Darfur, Muslim World’s Shame

Posted on November 11, 2006
Filed Under Sudan, Darfur |

BY Aijaz Zaka Syed, The Khaleej Times

October 31, 2006 — This is an issue that has been staring us in the face for the past three years now. Over 300,000 people dead; three million driven from their homes and a country at war with itself. Darfur remains a huge challenge for the conscience of the Arab and Muslim world and an ever growing black spot on its visage.

Why are the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, otherwise swift to protest any slight or perceived injustice in any part of the globe, then silent on the shame of this great humanitarian tragedy unfolding in Sudan’s Darfur?

For one, most Arabs and Muslims, an overwhelming majority of them, do not really know what is going on in Darfur. For two, they suspect that the hue and cry of the West over Darfur and its indignant condemnation of Sudan are politically motivated, as always. Most Arabs and Muslims believe that the West has an axe to grind in seeking action against Sudan on the question of Darfur. Given the current tendency in the West to target everything Islamic, this suspicion is not really without basis.

Indeed, the Islamic world has every reason to be distrustful of Western motives in seeking action against Africa’s largest, Muslim-majority and Arabic speaking country. After all, the Middle East and Africa share a long history of manipulation and exploitation by the colonial West over the past couple of centuries.

The West may indeed have an agenda in pushing for an international peacekeeping force in Darfur. Many in Sudan suspect, and not without reason, that the Western concern for the people of Darfur is motivated by a greed for the country’s rich natural resources. Sudan is home to huge and largely untapped energy resources.

But even if the West’s interest in Darfur is driven by its political and economic interests, should the Muslim world ignore the larger issue at stake? That is, the endless and systematic ethnic cleansing of the people of Darfur?

We in the Islamic world haven’t still forgotten the great ethnic cleansing of Albanian Muslims in the Balkans a decade ago and rightly so. The mass murder and rape of Bosnian and Kosovan Muslims at the hands of Serb militias shook the Muslim world, from Morocco to Malaysia. Today the tragedy of the Balkans is being replicated in Africa. The Muslims are being slaughtered and raped once again but not in a remote corner of Christian Europe but right in the heart of the Muslim world and at the hands of fellow Muslims.

Few in the Arab and Muslim world know and realise that those getting killed in Darfur over the past three years are as Muslim as the members of murderous Janjaweed militia.

But since the West is leading the protests against the Darfur genocide demanding action against Sudan, most people in the Islamic world assume that the ‘wicked, infidel’ West is again out to target the believers. But how wrong, how tragically mistaken they are! If only they knew that their ignorance and deafening silence on the issue has sent hundreds of thousands of innocent people, almost all of them Muslims, to their death in Darfur.

Let’s face it. Darfur is the most systematic and planned annihilation of a Muslim population in the 21st century by the Muslims. Between 300,000 and 500,000 black-skinned Africans in Darfur have died already. Countless women have been raped and tortured, some killed. Three million are dispossessed and driven out of their homes and safe enclaves in a so-called Arab and Muslim country. No wonder the UN describes it as “the world’s worst humanitarian disaster”.

Why then is the Muslim world silent, for God’s sake? Where is our conscience? Where is our moral outrage? Where are protesting Arabs and Muslims? Why is the so-called Muslim street silent over Darfur? Why doesn’t this mass murder of helpless and innocent people agitate us, just as those innocent Muslims dying in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan do?

Even if we didn’t know those dying in Darfur are indeed Muslims, shouldn’t we still raise our voice against the 21st century’s first and biggest genocide? Aren’t we supposed to stand up and speak for those who cannot do it for themselves?

We never lose an opportunity to blast the West for practising double standards, from Palestine to Iraq to Afghanistan. But what are we doing in Darfur? We turn away our collective gaze while people are dying out there right now, forgotten and forsaken by the rest of the world including the Arab and Muslim countries.

The Arab League refuses to confront Sudan on the shame of Darfur. In fact, it is the other way round. Sudan keeps complaining that League members do not support and stand by it in international forums. Support for what? For murder and rape of fellow Muslims?

The Organisation of Islamic Conference, which claims to represent the faithful everywhere, is yet to wake up to this continuing outrage. The League and OIC are too busy preparing those pointless, regulation resolutions to pay attention to the infinite suffering of the people in Darfur. To the Muslim world’s shame, if anyone has really forced Sudan to take some perfunctory steps on Darfur, it is the uproar and activism of human rights groups in the West.

