Muslim India

ISRAEL WAS THERE IN DHARFUR, WHEN THE WORLD WAS YET TO HEAR THE NAME OF DHARFUR. WHY SHOULD ISRAEL HAVE A POST IN THAT BACK OF BEYOND FOREIGN LAND, UNLESS IT HAS BEEN PLANNING ITS TRADEMARK CONSPIRACY OF WARS, SUBVERSION AND DOMINATION IN AREAS WITH HIGH ECONOMIC OR POLITICAL POTENTIAL. ISRAEL'S INTERNATIONAL CLOUT IS ALL TOO APPARENT WHEN A MUSLIM PRESIDENT OF AFRICA'S LARGEST NATION WITH IMMENSE ECONOMIC POTENTIAL IS THREATENED WITH AN ARREST WARRANT FROM INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT, WHICH IS SO CONVENIENTLY BOYCOTTED BY BOTH THE US AND ISRAEL. IT IS INTRIGUING WHY THE WORLD MEDIA HAS BEEN ALLOWED TO REMAIN SILENT ON ISRAEL'S COMPLICITY IN DHARFUR AND HOW GADHAFI GOT THE NERVE TO TAKE UP THE NAME OF THE DEVIL THAT HAUNTS AFRICA.


GHULAM MUHAMMED, MUMBAI




Gadhafi: Israel responsible for Darfur crisis


February 24, 2009

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Libyan President Muammar Gadhafi said Israel is to
blame for the crisis in Darfur.

Gadhafi, president of the African Union, said Tuesday that "foreign
forces," including Israel, are to blame for the genocide in the Sudan
region.

"We discovered that some of the main leaders of the Darfur rebels
have opened offices in Tel Aviv and hold meetings with the military
there to add fuel to the conflict fire," the Libyan state news agency
Jana quoted Gadhafi as saying, Ha'aretz reported.

Gadhafi urged the International Criminal Court to stop proceedings to
decide whether to issue a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President
Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who is accused of masterminding the genocide.

"Why do we have to hold President Bashir or the Sudanese government
responsible when the Darfur problem was caused by outside parties, and
Tel Aviv, for example, is behind the Darfur crisis?" he said.

===

Analyzing Darfur's Conflict of Definitions
Interview With Professor Mahmood Mamdani
By Isma’il Kushkush
IOL Correspondent — Sudan

http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1234631424592&pagename=Zone-English-Muslim_Affairs/MAELayout


If you define it as a "war of liberation", you have a different attitude to it... If you define "violence" as "self-defense" or as "aggression" you have a different attitude to that violence. (PiD Team)

"How you define the [Darfur] problem shapes the solution," says a world renowned Africa specialist in an interview with IslamOnline.net.

Professor Mahmood Mamdani of Columbia University, US believes that defining the conflict as Arab against African is inaccurate and says much more about the potency of race in the West rather than the relevance of the notion in Darfur. He believes that estimates of 400,000 dead in Darfur are inflated, irresponsible and unrealistic.

Mamdani, who was named as one of the top 100 public intellectuals in the world by the US magazine Foreign Affairs in 2008, is from Uganda, and is the current chair of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), Dakar, Senegal.

He is the author of numerous books and articles, including the book Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. His upcoming book, Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, politics and the War on Terror will be published in English by Pantheon (Random House, New York) on March 17, 2009 and by Verso (London) a month later.

Following is the full interview conducted by IOL correspondent in Khartoum, Sudan, Isma'il Kushkush.

• "Black Africans" Against "Arabs"?
• Media Usage of African vs. Arab
• A "Genocide"?
• "Genocide" vs. "Counter-insurgency"
• "Dead" vs. "Killed" Controversy
• Contrast in Numbers of Dead
• "Right" vs. "Wrong" to Avoid Political Complexity
• Darfur's Terminology: Of Importance?

IslamOnline.net (IOL): The conflict in Darfur is often described in the media and by activists as a war pitting "black Africans" against "Arabs". How accurate do you think this description is?

