wander out into the desert and die. Or are so debilitated after several sessions of gang-rape that they are effectively dead as parents to their children. Who will also die.
Last week, the international community finally got its courage together and the International Criminal Court in the Hague brought in a verdict of Guilty against Bashir on war crimes and crimes against humanity and Not Proven on the charge of genocide, the first such indictment against a sitting Head of Government. [Charles Taylor and Slobodan Milosevec weren't technically HoG when they were indicted.] Good - so far. Bashir threw aid organizations out of his country, which he'd been itching for an excuse to do anyway - he WANTS every single troublemaking black in his country to die, after all.
The fact that Bashir tried to get Black African governments on HIS side by saying "We will not be intimidated by the white man's court," is not surprising. I mean, the guy's gotta lie; he can't argue on the facts because the truth is disgusting. So pretending that the white Arab president of a white-dominated goverment that is engaged in systematic genocide of a Black African population is a Black man standing up to white (colonial is the implication) men is not surprising. [Three cheers for the world community for finally growing a backbone, and I do mean world - the ICC is not Euro-dominated any more than the UN is.]
What is surprising, perplexing, stupefying, disgusting and more words of disdain than my thesaurus contains is that BLACK AFRICAN LEADERS ARE BUYING HIS INCREDIBLE BULL COOKIES.
Let that sink in for a few moments. Just sit with it.
A colonial Arab empire that has dominated Black Africans for decades and even now, when all other colonial empires have crumbled to dust, still exists, and captained by a white guy, has managed to convince leaders of millions of other Black Africans that it's OK for him to continue exterminating all teh Black Africans in his country. He has convinced them that he's Black. That he's a hero. That the rest of teh world with its newly-grown backbone is a bunch of racist colonialists.
A wonderful book entitled DOn't Think Of An Elephant explains the power of framing. The author explains how Republicans convinced Americans to vote against their best interests, their values, their very lives for twenty years, through the power of spin-doctoring. This guy Bashir is in a class that even Ronald Reagan coudln't touch.
There is a reason that most of the world considers the African Union a collosal joke and, gentle readers, They're All a Bunch of White Racists is not the correct answer. This kind of selling out of their own people is why. The pathetic facade that Thabo Mbeki, no successor to Nelson Mandela as president of South Africa, has made of his "mediating" the illegal coup of Robert Mugabe, in the face of his country's vote for another candidate is why. The number of military dictators (like Mugabe) who rule by terror is why. The fact that most [not all, there are some decent and courageous souls] Black African leaders will let themselves be manipulated like this is why.
If you refuse to condemn a man for murder or mass murder because he is of your race, you are a racist. If you refuse to condemn a man for mass murder because he convinces you he is of your race and he isn’t, you are both a racist and a fool.What Bashir is doing makes me sick and angry. But evil exists. It will always exist. The fact that it exists doesn't make me as sick and angry as the spectacle of Black Africa refusing to grow the backbone that this situation needs. You want respect? Stop blaming everything on your past. Be worthy of respect. Respect requires courage. We had one Nelson Mandela. There are other heroes out there. Dr Garang was one. Where are the others?