Global Intifada

An issue came up on facebook when a brother sent out a mass e-mail regarding the Teddy Bear Debacle in Sudan. When I responded that we need to be fair and investigate both sides of the matter by hearing the Sudanese side of the story, Tarek Fatah, founder of the Canadian Muslim Congress, responded with the following:

“As long as Muslims bend over backward to defend or find excuses for tyrants and fascists amongst us, we have little hope. The fact that some on this forum wish to “hear the Sudanese side” before they come to a conclusion, is evidence of our collective amnesia and inability to see our community’s flaws. This genocidal regime has committed horrible crimes against Darfuri Muslims, but because they come with the stamp of approval of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Jamaat-e-Islami, they get a free pass to kill murder and rape while hiding behind the shield of Islam.

Very unfortunate. Those who choose to live in secular democracies, demand equal rights, should be the first to demand that citizenship should not be based on religion anywhere in the world, not just US, Canada or India and South Africa. However, the fact is that when we are in minority, as in US or UK, we seek the protection of equal and universal human rights, but when we are the majority (as in Sudan) we demand something else; subservience of the non-Muslim!”

Tarek

I wrote the following in response to defend my position concerning the situation in Sudan.

Mr. Tarek,

I am neither a member of Ikhwan al Muslimeen nor of Jamat e Islami, but a Muslim who adheres to the command of Allah (subhana wa ta’ala) to investigate matters from an objective standpoint before engaging in condemnations. If the Muslims of Sudan have committed crimes, then by all means, we should condemn them. However, before jumping the gun and accusing people of something, we should at least hear there side of the story. This is the basic principle of academic fairness and it is the right and responsibility of intellectuals to challenge the status quo, especially in the era of corporate media whose ultimate accountability is not to the truth and promoting the rights of the people, but to increase the profit margin of their shareholders through generating advertising revenues.

There is significant evidence that the current ruling class in America is aiming for a military intervention in Sudan and it is not a foregone conclusion that this Teddy Bear debacle might be related to that objective.

Undoubtedly, a catastrophe is occurring in Sudan and it might seem distasteful to quibble over the legal jargon to describe the atrocities being committed there. However, the classification of the behavior is absolutely imperative in necessitating a legal response. If genocide is occurring in Sudan, then all nations are morally and legally obliged to intervene and stop it at any costs. However, if a genocide is not occurring, then the level of involvement may be reduced to diplomacy and other practices short of military involvement and the upheaval of the government. A recent example of the importance of describing the precise nature of the conflict and its ramifications is the war on Iraq. The Bush administration built its case to invade Iraq on the premises that either Iraq had links to al-Qaeda or was building a Nuclear Weapon that would be used against the United States. When the intelligence necessary to buttress such claims was exposed as either being fabricated or weak, the justification for the war changed from a direct national security threat into a humanitarian crusade for removing an oppressive dictator. The distinction between the former and the latter justifications have been played down by the administration, but nonetheless, the distinction between making a nuke and being a dictator is vast. The former requires military intervention and justifies a pre-emptive attack whereas the latter requires diplomatic and democratic solutions. One is an act of war whose legality under international law is barely recognized whereas the other is an unlawful violation of the sovereignty of another country and is thus, a criminal enterprise. Similarly, classifying the nature of the conflict in Sudan is crucial in determining the type of response by the powers that be. If genocide has reared its ugly head in Sudan, then the US will undoubtedly use military force to remove the government and end the atrocities. If no genocide is occurring in Sudan, then America and its cohorts will be required to follow international law and respect the territorial integrity of Sudan, its government, and the respective policies of that government. Thus, if Iraq is the model for intervention in Sudan, we should expect a similar path of sanctions, trumped up charges, military intervention, and the formation of a puppet regime that promotes a centralized police state in the guise of a secular democratic capitalist state. Such a path seems already to be unfolding, but perhaps the greatest similarity between Iraq and Sudan is that they both have oil.

Interestingly enough, Sudan’s oil resources were first developed by American companies. However, after the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical attack by the Clinton administration which was based on an alleged al-Qaeda presence (proved to be false, just like Iraq’s purported connection to them or to weapon’s of mass destruction under the Bush administration), Sudan forcibly sold American oil interests to other countries and they eventually ended up in the hands of China and Malaysia. So its no surprise that America is trying to get involved in this region again, just like they tried to get back into Iraq after Saddam considered selling oil contracts to non-American companies. Thus, the pattern of charges of genocide and human rights violations and allegations of connections to terrorism should be expected as it establishes a foundation for military intervention.