Prof. Mahmood Mamdani: Even if you take the terms for granted, the majority of the "Arabs" in Darfur — the southern Rozayqat [Arab clans] — are not involved in the conflict. If you narrow the focus to those who are involved in the conflict, which is the northern Rozayqat, the Fur, the Masaleet, and the Zaghawah, then you realize that the distinction which best captures the difference between them is that the northern Rozayqat are those tribes in Darfur who received no [tribal] homeland, no "dar", in the colonial dispensation, because the colonial dispensation did not give a tribal homeland to those who were fully nomadic and were thus without settled villages. At the same time, the colonial dispensation gave the largest homelands to peasant tribes with settled villages... Please continue reading the full answer for this question here

Media Usage of African vs. Arab

IOL: Why do you think that activists and the media, especially the Western, define the conflict in Darfur in such a simplified manner: African vs. Arab?

Mamdani: Well, I think it is political. You can make sense of it not by focusing on those they are defining, but on their audience. Whereas the former live in Darfur, their audience is in the West. They understand that the Western audience would be quick to grasp a racialized distinction and would be easy to mobilize around it. It says much more about the potency of the history of race in the West rather than the relevance of the notion of race in Darfur.


A "Genocide"?

IOL: The conflict in Darfur is described in some corners as "genocide", while others reject that term and use "civil war". Can you comment on the usage of the term "genocide"; is it accurate to describe conflict in Darfur as "genocide"?

Mamdani: If you read the two international reports on Darfur, one from the UN Commission on Darfur and the other from the International Criminal Court (ICC), you will find no great disagreement over how many people have died. The real disagreement is on what to call it. The UN Commission says that this is a "counter-insurgency". They say the killings took place as a consequence of an effort to militarily defeat an insurgency. The ICC says no, this is evidence of a larger intention to kill the groups in question, the Fur, the Masaleet, and the Zaghawah.

How do you prove it? The claim is not made on the basis of those that have actually been killed; the claim is that they would be killed if the conflict went on because that is the intention of the perpetrators. From this point of view, the only way to arrest the killing is to arrest the political leadership of Sudan, and not to urge the two sides to negotiate. The UN Commission was arguing the reverse; that all efforts should be invested in negotiations and in stopping the conflict. The ICC seems to be arguing the opposite; that negotiations would only appease and give time to those who are bent on genocide. It seems to me that the ICC is responding not to what is going on in Darfur but to a particular constituency in the West.


"Genocide" vs. "Counter-insurgency"

Only if you call Darfur "genocide" you can justify an external intervention; if you call it "counter-insurgency", intervention becomes an "invasion" of Darfur.
IOL: Why do you think the term "genocide" has been used to describe the conflict in Darfur but not in Congo or Iraq despite the similarities in the conflicts that pit the "state" against an "insurgency"?

Mamdani: The conflicts in Congo and Iraq are different; the scale of killings is much higher. In Congo it is said to be four to five million. In Iraq it is said to have exceeded a million. So from that point of view, these conflicts are much worse than that in Darfur. The conflict in Iraq arises from an occupation and resistance to an occupation. The conflict in Darfur started as a civil war between tribes in Darfur, 1987 and 1989, and the government was not involved at all. The government became involved, first in 1995 and then 2003, but it is still not an occupation, it is an internal conflict.

So why would what's happening in Darfur be described as "genocide" while the numbers involved are less than in Iraq and when the conflict began as a civil war between tribes internal to Darfur and only then developed into an insurgency against the central government, followed by a counter-insurgency in response to that insurgency? Why?

The answer is basically that in international law "counter-insurgency" is considered a legitimate response by a government to an "insurgency"; "genocide" is not. Only if you call Darfur "genocide" you can justify an external intervention in Darfur. If you call it "counter-insurgency", intervention becomes an "invasion" of Darfur. That's the reason.


"Dead" vs. "Killed" Controversy

IOL: The number of "dead" in Darfur has been an issue of controversy. Can you comment on the studies made on this topic and is there a distinction between the terms "dead" and "killed" in Darfur?

