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In the March/April 2006 edition of the journal, we looked at Zimbabwes Robert Mugabe, and noted that though he was for long regarded as one of Africas greatest reconcilers, his regime has become increasingly isolated, especially in the West. We also noted that many Africans and African governments, while not exactly supporting some of his policies, at the same time do not appear to share the enthusiasm with which his regime is condemned in the West. We posed a number of fundamental questions designed to crystallise out the real truth in the different narratives about Mugabes Zimbabwe: Is Mugabe really a hero who is merely being vilified for embarking on policies that humiliate the West or harm its interests as some Africans believe or merely an opportunist who resorted to rightwing politics to hang on to power, as his predominantly Western critics argue What are the real issues in the Zimbabwean imbroglio Put simply, is Robert Mugabe a villain or is he being unjustly vilified
In this issue we focus on the tensions in Africas Borderlands (Sudan, Mauritania, Chad, Mali) and pose a number of fundamental questions: What is the nature of the relations between people of Arab and people of African ancestry in these countries Are the constant tensions in these Borderlands fundamentally a manifestation of conflicts between pan-Africanism and Pan-Arabism Can peoples of African and Arab ancestries ever co-habit peacefully in one country
Dan Smith, a retired Colonel in the US Army, writing about the conflict in Sudans Darfur province, notes that opposition to the Arab-dominated regime in Khartoum is neither new nor confined to Darfur and that since 2003, an estimated 200,000 people, primarily from the Nubian ethnicities of Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa, have perished, with another three million uprooted from their homes and means of livelihoods. He notes that only the United States had the courage to call the situation in Darfur genocide while the rest of the international community has engaged in shadow-boxing. As he puts it:
Patting themselves on the back for having pledged $3.5 billion over three years for humanitarian aid, the G8 (and the UN) could not muster the requisite political will to declare the Darfur rampage a genocide even though, on the ground, it was clear that three tribal/clan groups the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa peoples were targets.
Bankie Forster Bankie, a lawyer and Member of the General Council, Sudan Commission for Human Rights (SCHR), discusses Arab enslavement of Africans in the Borderlands, arguing that the subject of Arab slavery of Africans is one, which many, including the African states, would prefer to have buried and about which there is an unspoken understanding that Africans should remain silent. Kwesi Prah, professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society (CASAS) in Cape Town, calls for a strategic geo-political vision of Afro-Arab relations, arguing that Afro-Arab relations are matters of the most serious order in a rapidly globalizing world in which we all must learn to live cheek to jowl. He discusses Arab conquests and Islamisation/Arabisation of large swathes of Africa, arguing that while Islam has been indigenised in much of Africa,
there is a step further which leads to denationalization and Arabization. This involves linguistic usurpation and the replacement of African customary practices with Arab ones. The most contentious geographical point of this today lies in the Afro-Arab borderlands in areas straddling Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and the Sudan.
He acknowledges the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist solidarity which flourished in the late 1950s and 1960s between Arabs and Africans, but contends that to imply that because of anti-colonialist nationalist solidarity of the late 1950s and 1960s, particularly the Nkrumahist and Nasserist cooperation, we should be blind to over 1000 years of troubled relations is indeed woefully disingenuous. For him, the Afro-Arab solidarity of that era was actually a much more extensive affair than simply an Arab-African alliance because such co-operation among the developing countries had been existing as a semi-institutionalized expression from the time of the Bandung Conference and was in the first place an expression of a wider Afro-Asian solidarity, which included Afro-Arab solidarity.
Garba Diallo, Director, International Programmes at the International Peoples College, Elsinore, Denmark, discusses the Moorish supremacist ideology and the factors behind the recent coup in Mauritania, comparing the situation in Mauritania with the situation in Apartheid South Africa because black Mauritanians suffer from daily discrimination, massacre, banishment, confiscation of their land and forced arabisation etc.
Eric Markussen, Research Fellow at the Danish Institute for International Studies and Professor of Sociology at Southwest Minnesota State University, USA, reviews three empirical investigations into the Darfur conflict in Sudan: the US Governments Atrocities Documentation Team, the United Nations International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur, and a study done by Physicians for Human Rights. He argues that findings from the Atrocities Documentation Team, which were presented to the US Congress and the American public in September 2004, found close coordination between GOS (Government of Sudan) forces and Arab militia elements, commonly known as the Jingaweit (Janjaweed) He also argues that the report of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) concluded that, in addition to committing direct killing and causing serious physical and mental harm to non-Arab civilians in Darfur, the Janjaweed were intentionally and systematically violating Article IIc of the Convention, which prohibits creating conditions of life calculated to bring about...physical destruction in whole or part of a group protected by the Convention.
