Sudan Disaster

[Dave_McEwan_Hill]

I have just watched the BBC news on TV. A BBC camaera remained hidden in a village in Darfur and watched and filmed the Sudanese Police come into the village at night, chase the people out and then destroy the homes.
It filmed them coming back in the morning (in Police vehicles, in their Police uniforms) and beat up and kick the village elders and then fire tear gas into crowds of women and young children. Most of the women in the village have no men as they have all already been killed except the children and the old men.
It is not that the Sudan Government cannot control what is going on. The fact is the SUDAN GOVERNMENT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT IS GOING ON AND IS PRACTICING GENOCIDE AGAINST ITS BLACK POPULATION.

[mallamt]

This evening on BBC TV news just as Dave has said there was a report of attacks by the Sudanness police on refugees in dafur, and these attack took place twice one at night/early hours and the second time at about 0700hrs in the morning according to the report.  The report indicated that it was the sudaness police in their police uniforms.

Despite this report some people may soon say or suggest that the police were actually the Dafurians dressed in captured or stolen sudaness police uniforms and attacking there own people to give islam/muslims a bad name.  What I am trying to point out is for as long as we continue to refuse to give excuses for people commiting atrocities, we will continue to have them.

A government which delclare itself Islamic is only seen to mean a threat to the Western materialistic culture which aims at conquering the world and as such it is bound to be stigmatised.

This is interesting, what about a government which is intolerable and does not allow others practise their way of life and their beliefs freely and openly what is their own fear?  Surely adoption of any culture outside ones own culture is mainly a thing of choice.  On the issue of conquering the world, it is the aim of all sides, if the other side had the means and power of the western world today they would also be doing the same.  We have seen how there is a "race" by all sides to be in possession of WMD's.  We must not try and potray any side as saints here, there is western propaganda and there is the muslim world propaganda as well

I really can understand your concern about the declaration of the state of Sudan to be Islamic which of course would make the non-muslims there feel a bit uncomfortable. But the truth remains that they shouldn't have been, since I believe Shari'a cannot be imposed on them just as it is not being imposed on non-muslim minorities in other Muslim countries. We can see that Malaysia is a Muslim country with 40% non-Muslim population but the philosophy of the country is Islamic and yet the non-muslim people there are not complaining

Him who feels it knows it! The non muslims in sudan do not feel a bit uncomfortable, they are uncomfortable.  The non application of sharia law on non muslims in sudan is very theoritical, there have been a numerous cases of non muslims whom sharia law has been applied on and a great number of non muslims whom have been purnished under sharia law unrecorded.  It was this injustice that triggered the civil war in sudan.

[Dave_McEwan_Hill]

It is interesting that Waziri mentions the awful deeds that were done to the peoples of the Eastern Region during the Nigerian Civil War which was caused by the Easterners deciding to secede from the Federation - though there was a lot of blood flowing before they came to that decision. What happened then should be a warning to those who shout carelessly about  breaking up the Federation or stoke up religious, ethnic or tribal tensions in Nigeria.
For younger forumites who may not be fully aware of the Biafran crisis in Nigeria the Federal Nigerian Government in complicity with Britain and the United States practised almost genocide against "nyamari" in the Eastern Region. Over 500,000 children under the age of ten died, mostly of starvation after Britain and America stopped the Red Cross flying food into Biafra and the final death toll of mostly civilian Easterners was over 1,500,000. Britain and America kept supplying the Federal Nigerian Army with guns and armaments after the rest of the world refused to do so and the British Government under Harold Wilson continually lied to the people of Britain about the slaughter that was going on in Nigeria.
This attempted genocide was done under the rule of the "christian" Yakubu Gowon.

[_Waziri_]

Ok, Mr. David if BBC could get to the extent of planting such cameras in Dafur and refuse to do so in Chencheny,a wouldn't my suspicions be confirmed?

And you have rightly painted what happened when the Federal Government of Nigeria committed genocide on the Biafrans. But know that it is the reason and of course to avoid this kind of mass killing why we say an independant state of the blacks in Sudan must be created in order to stop this genocide. And also the we must start considering the option of liquidating the Nigerian federation at minimum scale of violence since the future at it seems now carries a very grim image of maximum civil war befallen the region.

You can understand my position most by doing justice to me to stop and read my discourse on this as published on my page in the following link. This discourse is now being published in one journal based at Britain next month. I expect to hear from you the "non-sense" and the "sense" you could carve out of my premise.  What is unfortunate now is as your able onetime prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, would say, " By divine instict, men mistrust ensuing danger".  Thank you once again.

[Dave_McEwan_Hill]

Panorama on BBC TV at 10.15 on Sunday night is a filmed account of the ongoing genocide in Darfur and contains really harrowing scenes of fields covered in decaying corpses etc. THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT THIS IS HAPPENING AT THE MOMENT. Forumites in UK should perhaps record the programme.