When will the Arabs and Muslims wake up from their slumber of indifference to stop what is going on in Darfur? For if they do not, they will end up sharing the responsibility for the 21st century’s worst crime against humanity. As Edmund Burke warned, all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

(source)

————-

So true :(

Comments

11 Responses to “Darfur, Muslim World’s Shame”

  1. halalhippie on November 11th, 2006 11:05 pm

    Forget Muslim, forget “us and them” ,it’s a humanitarian crisis. Maybe “the West” just has enough resources to care, maybe “the West” see humans suffering and not Muslims.

    May you and your fellow sane Muslims multiply and conquer the ME.

  2. The Raccoon on November 12th, 2006 12:29 am

    Amen, HH.

    As unlikely as this seems.

  3. Drima on November 12th, 2006 2:03 am

    As funny as this sounds, many many Westerners even though not Muslim, follow true Islam and its values better than many many so called Muslims do. They just don’t know it.

  4. Drima on November 12th, 2006 2:04 am

    “As unlikely as this seems.”

    You never know mate, you never know… just give it a hundred years, okay maybe 2… Grrr okay fine a thousand.

  5. Solomon2 on November 12th, 2006 6:04 pm

    We in the Islamic world haven’t still forgotten the great ethnic cleansing of Albanian Muslims in the Balkans a decade ago and rightfully so.

    Yet the writer does forget that the West went to war against Serbia to protect and reverse the “ethnic cleansing” of these same Muslims, and that NATO and Russian peacekeepers remain in ex-Yugoslavia today to help prevent this from happening again.

    The West’s record in the Balkans would appear to be an excellent recommendation for a similar role in Darfur. However, it seems that hardly anyone wants to remember that.

  6. schoenerleben on November 12th, 2006 6:22 pm

    It does not fit into the ‘West vs Islam’- dualism, needed by many Arab governments in order to keep the attention of the masses off their systems…

  7. howie on November 13th, 2006 5:43 am

    I was at UCLA when Mohamed Yahya was speaking to a group of about 400. Mohamed is a Darfur refugee and activitist. I will never forget one moment when an American guy asked, “what is the Moslem world doing for Darfur”.

    Mohamed is a polite guy and he was on the spot. He hesitated and then said “only the Jews and Christians have helped us, the Muslims have done nothing”. I won’t forget the Arab girl sitting in front of me lowering her head when he said those words. At least she had the dignity of shame.

    You see, there is only one real reason Muslims, in general, are not helping…it is because they don’t particularly care. Arabs are killing blacks and apparently that is not a big deal. Also, I firmly believe, Muslims hate their “enemies” far more than they love their own people.

    And finally…what is new about Muslims slaughtering Muslims. All the attention on Israel and the USA, but what about:

    Iran-Iraq
    Iraq-Kurdistan
    Lebanon-Syria
    Lebanon-Lebanon
    Algeria
    Iraq-Kuwait
    Yemen
    Somolia
    Darfur

    We are talking hundreds of thousands here…the Israel-Arab conflict utterly pales in comparsion. Iran-Iraq alone probably left one million dead.

    Blame America
    Blame the Jooz

    You have a whole lot of sand…bury your head in it.

  8. The Atheist Jew on November 13th, 2006 2:40 pm

    We don’t get much news about Darfur in the West.

    No Joooooooooos involved, no Israeli controlled US government involved either.

    And the Muslim world is behaving as to the picture that is painted about them, if Jews and the West aren’t involved, they don’t give a rats ass about each other.

    Lets even go back to the 1948 Israel war. If not for the neighboring Arab countries, the war would not have happened. Did the Arabs countries fight to stand up for the native Arabs………no…….just intolerance against anyone who was non Muslim/Arab.

    They proved they didn’t give a rats ass about the native Arabs who left Israel, by their treatment of them thereafter.

  9. Drima on November 13th, 2006 5:15 pm

    “Also, I firmly believe, Muslims hate their “enemies” far more than they love their own people.

    And finally…what is new about Muslims slaughtering Muslims. All the attention on Israel and the USA”

    Oh Howie, you just took the words right out of my mouth… Sad but true…
    thanx for the email by the way.

