Africa Speaks Reasoning Forum

By Obi Nwakanma
Sunday, July 11, 2004, vanguardngr.com (http://www.vanguardngr.com/articles/2002/columns/c311072004.html)
Reproduced for fair use only

Another human tragedy is playing out in western Sudan. It is the tragedy of Dafur. The conflict in the Sudan has been described as genocide. But we shall return to this. However, let me point out that what we see in Dafur is another example of how Africans are made victims of an expansionist, and brutal external marauders who have historically taken advantage of the inherent pacifism, and some might even say indolence, of the Negroid people.

Many Africans have focused singularly on the effects of the European conquest and colonisation of Africa. And Africans have often forgotten that the history of Africa is the history of double penetration: one from the East, and the other from the West.

Although each form of these violent penetrations of Africa remains the central basis of its historical instability, but a close study shows, that the Eastern –– that is Arab - penetration of Africa in the last one thousand years remains the most violent.

The Arab conquest of Africa which has been examined by key African scholars - Chinweizu for instance –– when it is taken into account has been the most vicious. It rose with the sword, and it continues, with the belligerent Arab worldview that the Black African is a kaffir, a slave, one not even worth more than camel dung. This worldview is the primary idea that has governed relations between the Arab-led government of Sudan, and the indigenous African population.

The Arabs have come to dominate the Sudan, and have consigned the indigenous Negroid population to the lowliest status, treating them as slaves, from a tradition which began as the Arabs moved into this stretch of Africa, which was once the site of Nubia, the great African civilization. Sudan has been mired in civil conflict, with the Christians rallying behind the John Garang led Sudan Peoples Liberation Army, SPLA, fighting for control of the South from the Arabs of the North.

Generally, Sudan has remained in a flux for most of its modern era. It was conquered by Egypt in 1821, which unified the northern part until the rise of the Mahdi, Muhammadu Ibn Abdalla who led a campaign of colonial resistance against the Anglo-Egyptian alliance with his party of the Ansas. This group remains the basis of the Umma party in Sudan to date led by descendants of the Mahdi.

The Mahdist movement in Sudan incidentally was happening about the same time as Uthman dan Fodio was declaring himself Caliph in Sokoto. Anyway, Lord Kitchener eventually crushed the Mahdist resistance, and the British established a joint authority with the Egyptians until 1956 when it was granted independence. Incidentally, Nigeria's last colonial governor-general had served in the Sudan, as did many of the British colonial officers who also came to work in Nigeria.

So in fact, there are too many things, even aside from the cultural links to Nubia from which many Nigerian groups emerged, that Sudan and Nigeria have in common. The difference is that Nigeria did not, and does not have to endure the Arab menace, although what is happening in Sudan ought to be an eye opener to the threat of Arab racist objectives in Africa. The Arabs in Sudan view that country as an Arab Islamic state, irrespective of the wishes of the majority of the Negroid people, especially in the South of Sudan, around the Kodorfan.

The Arabs reneging of the agreement to create a federal union following the ceding of power led to the first Southern mutiny in Torit, and to the long civil war which has continued to date, with the only respite following the short-lived 1972 peace accord. Sudan remains at war, and the war is endless because the Arab Muslim population in the North is unwilling to grant the Black Negroid population its humanity.

In 1983, Jafaar El-Niemery imposed the Sharia law, and the Southern resistance led by John Garang indicates the futility of a state religious policy, although the current government of Omar el Bashir continues, and has even exacerbated the atrocities against the black population.

In 1998, the Newsweek magazine broke the story of slavery in Sudan, and this led to an international outcry. Very few governments in Africa reacted. No state in Africa called El-Bashir's government to account. No African country withdrew its legation from Khartoum. The Organization of African Unity did not respond to these revelations.

Yet daily, the black African population is subjected to the worst forms of indignity including slavery in places like Sudan and Mauritania, by an Arab population. No other people or society could endure or tolerate this open sore, at this stage of human development. But by all accounts, the government in Khartoum is apparently made of a barbaric group intent on perpetuating the subjugation and further decimation of the black African population. That is the meaning of the tragedy that is unfolding in Dafur. It is genocide because of its pattern of operation.

Dafur is ethnic cleansing; it is a racist, state sponsored violence targeted towards the elimination of a particular racial and ethnic group. The Arab government of President Omar el-Bashir had armed and sponsored Sudanese troops and Arab militiamen called the Janjaweed to attack and destroy the pastoralist Fur, Massalit and Zagharwa group of the Negroid people found in Western Sudan. A low intensity war had started in April 2003 over what has been described as a struggle over land and resources, and by March 2004 thousands of displaced people in Dafur were seeking refuge in neighbouring Chad.

The Janjaweed entered villages and killed thousands of people, while an estimated one million black people have fled their homes from attacks by the Arab militia or Janjaweed.