Mamdani: We are fortunate that there was actually a review of all the major studies estimating the mortality in Darfur. The review was in 2006 by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) which is an audit agency of the US government. The GAO was asked to review six different studies of mortality in Darfur, including a study sponsored by the US state department estimating nearly 400,000 dead over eighteen months in 2003-2004, at the high end, and at the low end a study by the World Health Organization (WHO) estimating 70,000 dead over roughly the same period.

The WHO study made a distinction between those "dead" and those "killed". It said that roughly 80% of these 70,000 had died from malnutrition, dysentery, from the effects of drought and desertification, and 20% from violence.

The GAO got together with and asked the American Academy of Sciences (AAS) to nominate a team of twelve experts. These experts went over the six studies, and they concluded that the high end studies were totally unreliable in terms of methodology, in terms of projection. Their findings are on the websitewww.gao.gov. These were sent to the US State Department — which agreed with the GAO in writing — and to Congress, and then to the media, which basically ignored it. I find it quite amazing that it did not have any impact on the public debate in the United States or in the West. The public debate continued to be dominated by the Save Darfur Coalition and its totally inflated, irresponsible, and unrealistic estimates of 400,000 dead. The problem is that this is a very politicized movement which has had no effective counter-response.


Contrast in Numbers of Dead


There is refusal to acknowledge that people are also dying from other causes, drought and desertification. So instead of a debate on how many could have been saved had there been no conflict, there is simply silence. (Reuters Photo)
IOL: Whatever the real numbers of dead in Darfur are, no one can deny a tragedy has occurred. But why do you think there is a contrast in the numbers of dead used by activist groups, the media, and even governments?

Mamdani: I think the answer is two fold: One, there is a legitimate debate. Let's say, take the WHO figures, 70,000 died. 20,000 roughly died from violence, 50,000 roughly died from non-violent causes, mainly children dying from dysentery, things like that. Now the debate is this: One group says those who died from violence are the only ones who died from the conflict. The other groups say: Not really. Many of those who died from non-violent causes like dysentery really died from indirect effects of the conflict because the conflict stopped supplies from coming in. From this point of view, those who could have been rescued died, they died of dysentery, but really, had it not been because of the conflict, they would have been saved. That is a legitimate debate. It is a debate that appears in all cases like in the case of the American Indians who died in the Indian genocide you will find many died from diseases, like smallpox, which they did not have to die from. That is a legitimate debate.

There is a second debate that is not legitimate, which is entirely political. The best example is the Save Darfur Coalition and their figures of 400,000. Here you find two things: One you find an extrapolation which is completely unjustifiable and unwarranted. The GAO showed that they [Save Darfur Coalition] extrapolated from deaths in refugee camps in Chad without taking into account any local variations.

They also extrapolate from death rates from 2003, 2004, when the conflict was at its highest, by assuming that the same rate continued in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. This is how the UN got its figure of 300,000 [last year] when Holmes, the undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs said: "It was 200,000 in 2005 therefore it must be 300,000 now". "Therefore", meaning, if the same rate continues which is patently absurd, because the UN's own people on the ground showed that the mortality rates — not just deaths from killings — dropped low in Darfur starting January 2005. It was less than 200 per month, in other words, less than it would take to call Darfur an "emergency". So this kind of presumption, that nothing has changed, and therefore you just extrapolate from pre-existing rates, is totally unjustifiable.

Also unjustifiable is the Save Darfur Coalition's refusal to acknowledge that people are also dying from another cause, drought and desertification. So instead of a debate on how many of those could have been saved had there been no conflict, there is simply silence. This too is a deliberate denial to acknowledge a developed catalogued by the UN's own agency.


"Right" vs. "Wrong" to Avoid Political Complexity

IOL: The conflict in Darfur is portrayed sometimes as a "moral issue"; one that pits "right" against "wrong" as opposed to a "political issue" with its various complications. Can you comment on that, and why do think it is portrayed as such?