Waziri. I have no doubt that Russian behaviour in Chechneya has been murderous and completely disgraceful. We have seen much of it on TV.
However it has nothing whatever to do with what is happening in Sudan and what the BBC decides to film wherever in the world has no significance as regards to the events that are actually happening. I am not making any points about various religions. I am making points about wicked deeds. What religion those people committing those deeds are is unimportant.

[Humrah]

It is true there are killings there. I passed thru' Sudan on my way to Nigeria recently. But as Mr. Waziri observed there is much exageration.

[Dave_McEwan_Hill]

Humrah

I prefer to take the word of the Kofi Annan, the leader of the United Nations and the United Nations personnel in Sudan who state categorically that the true extent of the killings has been concealed and the actual conditions are much worse than anyone thought.
Why is there such an attempt on this forum to make excuses for the evil deeds going on in Sudan?

[_Waziri_]

Yes, Mr. David while you hold the words of Kofi Annan in preference we ask all as to why there is not much story about Yelwan Shendam in Nigeria here where 58,000 people were killed but yet Dafur when 50,000 were killed according to your figures.

While we believe that killings are happening in Dafur which in not good, we also ask questions as to why is it that some forumnites here are interested in making it to sound like the only burning issue in the world? They have even stopped commenting on anything apart from it.

[Dave_McEwan_Hill]

Waziri
You seem to be missing the point. Or are you telling me that the Government of Nigeria killed 58,000 of its own people?

[al_hamza]

Waziri, most certainly the Qur'an states that christians and jews are friends only to one another, and insha'Allah i will get the Surah and Ayah number.
Plus we are told that jews will retain their religion more than the christians (the christians have certainly changed their religion since).
oh yes Surah Taubah.
read the translation, i cant remember the Ayah.

Dave, how many more years will you waste in the dark?
allowing your goverment to play your mind like a football?
their's a conspiracy
a big yet clear one
and your aged eyes refuse to see it.

[_Waziri_]

Waziri
You seem to be missing the point. Or are you telling me that the Government of Nigeria killed 58,000 of its own people?

You see, had the BBC planted any secret camera in the area bedevilled by the crisis we would have seen how people in uniforms like that of Nigerian Armies or Police were killing innocent victims.

What is happening is whenever there is a crisis of that nature in Nigeria and other African countries, security men in the service of the government,  side with the people of their tribes representing their sentiments. The thing is that worst in Africa. They do it secretly as the BBC recorded that of Sudan.

The point here is what BBC has shown is not enough to tell about how Sudan government side with Janjaweed. It is a "natural" phenomena in the history of conflict in Africa.

And remember that Kofi Anna is reading about this thing in Newspapers just like you do. His remarks may not claim more veracity than Humrah's in anyway, afterall it is this kind of report Tony Blair used on Iraqi's WMD only later to discover how untrue it was.

Also Kofi did not say the Sudaness government is directly involved in the ethnic cleansing. But rather said, it hide information about the extent of the damage done. This is quite normal with any sovereign nation. It wouldn't want a situation where it will appear uncapable of settling domestic conflicts of it's own. Many a times even in developed countries  a disaster would occur only for the government to give a downsized figure about the damage incurred only to prove its capability on security or whatever. It is normal.

Finally, to guard my moral attributes I become very sensitive to the blames I put on others in the sense that I do not agree to blame people unless I am overtly defeated in my quest to defend them by overwhelming evidences. This comes out of my desire to avoid erring in saying others are BAD when in truth I can not prove any BETTER than them.

I pray I have  put this matter to rest for now.

[Dave_McEwan_Hill]

There has been a weak UN resolution on the killings in Sudan recently but it will not address the problem. I suspect the break-up of Sudan is inevitable and certainly the peoples of Darfur (the Fur tribe) and the peoples of the south of Sudan would be happier in their own countries. A solution worth thinking about would be a federal Sudan - but I fear the hatred is probably now too deep for that to be considered by one side or the other.

[_Waziri_]

Yes, now we see the point Mr. David. And the problem is, virtually the whole of Africa is a potential Sudan in terms of ethno-religious crisis. Yes, the ideal is to think of a strong and united Sudan or even African continent or even world itself. But how practical can this be when separation serves as the surest way of saving lives?

Sir, I will be glad if you can go thru' my humble submission on these kind of crises that are bedevilling African countries on my page in the following  website http://www.dawodu.com/waziri1.htm

The article was prepared for a London based journal on Africa. I pray you will have some patience to read and feed me back on the sense and the non-sense you can make out of its content.

[mallamt]

I have just read the write up as in the link provided, it is a very interesting write up.  The write up is quite academic and a bit void of the real issues in its focus on identity.  It tries to sell the idea that identity in terms of geography, race, ethnicity etc only started after the 18th century and thus make ine to conclude that there was harmonious living amongst all prior to this time, that is wrong.  The identity crises as we know it today is not a product of the post 17 century era.  Man has always looked for difference and as he becomes concious of his environment and himself he becomes consious of the difference, it is thus an over simplification of the issue to suggest that identity did not pose a problem in the pre 18th C era.