They killed the men, and systematically raped the women with the purpose, according to reports, of impregnating them. In fact, according to a recent Human Rights watch report, "rape appears to be a feature of most of the attacks in Dafur." Even the concept of  "Moslem brotherhood" here has been put to rest because the people of Dafur whom the Arab Moslems kill, are almost all Sufi Moslems, and therein is the irony: it speaks to the singular truth that the Arab conquest of Africa is a continuous objective which rides on the false back of Islamic brotherhood; it is nothing but a racist movement, one whose implication is emphasized with this situation in which Arab Muslim militias kill and rape the black African Muslims of Dafur, whom they call slaves. This continuous violation of the rights of the black people is the open sore of a continent which must be healed with adequate strategic action.

The genocide in Dafur resembles so much of the atrocities that took place in Biafra from 1967-1968, especially the massacres in places like Asaba and Onitsha by a brutal, ill-trained horde armed by the Nigerian government to exterminate the Igbo.

While the rest of the world was mealy-mouthing about whether genocide was taking place or not in Biafra, and the Gowon government was covering up a vast scale of atrocities, over three million people were dying, many of them children and women, denied even the comfort of a morsel in death. The same silence pervaded the genocide in Rwanda. Luckily, international attention has been directed to the Dafur situation with the recent visit by US secretary of state, Colin Powell, and United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan. The UN has described what is going on in Dafur as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.

"The ruined villages, the camps overflowing with women and children, the fear of the people, should be a clear warning to us all –– without action, the brutalities already inflicted on the civilian population of Dafur could prelude an even greater humanitarian catastrophe –– a catastrophe that could destabilize the region."  That is Kofi Annan's damning report. Perhaps, that was why the African Union summoned a response in its meeting last week at Addis Ababa. But the AU came short of declaring Dafur genocide.

They chose to deploy 300 African troops to Dafur, principally to protect the humanitarian observers who would be moving into the region. They also demanded from the el-Bashir's government to arrest and prosecute the Arab militiamen –– the Janjaweed –– for the atrocities. Nothing will of course come out of this, for the el-Bashir government is complicit. But I personally agree with President Paul Kagame of Rwanda who is quoted as saying "I think there is the need to create a big force and go and deal with the problem. The thing is to protect the people who are targeted, not observers. That is what we will be prepared for in our contribution."  Nothing less is called for.

© 1998- 2004. Vanguard Media Ltd.

Reproduced from:
http://www.vanguardngr.com/articles/2002/columns/c311072004.html

 I think that people have been greatly conditioned to be de-sensitized about what is going on in Africa. We are taught to think that the wars, and poverty result from the inability of these ‘savage, primitive and pagan’ people to self govern. White lives are given greater value and attention than Black ones. White countries only intervene if there is some mineral or oil resources to expropriate. To some, ‘heathen’ Africans in Africa need to be cultured, they need to be civilized, meaning they need adopt Islam or versions of Christianity. Some Rastafarians themselves may go Africa and carry poor attitudes caused by their own lack of understanding of themselves. Islam and Judeo-Christianity have clearly brought great havoc to the African continent. Anyone who cannot see this is twice blind. This is not to say that everything was perfect before they came, but history shows that Africans never warred with each other on the account of different phenotypes or religious beliefs, before the invasions of the Arabs and Europeans. Now with the spread of Islam and Christianity, Muslims killing Christians, Christians killing Muslims, and lighter skinned Arabs/Africans abusing and killing darker indigenous people, especially those that have not accepted the religion of the oppressors, but rather have retained their traditional beliefs. The Hutu/Tutsi conflict is a good example of how colonial assumptions and biases was used to make light skinned African dominate and abuse darker Africans. And many countries ignored the genocide in Rwanda like they did many others, even though they had prior warning.

Because of European domination of mainstream media, many peoples perception of history (which includes the past as well as the present) is very distorted. For instance, Hitler is thought of as the worse thing that ever happened to this world because he killed 6/7 millions Jews. People are ignorant however of the exploits of Leopold , Cecil Rhodes, and Ian Smith: Leopold himself massacred an estimated 13 million Blacks in central Africa.

Even in Ethiopia, the ruling class is generally made up of a lighter hued people, most of them Christians, and they have perpetuated abuse on the darker skinned people such as the Oromo who never accepted Christianity and whose beliefs and traditions pre-date Christianity by thousands of years.

For centuries, history has clearly shown the danger of Islam/Christian constructs even though these religions were formed from the periphery of African beliefs and practices. Not only is it that antithetical to the African way of life but its existence is full of abuses and oppression against African/Black people. And the blackest Africans have experienced the most abuse under these systems as those with a lighter hue were/are preferred.

It should be realized that Africans do not need the arrogance of European/Islamic/Judeo Christian/biblical beliefs, certainly not from Arabs, Europeans or even half baked Rastas.
Africans have existed and known themselves to be one with the universe long before there was first mention of Adam and Eve, Noah, or the biblical Jesus.

People can start by examining the many bogus ideas they have about themselves and the world, that is the inevitable result of living in a blind corrupt system.

Tyehimba

The Sudanese government and two of the rebel groups that are active in the Darfur region have started peace talks to end their long-standing conflict in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa.