Mamdani: It is very important how you define the conflict. In retrospect, one can see that none of those who were involved in this conflict when it began in 1987-1989 as a civil war — the northern Rozayqat one side, the Fur, the Masaleet, and the Zaghawah on the other side — really had control over the issues that triggered the conflict. The issues were no doubt complex.

The really long term issues stemmed from how the British redesigned the hakura [land] system that came out of the Sultanate of Darfur. It eliminated individual ownership and re-divided all the land as "tribal land" with larger hakuras for peasant tribes, smaller ones for semi-nomadic tribes with cattle and no hakuras for fully nomadic tribes with camels. That was one issue.

The second trigger was ecological, the expanding desert, pushing the tribes in the north down south, leading to the conflict around Jebal Marra. In 1995, the government tried to solve this conflict by giving land to tribes without hakura, but they should have realized that since all the land in Darfur was already divided up, to do it by taking lands from tribes with hakura would restart the conflict, as indeed happened.

In 2003/2004 when the insurgency began, the government responded to it with a purely security framework with no regards for the issues that had led to this conflict with no attempt to solve the basic problem. Because the rebel movements are anchored in those tribes with hakuras, they are not raising the question of land; the question that pushed the hakura-less tribes into the conflict. The government is simply looking at the security question and the issues being raised by the rebels which is the marginalization of Darfur, but not looking at the issues internal to Darfur which created the conflict in the first place. So, the government has a very narrow vision. The government does not seem to have a Darfur vision. It is evident that Darfur is marginal. There don't seem to be people with a Darfur vision in the government.

Those outside of Sudan, the Save Darfur movement in the US, are looking at it from their own vantage point which is not simply a global vantage point or a West-centered one, but worse, it's the vantage point of the most reactionary circles in the US, those waging the "war on terror". They are painting this conflict not as a conflict over questions of land, not a conflict over questions of law and order, an insurgency/counter-insurgency — which is how the Government of Sudan is seeing it —, but as a conflict between "Arab" and "African"; they've racialized the conflict completely. They are partly responsible for the conflict being racialized. Consider the fact that it is a much more racialized conflict now than it was five years ago.

When the Save Darfur movement claims that this violence is African versus Arab its explanation is not historical or political. Its explanation basically is that the Arabs are "race-intoxicated" and they are just trying to wipe out the Africans. The Save Darfur movement does not educate the people they mobilize about the history of Darfur. It does not educate them about what issues drive the conflict. So they know nothing about the politics of Darfur, the history of Darfur, the history of the conflict. All they know is that Darfur is a place where "Arabs" are trying to eliminate "Africans". That's all. Darfur is a place where "evil lives", so they have completely "moralized" the conflict and presented it as a struggle against evil. This evil is thus portrayed as ahistorical, or trans-historical, living outside of history — except that evil is said to live in this place called Darfur and Sudan.

The conclusion means of course that you have to eliminate this "evil". There is no settlement to a conflict like that. You can't settle it, you can't negotiate, there is only one way to have peace and which is to eliminate the evil. So ironically they are trying to create that which they say they are combating.


Darfur's Terminology: Of Importance?

IOL: We've discussed the issue of terminology in the Darfur conflict: "genocide" vs. "counter-insurgency"; "African" vs. "Arab"; "killed" vs. "died"; "moral issue" vs. "political issue". Some would argue that it really does not make a difference if we make these distinctions. How important is it to have a correct understanding of these terms to reach a solution for the Darfur conflict?

Mamdani: How you define the problem shapes the solution. If you define it as a "war of liberation", you have a different attitude to it. If you define it as "terror", you have a different attitude to it. If you define the person as a "terrorist" or as a "liberator" you have totally opposite attitudes to that person. If you define "violence" as "self-defense" or as "aggression" you have a different attitude to that violence. If you explain the issues behind the violence you are more likely to address the issues to stop the violence. But if you portray the violence as "senseless" without any reason, with no issues, with no backgrounds, then you are likely to think that the only way to stop the violence is to target those involved in it.