The first suspicious thing is that it isn’t entirely clear that a genocide is occurring in Sudan at all. The United Nations, the African Union (which currently has 700 soldiers in Darfur and would probably know best if a genocide was occurring there) and Amnesty International have both declined to term the atrocities being committed in Darfur as a “genocide”, after sending various fact-finding investigations. The only government that claims that genocide is occurring in Darfur is the United States government and only after it came under pressure from the so-called “grass-roots” pressure. Before we take a closer look at the US interest in Sudan, lets scrutinize some of these “grass-roots” organizations. These organizations include, but are not limited to: (a) International Association of Genocide Scholars, (b) Jewish World Watch, (c) Genocide Intervention Network, (d) Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), (e) Africa Confidential, (f) Yad Vashem (יד ושם) - (”Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority”), (g) Genocide Watch, etc. Around 100 of these organizations have banded together to form the “Save Darfur” coalition. Out of the hundred or so organizations, over 50 are Jewish organizations, and over 20 are Christian organizations. While undoubtedly, many religious organizations well-known for the humanitarian causes, the Save Darfur campaign, interestingly enough, is not a humanitarian cause, it is a public relations campaign. In their Question and Answer page, it explicitly states “Do you accept clothing and food donations? We only accept monetary donations, as we do not provide on the ground humanitarian services.” Considering that a purported genocide is going on, with massive displacement of people, if the Save Darfur campaign isn’t a humanitarian organization, then where does the money go? Media outreach, public education, targeted coalition building and grassroots mobilization to pressure policymakers and other decision-makers in the United States intervening in Sudan or divesting from it. Whats interesting is that when one visits the sister site, Sudan Divestment, the website doesn’t actually give out the information concerning divestment, you have to request it and receive approval. When one examines the information packet that targets the companies for divestment, all of these companies have one thing in common: they are oil companies. Wait a minute, there’s oil in Sudan? Suddenly, the pattern becomes familiar: oil fields, claims of human rights violations, sanctions, military intervention. Only a few years ago, the target was Iraq. Is the Save Darfur campaign gearing up for a military occupation of another oil-producing country? Coming from an administration which has illegally occupied a sovereign nation by fabricating evidence of an imminent attack, other claims of genocide should be met with the highest standard of scrutiny. After all, the proclamation that Sudan was engaging in genocide come from none other than Colin Powell, whose evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was in the process of developing them had largely been discredited or shown to be fabricated. If Colin Powell lied in front of the United Nations concerning Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction, it isn’t hard to believe that he would lie about a genocide occurring in Sudan, especially when neither the UN, the African Union, or Amnesty International don’t consider a genocide to be going on. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that the Clinton administration insisted during the damaging testimony of Monica Lewinsky implying then President Clinton had engaged in an extra-marital affair that the Al-Shifa factory was producing chemical weapons in Sudan. The attack itself was claimed to be retaliation for the Tanzania and Kenya bombings that had happened a few days before the bombing. Like Iraq, the evidence of links to terrorism was not only tenuous, but downright fabricated. The attack itself may have only killed one person, but the subsequent loss of important medicine in combating diseases such as malaria may have resulted in the deaths of thousands of children. Of course, this doesn’t come as a surprise from a government that imposed sanctions on Iraq that resulted in the deaths of over 500,000 children and had the gall to state “… we think the price is worth it.”

Why would the administration be mounting an offensive against Sudan? Perhaps it has something to do with the energy interests that are available in the country. The control of the world’s energy resources are not solely for the profit of a handful of corporations, but for the goal of world domination. The control of the world’s energy resources as being instrumental in the preservation of Western hegemony has been fully hashed out in Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations.

In that book, he writes about how the region that poses the greatest threat to Western interests is China:

“China’s history, culture, traditions, size, economic dynamism, and self-image all impel it to assume a hegemonic position in East Asia. This goal is a natural result of its rapid economic development. Every other major power, Britain, and France, Germany and Japan, the United States the Soviet Union, has engaged in outward expansion, assertion, and imperialism coincidental with or immediately following the years in which it went through rapid industrialization and economic growth. No reason exists to think that the acquisition of economic and military power will not have comparable effects in China. For two thousand years China was the preeminent power in East Asia. Chinese now increasingly assert their intention to resume that historic role and to bring to an end the overlong century of humiliation and subordination to the West and Japan that began with British imposition of the Treaty of Nanking in 1842.” (pp 229 of “The Clash of Civilizations” by Samuel Huntington)

Huntington points out that there will be a development of Chinese and Islamic relationships that will pose a threat to Western interests:

” Under these conditions, the Confucian-Islamic connection will continue and perhaps broaden and deepen. Central to this connection has been the cooperation of Muslim and Sinic societies opposing the West on weapons proliferation, human rights, and other issues.” (pp 238-239 of “The Clash of Civilizations” by Samuel Huntington)

Of crucial importance is the role of energy interests in the development of Chinese power. A shortage of energy resources could be sufficient to stifling China’s economic, and therefore, political and military development. Stifling China’s access to energy resources would damage its ability to becoming a world power, thus knocking out a challenger to American hegemony. If one scrutinizes the policies of the Bush administration over its two terms, its goal seems to have been to monopolize control of the world’s energy markets, excluding other foreign companies, especially Chinese ones in those regions. Huntington states:

“China’s conflicts with the West, on the other hand, mean that ti will value partnership with other anti-Western states, of which Islam furnishes the largest and most influential number. In addition, China’s increasing needs for oil are likely to impel it to expand its relations with Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia as well as Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. Such an arms-for-oil axis, one energy expert in 1994, “won’t have to take orders from London, Paris, or Washington anymore.’” (p 240)

Perhaps the most emphatic evidence of the conclusion that Western states must strategically divide Sinic and Islamic interests is in the last parts of the chapter where Huntington states:

“To preserve Western civilization in the face of declining Western power, it is in the interest of the United States and European countries: to restrain the development of the conventional and unconventional military power of Islamic and Sinic countries;” (p 311 - 312)

Given this background, I believe is ENTIRELY acceptable to ask, in they very least, a more balanced perspective on events unfolding in Sudan and the rest of the Muslim world, especially when energy reserves are involved.

Further Reading:

“On Naming Teddy Bears” at Muslim Matters and Austrolabe

“Teddy Bears, Picnics, and Other Delusions of Grandeur” at Alternative Entertainment

“To the Sudanese Teddy Bear Protesters” at Mujahideen Ryder

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