The Chadian government and the African Union are the mediators in talks between the Sudanese government and the rebel Sudan Liberation and Justice and Equality groups.

Observers from the United States, European Union, France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands are also participating.

Full Article at aljazeera.com (http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=2631)

The Israeli media is using this suffering for their murderous motives.

There They Go Again, Those Arab Racists
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/article.php3?id=3942

Everyone wants to exploit Black Africans, even the suffering of Black Africans, if not for material gain it is in an attempt to hide their own inhumane actions. Try reminding the Jews of their own role as financiers of the Atlantic Slave trade.

Extract: Portugal, the mother of all slavers Part II (http://www.africasia.com/newafrican/may00/nacs0502.htm)
From: New African

As the profits mounted, the Portuguese elite and the rich put more investments into the trade. It is here that we come across a very touchy issue - the involvement of European Jews in the slave trade.

But as the facts must fall where they may, even Hugh Thomas, one of the greatest Western chroniclers of the slave trade who went to exceptional lengths in his 925-page tome on the slave trade published in November 1997, to disguise the involvement of European Jews in the slave trade, cannot help but say:

"The most important merchant of Portugal concerned in the slave trade in the mid-16th century was Fernando Jimenez who [was] based in Lisbon... Despite his Jewish ancestry, the powerful reforming Pope Sixtus V was so appreciative of his services that he gave him the right to use his own surname, Peretti.

"Jimenez's descendants were among the largest contractors in Africa - above all, eventually, in Angola. The Jimenezes were run close in wealth and influence by another New Christian [an euphemism for a converted Jew or converso], Emmanuel Rodrigues, and his family - including Simon, a dominant figure in the [slave] trade from Cape Verde."

Hugh continues: "Other conversos in the slave trade included Manuel Caldeira, whose great days were in the early 1560s, and who then became chief treasurer of the realm... It is true that much of the slave trade in the 16th and 17th centuries in Lisbon [the glory centuries of the Portuguese slave trade] was financed by converted Jews, New Christians or conversos; though whether such a person is to be seen as a Jew is not something on which I should wish to pronounce."

Who can blame Hugh Thomas? The involvement of European Jews in the slave trade is almost a taboo subject, which only the brave talk and write about.

One of these brave people is Dr Yosef ben-Jochannan, an author of over 30 books. Ben-Jochannan is one of the greatest African-American historical researchers and Egyptologists that ever lived. He is a black Jew whose family root is in Ethiopia. Before October 1935, when Mussolini dropped the bomb and exterminated 4.5 million Ethiopian-Jews, there were 5 million of them in the country.

"Mussolini left us with only 500,000 of our people, and the world said nothing about it," Ben-Jochannan once told a conference in London. "My uncle, Prof Tammarat Emmanuel of Ethiopia's Hebrew Community went to the United States to beg aid from the American Jews against the Italians. They gave him a mere $432 and put him in a boat that took him across the Atlantic and through the Suez Canal!"

Ben-Jochannan is famed for his outspokenness and his original research into matters African. His book, The African Origins of the Major Western Religions is a masterpiece that would win awards anywhere had the subject matter been anything but...

despite his Jewish ancestry, Ben-Jochannan minces no words when discussing the involvement of European Jews in the slave trade. "Oh yes, it doesn't stop me from dealing with the fact that European Jews participated fully as Grandees (money changers) and as traders. They traded in Queen Isabella [the Catholic's] jewellery and things like that to get some money for the slave trade! That's history!"

He continues: "You can't deny that European Jews were, and are, part of European colonialism and imperialism. Where we made the mistake is to separate the two! European Jews are Europeans. When Europeans move, European Jews also move. They move not because they are Jewish, they move because they are white. They are Europeans, and that is a thing that we must understand, they have played a good game. And nobody wants to deal with the fact that Jews were equally slaveholders as well as Christians and Moslem Arabs... The Grandees did not worry about what they were financing the Spanairds for, to take us to the other parts of the West to enslave us."

Hugh Thomas even adds: "A few of these first sugar mills of Brazil were owned by converted Jews. Let us not exaggerate: Of about 40 mills in the region of Bahia whose owners can be identified in 1590, 12 were apparently New Christians. Yet the Inquisition thought that, in 1618, 20 out of 34 mills were so owned. Some of these individuals were no doubt practising Jews: the Holy Office discovered a synagogue on a plantation on the River Matoim, no distance from Bahia, in the 1590s."

Hugh continues: "The year 1651 also saw the Danes committed to begin an adventure in Guinea which would last over 200 years. The plan was conceived in Gluckstadt, a fortified city of Holstein on the Elbe (then part of Denmark), which had been renowned for its generous reception of Portuguese Jews. These seem to have taken the initiative in launching the Danish African trade, Simon and Henrik de Casseres being the first to receive 'sea passes' to go to trade at Barbados, from the patron of the city, Count Dietrich Reventlow."

Full Article:
http://www.africasia.com/newafrican/may00/nacs0502.htm

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