The problem is not whether people are identify themselves diferently, but more of how do we manage identity as a part and parcel of human nature.  One may ask why do people want to be identified with a specific group, geographical location, etc?  If we examine why people identify with a group, geographical location etc we will understand that the reason for it is (1) for protection (2) to dominate.  These are the two main reasons and they are opposing to each other.  Then we have to ask why do people want protection or why do they want to dominate.  

These groupings create an undesirable segmentation of the whole however segmentation of the whole may be desired in order to obtain managable parts, this type of segmentation is desirable and it is usually out of choice with each of the unit parts knowing, understanding and aiming for the collective goal and thus identity and difference in this case cultivates a healthy competition that is benificial to the unit parts.

Government should as a matter of urgency quickly enact new laws and policies that will seriously affect the way we perceive one another as political and social subject of one state. That is to say, a new standard that will neglect geography and ethnic affiliation whenever it comes to deciding who earns what in the political equation must be borne to reign. Let it be that it is only one set of values that determine what one gets as it is obtained prior to the 18th century

A very true statement but will be a folly if we can not see each other as equals, as human beings, as people of the same country, as a people with the same desires, as a people with the same goals.

There probably can not be a more true statement than this

When a particular section or tribe is ruling, it has to spend more than half of its days planning on how to safeguard the throne, maintain control and quench oppositions than it spends designing or implementing its work plan for the betterment of the people. And this is done at the expense of the people.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Opps guys sorry forgot this thread was about Sudan

Unless we are able to look each other in the face and tell each other that it is wrong for one african to kill another african for what ever reason and irrespective of our group belonging, we will have Dafur, Ruwanda, Congo, Zangon Kataf etc.  We must find a way of shaking our tendency of concoting conspiracy theories and try and condem evil for what it is.  The starting point of the discussion of the dafur crisis should be an addmitance by us that it is wrong not to justify it or question other crises, that is only diverting our attention from the issue

[_Waziri_]

The above review of my write-up happened to be very casual and unproductive in the sense that the reviewer misplaced the context and content of my argument as enshrined therein. For example the reviewer said:

I have just read the write up as in the link provided, it is a very interesting write up. The write up is quite academic and a bit void of the real issues in its focus on identity. It tries to sell the idea that identity in terms of geography, race, ethnicity etc only started after the 18th century and thus make ine to conclude that there was harmonious living amongst all prior to this time, that is wrong. The identity crises as we know it today is not a product of the post 17 century era. Man has always looked for difference and as he becomes concious of his environment and himself he becomes consious of the difference, it is thus an over simplification of the issue to suggest that identity did not pose a problem in the pre 18th C era.

This is not what  my write-up said and it is very clear to every good, not even necessarily a deep thinker. This is the point as contained therein:

It suffices here to say prior to 18th century and before the emergence of the concept of nation-states, humankind are mostly identified by the kind of values they represent wherever they go, not their race, colour or any kind of geographic attachment. Among other races or political organizations, what determines what individuals get is the type of values they represent. If they are good according to the standard of any political and social setting, they will find no impediments in issues relating to marriage, leadership and any other right the "indigenous" population may enjoy.

And again I went further to say:

The revolutions that happened in Europe and America from the late 18th century to early 19th century could be said to be the most prominent that occupied itself with the issue of right of man and the right of nations to self determination, and decent and race as the major factors in determining who belonged to them and who did not. In America, black people, even though free could not enjoy full citizenship whereas recent immigrants from Europe were conferred with full citizenship. Later this kind of position was accorded legitimacy and scientific respectability with the "scientific" breakthroughs, or rather intellectual treason, recorded by Charles Darwin with his theory of evolution and formula of master race[9].  

So it is clear that we did not say prior to 18th century there was no issue of difference among humans, we only said then the difference or identity crises was being pursued in VALUES not GEOGRAPHY, ETHNIC, or TRIBAL  affiliation as it is now.

The rest of the comments of this reviewer cannot be meaningful again since he did not even take his time to read what we have written not to talk of digesting fully. After all whatever we said we sited example with good reference material. I had to even thread the path of using my own familial unit to illustrate my points.

Another very problematic position taken by the reviewer is when he quoted further something from my work that suggested, that Nigerians should  evolve a system that neglects geography and  ethnic affiliation in its share of resources or political offices. He quoted that and remarked that we must look for a way TO SEE ONE ANOTHER AS EQUALS. He gave that as a counter to what I said when in essens that was what I said.
I really do not know why  this reviewer wants to FORCEFULLY counter my statements :roll:  :roll:

But when people naturally lack the ability to grasp the nobility of some ideas and comprehend issues they only dismiss thoughts to be just CONSPIRATIONAL. In this then they should know we are not talking to them but to those who are capable of discussing IDEAS and IDEOLOGIES. Let there be no room for them here again.

Please anybody commenting on my article should just read it.