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Muslim silence over Darfur regretted
 Tarek Fatah, a progressive Muslim activist from Toronto, has urged Muslims to raise their voice against the Darfur genocide. In an article published in the Globe and Mail, Canadas most influential newspaper, Fatah, a Pakistani-Canadian, decries the position taken by many Muslims that the Jews have somehow stolen the issue of Darfur.
| I had no idea the Jews collectively even know where Darfur is. There aren't any Jews there, and they're not even particularly interested in Sudan. Nobody ever says "Next year, in Khartoum." |
He writes, The fact that more than 200,000 Darfurians, almost all of them Muslims, have been killed in an ongoing genocide; the fact that more than a million Muslim Darfurians are displaced refugees living in squalor and fear, appears not to have registered with the leadership of traditional Muslim organisations and mosques in this country. One would have expected Muslim organisations to be leading the call for last weeks debate in (the Canadian) Parliament. One expected them
to stand in solidarity with their fellow Muslim organisations and mosques in the country.
| Darfur doesn't have a government, only three or four sometimes competing rebel groups. Khartoum has a full-fledged dictator, with big shoulder boards and a tin hat. Muslim organizations have a soft spot for that sort of thing. |
Fatah is of the view that some kind of Arabic-Islamic ideology is being used in Sudan to ethnically cleanse marginalised citizens who are not considered true Muslims by virtue of being black.
| I'd call it racism, though I can't recall having seen anyone else use the word, certainly not any Muslims. We have racism in this country, of course, though by now it usually takes a trained observer like Al Sharpton to recognize it. In Sudan it appears to the untrained observer to be flourishing, though I'm sure that the Sudanese "Arabs" they're actually mostly Nilotic aren't capable of true racism, being of the Third World and Muslim and all. |
He quotes Elfadl Elsharief, a Muslim Sudanese, as saying, It is nonsense to suggest that the death, destruction and the suffering of the Darfurian people is imaginary or that Zionists are using us as propaganda. The Sudanese government-backed militias are the people who are killing their fellow Sudanese. The tragedy is that Muslims are killing Muslims.
| It's just the Master Race killing the Üntermenschen. The German Nazis professed Christianity and were perfectly happy killing large numbers of other Christians. Why should Muslim Nazis be any different? |
According to Fatah, for three years, the government of Sudan has been engaging in genocide of the people of Darfur. For all these years, Khartoum has invoked its Islamic credentials to stave off any criticism or censure from inside the Muslim world, falsely posturing itself as a defender of Muslim frontiers against Western imperialism. It is time for Muslims to rip off Khartoums mask of deception and speak the truth.
| It's not a very big mask, not even very firmly attached. In fact, it's made of transparent material. It doesn't really take much effort to see through it, but I guess you have to be willing to do so. |
Fatah quotes another Sudanese, el-Farouk Khaki, an immigration lawyer, and president of the Muslim Canadian Congress, who said, This is racism at its worst. I am an African-Canadian; I can tell you in no uncertain terms that the Darfur crisis has not made news in the traditional Muslim organisations because Darfurians are black.
| Wowzers. He said the "R" word. I think I can now predict that the awakened Muslim world will... ummm... ignore him. |
"Had they been Bosnian, Kosovar, Arab, Pakistani or Iranian, I can bet you, these grounds would have been full of slogan-chanting Muslims demanding justice.
| I tend to doubt that. When the Bosnians and Kosovars were being killed in large numbers the Muslim world wasn't out chanting their slogans. Pak Shiites are bumped off almost every day and nobody raises an eyebrow. Iranians casually oppress each other every day and the Muslim world's on the side of the oppressors, where they usually are. Face it: the Muslim world has a fondness for the sight of blood, and they're not particular about whose it is. |
"Muslims need to address their internalised racism before they ask others to respect us.
| Right. They're gonna hop right on it. I'm sure the Arab League will take the lead, like they always do. |
Posted by: Fred 2006-05-07 |