So "definition" is crucial. "Definition" tells you what the problem is. And in a way, the entire debate rightly should be about what the problem is. Every doctor knows that diagnosis is at the heart of medicine; not prescription. Wrong diagnosis, wrong prescription, and the patient will die. The heart of medicine lies in the analysis.


Isma’il Kamal Kushkush is a Sudanese-American freelance writer currently based in Khartoum, Sudan.

*********************************************************************

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/21/indias-muslims-chafe-under-constant-suspicion/

India's Muslims chafe under suspicion

Desikan Thirunarayanapuram
The Washington Times

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Three months after the terrorist siege of India's commercial capital
left more than 160 people dead, the bodies of nine Muslim attackers
remain in a city morgue because local Muslims refuse to bury them.

The rejection of Muslim tradition that requires bodies to be buried
swiftly, usually the day after death, reflects Indian Muslims' outrage
at the attacks as well as fear that it will be seen as tainted - even
though the attackers all appear to have come from neighboring
Pakistan.

"These terrorists are a black spot on our religion; we will very
sternly protest the burial of these terrorists in our cemetery,"
Ibrahim Tai, the president of the Indian Muslim Council, told the
British Broadcasting Corp. last year.

After the siege, Mumbai's Bollywood stars as well as worshippers at
mosques across the country wore black badges to express their
condemnation. Once again, India's Muslims felt pressure to prove
themselves patriotic because their religion had been linked to
violence.

"More than one-fourth of those killed in the Mumbai attacks were
Muslims. It's ridiculous and offensive to blame India's Muslims for
such attacks just because those terrorists were Muslims and they came
from Pakistan," said Sabitendranath Roy, a noted book publisher, at a
seminar on Hindu-Muslim relations in Calcutta after the attacks.

Indian officials have not blamed local Muslims for the attacks, yet
the community has expressed a sense of nervousness.

"There is no denying of the fact that in everyday life Muslims are
victims of discrimination in Hindu-majority society," said Mr. Roy, a
Hindu whose Center for Hindu-Muslim Understanding organized the
seminar.

With more than 150 million Muslims, India has the world's
second-largest Muslim population after Indonesia. India's Muslims
alone could form the world's eighth-largest country, ahead of Russia
and Nigeria. But Muslims comprise only 13 percent to 15 percent of
India's 1.1 billion people.

Sixty years after the partition of British India into Hindu-dominated
India and Muslim Pakistan, India has had three Muslim presidents,
Muslim cricket stars and a film industry presided over by Muslims.

But in general, Muslims remain second-class citizens. They are poorer
and less educated than Hindus, figuring lower than many lower-caste
Hindus on several social indicators. Muslims also face discrimination
in finding jobs and housing.

The government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, worried that poverty
and illiteracy could make the Muslim community a breeding ground for
violence, set up a committee four years ago to study Muslim status.
The committee findings, presented in November 2006, found that the
literacy rate among urban Muslims was 59.9 percent, while the overall
rate for urban residents was 80.5 percent.

The commission also found that the country's Muslim population grew by
2.7 percent from 1961 to 2001, while the overall population grew by
2.1 percent and Hindu and Christian populations by 2.0 percent. During
this period, the share of Muslims in the population rose from 10
percent to 13.5 percent.

Manisha Banerjee, a Hindu schoolteacher who spoke at another Calcutta
seminar, said that although Muslims were not part of the traditional
Hindu caste system, their status is now close to that of Dalits, or
untouchables. Muslim representation in government jobs is between only
2 percent and 5 percent, she said.

The government report "also found Muslims are more likely than Hindus
to be illiterate, to live in areas without schools or medical care
and, in comparatively more developed urban areas, to live in poverty,"
Ms. Banerjee said.

Shabana Azmi, a prominent actress, author and women's activist,
aroused controversy when she said in a television interview in August
that India was unfair to Muslims. She referred to her personal
experience in being denied the chance to buy an apartment in Mumbai
because she is Muslim.