Jamie Wallace, a doctoral student of Anthropology at Oxford University, discusses the impacts of new development projects, specifically the Merowe/Hamadab Dam (which is due for completion in 2008), on Sudanese culture and heritage. She notes that the project will be responsible for the displacement of over 50,000 individuals from the Nubian communities of Hamadab, Amri, and Manasir. She also notes that there have been allegations that the Sudanese government is using the dams (both Merowe and Aswan) as a disguised means of ethnic cleansing of the Nubians through the destruction of land and cultural heritage. She concludes that while it is conceivable that this project is a way to marginalise the Nubian communities, whilst ameliorating conditions for other populations in the country more research is necessary to make a definitive conclusion.
Professor Helmi Sharawy, director of the Arab-African Research and Documentation Centre in Cairo, Egypt, who was also the co-ordinator of the Egyptian governments relationship with more than 20 African liberation movements in the 1960s and 1970s, implies that Islam is inherently non-discriminatory, and that its widespread adoption by Arabs is likely to make it difficult for them to practice the type of discrimination against Africans which Arabs are often accused of. He traces Edward Wilmot Blydens journey to the Levant in 1866, noting that though Blyden was of Western-Christian culture, he was very attracted to Islam because of his appreciation of Islams unifying spirit, its support for independence, and its rejection of slavery by rejecting any discrimination between Moslems of any color of skin. He contends that Blyden cited this non discrimination in the history of Egypt, where once it was governed by Kafoor, the Black ruler, this non discrimination being one of the tenets of Islam.
Franco Henwood, Volunteer Country Co-ordinator at Amnesty International, London, challenges any notion that the conflicts in the Borderlands are conflicts between pan-Africanism and Pan-Arabism. He argues that these conflicts are internal but with wider ramifications in that they reveal the central weakness of most post-independence African states which are too often vulnerable to tribal and ethnic centrifugal pressures because no national identity exists that could command allegiance across region and tribe. He gives examples from Nigeria and Sudan, arguing that contrary to what is often portrayed in the media, Sudan is not a battleground between two trans-national ideological forces. He contends that the Bashir regime in Sudan has also directed repression against Muslim sects such as the Khatmiyya and Ansar movements and detained, tortured and killed hundreds of Muslim Arab Northern dissidents. He traces the roots of the conflict in the Sudan to the repeated attempts by the Sudanese government to overcome regional, confessional and ethnic divisions by coercion rather than compromise. For Nigeria, he argues that the clashes between Christian and Muslim in recent years must be seen against this backdrop of strong centrifugal and regional identities and that the conflicts are not expressions of a trans-national clash of ethnic and confessional loyalties, but local ones. He opines that in both Sudan and Nigeria, the appeals of Pan-Africanism and Pan-Arabism are weak because local solidarities continue to trump trans-national ones. For Henwood, therefore, to attribute these conflicts to a 'clash of civilisations' between two cultural and religious blocs is unfounded because these ideologies simply do not generate sufficient emotive appeal in either Africa or the Arab world.
In addition to the articles in the lead theme, we also bring incisive articles on other topical issues, from an analysis of how governance failures in Africa boost the brain drain from the continent to a discussion of Sembene Ousmanes novel, Gods Bits of Wood.
Be part of the debate
This is the 12th consecutive issue of African Renaissance since we made our debut in June 2004. The journal has quickly emerged as a leading multidisciplinary forum for the analysis of Africas development aspirations, fears and challenges. Be part of the discussion. To contribute, please contact: editor@adonis-abbey.com. To subscribe, please contact sales@adonis-abbey.com
African Journal of Business and Economic Research
AJBER, a blind-reviewed academic journal, which made its debut in January this year and is published three times a year, is calling for papers for the next issue. We are giving a free copy of the book Internationalisation and Enterprise Development in Ghana (edited by the journals editor, John Kuada) to subscribers to the journal between May and July 2006. To contribute, please contact: kuada@business.aau.dk. For subscription enquiries, please contact:
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