Saviors and survivors : Darfur, politics, and the war on terror /

Mamdani (Columbia Univ.) ranks among Africa's foremost and most provocative academic analysts. Saviors and Survivors sharply criticizes human rights advocates focused on purported widespread killings in Darfur. Mamdani denies that these constitute genocide as defined and prosecuted. His comments stem from several sources: his close reading of the region's history; his prior work on the 1994 slaughter in Rwanda; the hypocrisy of US policy in Iraq; shortcomings of the UN's new right to protect; and selective prosecution by the International Criminal Court. Mamdani believes Darfur's violence stems from governance decisions from the colonial period differentiating nomadic and sedentary peoples, drought, spillover from Chad's civil wars, and counterinsurgency efforts mounted by Sudan's government. He sharply criticizes the political basis of international humanitarianism and the so-called responsibility to protect. This set of beliefs justifies involvement by external powers and INGOs, to the detriment of local problem-solving. The solution lies not in victors' justice, as he deems Nuremburg, but in survivors' justice, exemplified by postapartheid South Africa. This high-quality book covers similar historical ground to Gerard Prunier's Darfur: The Ambiguous Legacy (CH, Mar'06, 43-4284) and John Hagan and Wenona Rymond-Richmond's Darfur and the Crime of Genocide (2008), but updates and extends them in a fascinating way. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All undergraduate, graduate, and research collections. C. E. Welch University at Buffalo, SUNY

If the nations of the world waited too long to react to the genocide in Rwanda, they have been too hasty in reacting to declarations of genocide in Darfur, according to Mamdani, scholar and author of Good Muslim, Bad Muslim (2004). Exploring the moral dilemma of not wanting to be good Germans who ignore evil, Mamdani argues for the need to investigate and gain the knowledge necessary to bring about real and lasting peace in the region. He begins with a historical analysis of Sudan and the Darfur region, focusing on traditions, tribes, race, and locality and how assumptions from earlier eras continue to influence current geopolitical viewpoints. He also examines how the cold war and the current war on terror have affected Western viewpoints on the ethnic divisions and politics within Sudan, arguing that the seeming conflict between native and settler tribes is far more complex and requires an approach similar to the South African model of reconciliation after atrocity to bring about lasting peace. By providing broader context, Mamdani brings fresh perspective to conflict in this troubled region.--Bush, Vanessa Copyright 2009 Booklist

Mamdani (Good Muslim, Bad Muslim) continues to challenge political and intellectual orthodoxies in his latest book, a bold, near brilliant re-examination of the conflict in Darfur. While acknowledging the "horrendous violence" committed in the region, Mamdani contends that Darfur is not the site of genocide but rather a "site where the language of genocide has been used as an instrument." The author believes that the "war on terror" provided an international political context in which the perpetrators of violence in Darfur could be categorized as "Arabs" seeking to eradicate "black" Africans in the region. Challenging these racial distinctions, Mamdani traces the history of Sudan and the origins of the current conflict back past the 10th century to demonstrate how the divide between Arab and non-Arab ethnic groups is political rather than racial in nature. The author persuasively argues that the conflict in Darfur is a political problem, with a historical basis, requiring a political solution-facilitated not by the U.N. or a global community but rather by the African Union and other African states. The book's introductory and closing chapters are essential reading for those interested in the topic. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Highlighted by the International Criminal Court's recent indictment of Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir on counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the turmoil in the Darfur region of the Sudan continues to evoke both impassioned advocacy and controversy. The latter stems primarily from the power inherent in one word-genocide-and whether or not it should be applied to events in the region. The World and Darfur, edited by Grzyb (information & media studies, Univ. of Western Ontario), uniquely encompasses a diversity of scholarship by both social scientists and scholars in the humanities (all genocide scholars), who examine the West's response (or lack thereof) to Darfur. The essays from humanities scholars are especially powerful, ranging from the deconstruction of language used by Western and Sudanese politicians to the messages conveyed in art drawn by children in Darfur refugee camps. The message is clear: genocide occurred and continues to occur in Darfur, and Western nations-stalled by bureaucracy and politics-have a moral and legal obligation to intervene. In stark contrast, Mamdani (Good Muslim, Bad Muslim) argues that calling the events in Darfur genocide is inaccurate and irresponsible. In his sweeping history of Darfur, Mamdani claims that the political and cultural complexities of the region have brought about events that are indeed tumultuous but do not constitute genocide. He believes that the West's concern with Darfur is a preferred distraction from the failed U.S. occupation in Iraq, offering Western citizens a means to reclaim the moral high ground. At the core of Mamdani's argument is an explicit fear that the claim of genocide and call for justice is a thinly veiled attempt to recolonize Africa. These books offer strikingly disparate interpretations of Darfur, each stamped as truth. At times, the in-depth academic analyses betray a certain level of detachment from the human experience in Darfur that can be a bit disheartening. That aside, both books provide valuable historical and cultural background to recent events in Darfur and the sure-to-continue scholarly debate on genocide.-Veronica Arellano, Univ. of Houston Libs. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

How do we know that genocide is taking place in Darfur? "Because we are told it is," writes Mamdani (Government/Columbia Univ.; Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror, 2004, etc.), who argues that it is not. While serving as George W. Bush's secretary of state, Colin Powell declined to characterize the unfolding events in Darfur as genocidal, saying, "why would we call it genocide when the genocide definition has to meet certain legal tests?" But Powell, pressured by others in the government, eventually claimed that genocide was indeed being committed, abetted by the government of Sudanthe first time, Mamdani writes, that one government had ever accused another of the act. Mamdani examines those legal tests, concluding that, whereas events in Rwanda and the Congo in the last two decades fall into the category of genocide, those in Darfur do not. That is not to say that Westerners should not act to relieve the civilian suffering that has resulted from Sudan's brutal counterinsurgency campaign. It is just, Mamdani argues, that there is a difference between knowledge and moral certainty, and "the lesson of Darfur is a warning to those who act first and understand later." The author limns a tightly constructed history of central Africa that places Darfur in the context not only of regional tensions among the neighboring states of Chad and Sudan and of ethnic tensions among Arabs and black Africans, but also of the larger Cold War and the interplay of client states serving the superpowersand, later, the superpower of Washington on one hand and the regional power of Libya on the other. His argument that Darfur is the inevitable result of proxy war is well taken, but his evident contempt for the Western intervention effortin which Darfurians "are not citizens in a sovereign political process as much as wards in an open-ended international rescue operation"takes an unhelpfully contrarian tone given that, after all, actual lives are at stake. Eminently debatable, but a necessary contribution to the literature surrounding both humanitarian aid and African geopolitics. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.