Critics said her comments were irresponsible and a newspaper reported
that Ms. Azmi already owned four apartments in the city. But her
remarks resonated among many ordinary Indian Muslims.

Laila Atif, 30, a marketing executive, said she has had to move within
Mumbai nearly every six months because of discrimination.

"How do you ensure the mainstreaming of a community when there is
active discrimination on a basic issue like housing?" she asked.
"Every time there is a terror blast and a Muslim is arrested, it is as
if an entire community must accept the blame. Do we demand the same
sense of collective guilt from other communities?"

In the television interview, Ms. Azmi, daughter and wife of well-known
Muslim poets, said Indian politicians make only "token gestures"
toward security for Muslims and don't address the "real issues." She
also urged India's Muslims to move out of the "victim mode" and work
for internal reforms on education and gender equality.

Mumbai-based analyst Amaresh Misra, participating in a New Delhi
seminar, said the communal divide has remained for decades.

"There is an anti-Muslim undercurrent [which] though small is dominant
in levers of power and the corporate class and the business elite. It
is this section which has started throwing Muslims out of companies,
businesses and [apartments]," he said.

Tensions are such that even the outcome of a cricket game between
India and Pakistan can trigger clashes in India, especially in
predominantly Muslim neighborhoods.

The destruction of a mosque-temple structure in Ayodhya in northern
India - which Hindus believe was the birthplace of the Hindu god Ram -
led to carnage in Mumbai and the western state of Gujarat in 1992-93,
resulting in nearly 1,000 deaths. A series of explosions in Mumbai in
March 1993, blamed on a Muslim crime boss, killed 250.

A train filled with Hindu pilgrims was set on fire in Gujarat state in
February 2002, purportedly by a Muslim mob, killing dozens. In the
following months, the state exploded in violence that left more than
1,000 dead, most of them Muslims. A commission of inquiry later
reported that the Hindu nationalist government in the state and the
police deliberately failed to stop the killing of Muslims.

Analysts say the slaughter provided incentive for Islamist militants.

A majority of terrorist attacks in the country in recent years have
been blamed on Muslim militants, most linked to Kashmir, a
Muslim-majority region claimed by both India and Pakistan.

The rise of a local group, however, has given a domestic face to
Islamist terrorism. The Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI)
began as a political movement in 1977, but turned extremist over the
next decade and was banned after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks
in the United States.

The group has since been blamed for dozens of attacks. SIMI, which
purportedly received funds from Saudi and Pakistani sources, has said
its aim is to create an Islamic state in India.

On the Hindu side, there have also been disturbing trends.

Indian investigators said in November that a Hindu terror cell that
included a senior military officer and a Hindu nun was responsible for
several bombings, including one at Malegaon, a predominantly Muslim
town 174 miles northeast of Mumbai, which left six dead in September.

"Last year, 10 Hindu terrorists were caught for terror bomb attacks on
Muslims. Yet, they lay blame for all attacks on Muslims. Even attacks
on mosques have been blamed on Muslims by the Hindu groups and even by
police," said Mohammad Ismail, chief cleric of the textile town.

His words resonated.

"There are tens of thousands of instances of communal bias by a police
force who often consider Muslims nothing more than criminals or
terrorists," said Sujato Bhadra, an executive member of the
Association for the Protection of Democratic Rights.

Tehelka, a news magazine known for its hidden-camera investigations of
corrupt politicians, conducted a three-month-long probe that found "a
chilling and systematic witch hunt against innocent Muslims," the
magazine's chief editor, Tarun J. Tejpal, wrote.

"Sadly, ... even the judicial process is often complicit in the
terrible miscarriage of justice," he wrote. "India has 160 million
Muslims. Even if 10,000 are radicalized, it's barely a tree in a
forest. To create an atmosphere that blights the entire forest is a
mistake."

• Shaikh Azizur Rahman reported from Calcutta; Anubha Bhonsle
contributed from New Delhi.