Colonialism is alive and well

What is happening to Sudan is absolutely ridiculous and completely unacceptable. Omar Bashir has been an unmitigated disaster for the country and weakened it to the point where its enemies are now seeking to disembowel it. By enemies I mean the United States, Israel and France in particular. You see the year 2003 saw not only a grab for the resources of Iraq but also those of Sudan. Yet it seems the dismemberment of Sudan is not very important for Western news sources anymore, nor is it so for any of the stupid people who wore Darfur rubber bands.

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Whew, I was getting worried: "The nationalities of the dead were not immediately known but diplomats who have examined the manifest said that almost all the names appear to be Arabic."

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The slow dissection of Sudan

Lies, lies and more lies. Sudan is now the next chip which is being targeted in the gradual dismemberment of the Arab and Islamic world. "Armies head for central Sudan" which, I might add, is incredibly oil rich. Notice that the world's media are now very quiet about Darfur, what with more pressing concerns such as Tibet and now, of course, the false indignation and outrage over the Burmese government's handling of it's crisis. First Somalia and now Sudan...I don't expect Omar Bashir to hold on much longer and we will probably see the dissection of Sudan imminently into a poorer and defeated Arab/Muslim north and a pro-Western, Christian south - with a lot of oil...

If you are a Sudanese blogger please do get in touch, I have many questions to ask.

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Last fall, shortly after I returned from Nigeria, I was accosted by a perky blond college student whose blue eyes seemed to match the "African" beads around her wrists."Save Darfur!" she shouted from behind a table covered with pamphlets urging students to TAKE ACTION NOW! STOP GENOCIDE IN DARFUR!

My aversion to college kids jumping onto fashionable social causes nearly caused me to walk on, but her next shout stopped me.

"Don't you want to help us save Africa?" she yelled.

It seems that these days, wracked by guilt at the humanitarian crisis it has created in the Middle East, the West has turned to Africa for redemption. Idealistic college students, celebrities such as Bob Geldof and politicians such as Tony Blair have all made bringing light to the dark continent their mission. They fly in for internships and fact-finding missions or to pick out children to adopt in much the same way my friends and I in New York take the subway to the pound to adopt stray dogs.

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On Darfur

"The CIA, faced with the impossibility of infiltrating white Americans into radical groups in the Middle East, is recruiting Arab-speaking Sudanese citizens, in spite of sanctions against the country over the killings in Darfur, it emerged yesterday."

"But relations have been soured by Darfur, a high-profile issue in the US, with campaigners calling for sanctions against Khartoum."

Does anybody still doubt that the Darfur issue is a prepackaged crisis presented to people in the U.S. as a 'safe' outlet for their outrage?

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Darfur: Guilty about feeling guilty

"We decided the situation in Darfur was a genocide crisis back in the summer of 2004 based on a wealth of evidence," said John Heffernan, a spokesman for the Holocaust Memorial Museum. "We are trying to honour the memory of the Holocaust by responding to what is happening today. We felt we needed better visual representation and that was when we teamed up with Google Earth."

What can I say? Honestly what can I say? As'ad Abu Khalil labels Darfur as a crisis which has been used to alleviate Western guilt or culpability over it's policies to the Middle East. He says that it is a cause which has been deemed 'safe' for rich white kids to feel outraged about, ignoring what is happening in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Somalia. He says it is a cause that celebrities can now use to take disaster holidays, again, because it is a 'safe' issue.

I think he's right.

I feel guilty about feeling guilty about Darfur, even though it is a cause that I know I should feel guilty about. I know now of the United States, Britain, Israel and imperialism what I knew not before.

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The Arab world must pay attention to what is happening in the Horn of Africa, NOW. Israeli and American interest in the region goes way back, but there has been much more activity lately.

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To get what you want achieved, it helps to create an artificial argument that fools can use to defend you with while you get on with it. In America's case, Darfur is the perfect example.

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(2005)

"A millionaire British businessman, Friedhelm Eronat, was named last night as the purchaser of oil rights in the Darfur region of Sudan, where the regime is accused of war crimes and where millions of tribespeople are alleged to have been forced to flee, amid mass rapes or murders."

"The disclosure that Britain is serving as a base for question able African oil transactions comes in the run-up to the July G8 summit at Gleneagles, at which Tony Blair's central theme will be the need to help Africa. "

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