  10. Nobody on November 18th, 2006 8:41 am

    I have a similar post about beit hanoun and Lebanon in the sense that muslims/arabs basically don’t care about muslim/arabs unless USA/Israel are involved

    Rio Comes to Gaza

  11. mia on March 18th, 2007 11:05 pm

    I am so sick and tired of Muslims referring to the U.S. and the West as infidels who only go after the resources of other countries. 400,000 is alot of Muslims for Muslims to kill. The truth is Muslims are commiting more violence everywhere than any group of the face of the earth:

    Muslim aggression is worldwide:

    Muslims (al-Qaida) bomb London transit system – kill over 40 persons (7-7-05)
    Muslim Chechen terrorists in Beslan, Russia take 1000 women and school children hostage for three days – slaughter over 150 children in cold blood (9-3-04)
    Muslim Chechen terrorists in Russia blow up two planes leaving Moscow killing 100 people on board (8-24-04)
    Muslim genocide of Sudan villages (500,000+ dead)
    Muslims in USA; 9-11 attack kills 3000 innocents, killing american diplomats (aid and development), ripping off welfare programs, funding terror, kidnapping kids, blowing up Embassies, sniper and gun attacks kill innocent
    Muslims in Russia; attack parade 38 innocent killed, Moscow 118 killed in theater (terrorists fault)
    Muslims in Australia; gang rapes of australian girls, by Lebanese muslim immigrants
    Muslims in Sri Lanka; attacking the christians hindu and chinese, causing riots and death and destruction
    Muslims in Singapore; attacking the christians hindu and chinese
    Muslims in Malaysia; attacking the christians and hindus and chinese
    Muslims in Kashmir; burning hindus, constant attacks on innocent people
    Muslims in India; blowing up temples full of people. constant attacks on innocent people
    Muslims in the Philipines; kidnapping, raping and killing civilians, calling for separate state
    Muslims in Somalia; commiting genocide on christians(all dead or gone)WOMEN AND KIDS ENSLAVED killing UN aid workers
    Muslims in Sudan; also commiting Genocide on christians (dead or gone) killing UN aid workers
    Muslims in Serbia; attacking christian serbs and churches
    Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina; Bombing churches beating christians
    Muslims in Iraq ; Killing neihboring muslims and infidels oppressing all non-islamics
    Muslims in Israel; Palestinians slaughtering jewish civilians and children.
    Muslims in Indonesia; murdering the infidels, teachers and destroying churches (christmas eve) and ethnic homes and businesses. Raping and attacking Christians
    Muslims in Philippines; genocide of christians, kidnapping/murder, child-soldiers, calling for separate state, bus and church bombings
    Muslims in Bali; bombing, killing, raping christians and hindus
    Muslims in Bangladesh; kidnapping, enslave, murders, bombings
    Muslims in Saudi Arabia; hijacking US planes and flying into populated buildings, oppression of all other religion and killing opponents
    Muslims in Yemen; blowing up US ships and attacking foreign nationals
    Muslims in China; undermining the governments slow acceptence of capitalism with guerilla attacks on industry and usual threats and harassment
    Muslims in Pakistan; attacking and killing foreign civilians and other innocent christians trying to assist
    Muslims in Sierra Leone; slaugter of christians
    Muslims in Uganda;genocide of christians, muslims calling for separate state
    Muslims in Rwanda;genocide of christians, muslims calling for separate state
    Muslims in Zimbabwe;genocide of christians, deportations and harrasment
    Muslims in Congo;genocide of christians, muslims calling for separate state
    Muslims in Nigeria; genocide of christians, muslims calling for separate state
    Muslims in Burkina Faso; send terrorists into Ivory Coast
    Muslims in Namibia; genocide of christians, muslims calling for separate state
    Muslims in South Africa; persecution of christians, muslims calling for separate state
    Muslims in Algeria; christians killed, priests beheaded, churches destroyed
    Muslims in Bangladesh; Churches destroyed, christian schools harassed and boarded up
    Muslims in England; Race riots 2001get ready for more! Beating up innocent old ladies and men and killing and raping teens
    Muslims in Azerbaijan; Christians harassed, jailed and deported or killed, churches burned or boarded up
    Muslims in Ivory Coast; genocide of christians

Leave a Reply