The New York Times Nicholas Kristof was among the first journalists to report extensively on Darfur, and his writings contributed immensely to a gradually expanding awareness of the volatile region. However, like many reporters, Kristof described the conflict as a struggle between Arab rulers and ‘black Africans.’ While Kristof glossed over the more complex realities of the conflict, his approach served a useful purpose and was widely emulated by the international press. Matched with ‘genocide,’ the native African versus oppressive Arab rendition offered a badly needed angle. It made Darfur simple. It made Darfur saleable. It made Darfur a war of religion and ethnicity.

When reporters describe the combatants as ‘black Africans’ and Arabs, they imply that non-Muslim native Darfurians are being expelled by foreign Arabs, people totally unlike themselves in culture, language and ethnicity, recent arrivals searching for new lands to conquer. Understanding the conflict in these terms only raises the misconception that the Government of Sudan is not responsible for the violence, that the fighting is waged for localized reasons only. It also reinforces false stereotypes and cultural misunderstandings against Arabs perpetuated and strengthened by other ongoing international conflicts. Encouraging such assumptions, even unintentionally, perhaps threatens to discourage people from believing that a solution can be reached. Put bluntly, it angles the conflict as “just another Jihad.”

It is this misconception that I would like to address here. This entry will only serve to provide a brief introduction, while a forthcoming entry will offer an alternative way for media to report on Darfur that is just as saleable as the current one.

Read the rest of this entry »

Stand Director of Operations and all-around smart guy Yoni Levitan recently commented on one of my posts, saying that in his mind the situation in Darfur is just about “ripe” for resolution. If he had known how long I stayed up researching that concept for my thesis in senior year, he may have chosen different words. Ahhhh, coffee gut, sleepless nights, five minute dance breaks, how I miss it all!

Anyways, the point is that this guy I. William Zartman basically began the academic study of civil wars by suggesting that they only end when the time is “ripe for resolution.” A civil war is considered ripe for resolution when both sides find themselves in a “mutually hurting stalemate”: i.e. no one has the upper-hand, both sides feel that they have little to gain from continued violence, and both sides will continue to take losses if the situation remains the same. Since Zartman first suggested the idea, there have been lots of additions and elaborations to the theory, but it’s still the same basic idea: international pressure to end a civil war will be most effective when the timing is right. Often the timing is right after some big event or change happens that makes both parties realize the pain and loss of continued fighting.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ruth Gonzales, a reader of this blog, recently contacted me with a great idea about recommended books for people interested in learning more Darfur, Rwanda, and the history of genocide. She also very generously sent a list of recommended books to me, which I have been hoping to compile for some time but of course never got around to. So keep an eye out on the recommended reading list in the sidebar as I add many new books to check out. And big shout out to Ruth for all the work and energy on this!

Of the books on there, many of them I personally have not yet read. I have mentioned Not on Our Watch before, the quintessential advocate’s guide to Darfur complete with suggestions, tools, and calls to action. For the avid scholar, anything by Alex de Waal is recommended. He is THE recognized expert on Darfur and Sudan, although he raises some interesting questions about the advocacy movement, particularly celebrity activism. For a history of genocides, Samantha Power’s A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide is a must-read, although personally sometimes the style of writing is too journalistic for me – ie. policy-makers are damned if they do, damned it they don’t. However, it is definitely the best compiled history of genocides I have encountered yet.

In terms of gut-wrenching, emotive writing, I would point to either Dallaire or Philip Gourevitch’s accounts of Rwanda. The Philip Gourevitch book, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, sparked my interest in human rights and preventing mass atrocities. It is really well-written, mixing anecdotes, interviews, and well-researched histories of the conflict and country. Highly recommended.

I would love to hear everyone else’s thoughts on recommended reading. Please send me an email with suggestions and ideas. And thanks to Ruth once again!

UPDATE: Check out the Comments section for some more good recommendations!

Here at Stand-Canada, we’ve been talking for quite some time about the dangers and difficulties associated with the camps for Internally Displaced Persons and refugees in and around Darfur. Today, the New York Times has a really good article illustrating some of the problems associated with the camps, particularly the upending of traditional authority structures and the empowerment of radical elements. It focuses in particular on the rise of angry youths in the camp who are rabidly anti-government:

“You cannot call them a unified group with one political ideology, but they are all angry…That is the factor unifying them.”

This article touches on a couple really good points that I’d like to stress here:

1) the situation in the camps drastically complicates the rebel groups’ ability to negotiate. We’ve already seen that with exiled rebel leader Abdul Wahid al-Nur who frequently takes an extremely hard-lined position in order to consolidate his support among radical elements in the camps. This article suggests that the inhabitants of the camps are so anti-government that any rebel group seen to negotiate would immediately lose legitimacy in their eyes and possibly even put people of their similar ethnicity in danger of reprisals (rebel groups tend to line-up with ethnicity in Darfur).

2) The article briefly touches on something that jumped out at me from this article. Does anyone else see the resemblance in this scenario of situations in Afghanistan, Somalia, or Lebanon? Basically, in a lawless environment, people turn to radical elements that are able to provide meaning and bestow some semblance of order in an unstable world. The Taliban did this in Afghanistan following the country’s many civil wars in the ’90s. The Shabab, or Islamic Youth, in Somalia are also seen as the only real possibility for order in the country, despite their brutal tactics. The Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon are still sources of trouble in that country as well.

Basically, this is a worrying scenario. The government doesn’t know how to deal with it (and is probably unable to deal with it actually). These youth are angry, frustrated, and disillusioned with both the international community and the rebel groups. And, something that the article does not touch on is the fact that they all have guns – I recently spoke with someone who returned from the camps and was just floored by the sheer number of guns available. These “mobilized” youth could become a source of violence and trouble for a long-time to come in the country.

I don’t really know that there is any easy way to deal with this situation, other than try to stem the number of weapons entering the camps, provide some sort of opportunity for the youth, and work to end the war. I’d love to hear more thoughts, but this situation is definitely something to look out for…