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Discussion of Arab
Racism in Africa
By BF
Bankie and Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem
Juba, South Sudan
Dear Tajudeen
Greetings
It seems to me you
missed the point about Museveni. As a long resident in
Kampala I would expect you to know more than most about
the UPDF assistance to South Sudan and the SPLA.
It was similar to
the Angolan situation, with the Cubans 'rescuing' FAPLA/MPLA.
In South Sudan the SPLA would have been defeated had it
not been for the UPDF. Museveni is one African Head of
State who has no illusions about the impracticality of
Afro-Arab cohabitation. He will NEVER EVER support a US
of Africa, this explains his gradualism in Accra. Let us
not hoodwink the people out there.
You will find the
US of Africa is long past its sale/buy date. Accra
represents the last such initiative at that level. Lets
keep the AU for the Afro-Arab civilisational dialogue,
which has yet to start !
Best regards, Bankie
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Dear Brother Bankie,
You are indeed
right that I should know Museveni better than most
people. I did not only live in Uganda for more than a
decade. I was closely involved with his government, the
NRM/NRA and UPDF.
His support for
SPLA was not because of having no illusion about what
you call Afro Arab Cohabitation. It was a principled
support for a genuine struggle for liberation just as he
supported the Rwandese against fellow Black African
Genocidaire and gave home to PAC and ANC (the first time
both their armies shared camps was in Uganda) after they
were forced out of Mozambique after Nkomati accord.
Museveni's
summersault in Accra was a part of his tactical manouvre
to consolidate his hegemony in East Africa of which he
has been actively campaigning (nothing wrong with that )
to be the first President. Unfortunately he has played
into the hands of his rivals who used the same 'slow
slow' argument to beat back the federation idea.
Nkrumah long
recognised the divisive and diversionary potentials of
regionalism. And I am really suprised that the obsession
with arabs is making otherwise strategic and committed
Pan Africanists like you to lose sight of the many
retreats from unity as long as you can claim pyrrhic
victory against 'the Arabs'. It is becoming like those
Trostskyites who celebrated the collapse of stalinism
without seeing that the ideological enemies of Socialism
do not care whether you are fidelista, stalinist, Trots,
or whatever they just want an end to socialism.
Similarly whatever
variation of Pan Africanism we claim to espouse those
opposed to Africa uniting do not give a damn they just 'dont
want to see us unite' as Marley put it!
It is this mistake
that is making you put so much effort at attacking the
AU without really any concrete alternatives of this
'pure Africa' project.
We are all entitled
to our opinions and choices on this but I am really
disappointed that you could admonish me about 'hood
wink the people out there' .
I am very happy to
help build the AU into a more responsive institution and
will happily take any leadership role in it because I
believe in it. I am sure even those opposed to it for
including north Africa will benefit from the gains. If
we have open borders are you going to refuse to exercise
it because it includes the right of Africans who are
Arabs or Arabs who are Africans?
History will have the final say on
all of us. aluta continua, Taj
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Juba, South Sudan
Dear Tajudeen
Thanks for yours. I believe we are
in a civil, open discussion. Herewith my response :-
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As long as the Arabs who
live in Africa feel that they are closer to
their brothers in the Middle-East than in
Africa, we have the right and the duty to
protect ourselves against their racist
attitude.—Cheikh
Anta Diop |
The foremost international issue
today is either Darfur or Iraq. At base the Darfur
issue, like that of Southern Sudan, is about the
inability of Arabs to live in peace with Africans,
otherwise put—Arab racism.
The problems of Sudan will not be
resolved by the West and the rest, who will create the
conditions for the problems to remain and fester.
One of the remarkable facts about
the Darfur situation is the silence of Africa on the
genocide underway there. The African Union is unable to
secure peace. On the 17th September nine support—Darfur
manifestations took place worldwide—none of these
happened in Africa. There has been a failure by Africa
and its Diaspora to address the Darfur issue. Our
politicians have failed. Will our Pan-Africanist follow
suit?
400,000 lives lost,
2 million displaced in Darfur, with no end in sight.
Your postcards have been silent on Darfur, on solutions
to the crisis in Afro-Arab relations. You provide no
analysis, offer no research or explanations. Such a
callous attitude to our people is rewarded by our
enemies, who rejoice at our weaknesses. There is
contempt, there is no shame. Rather there is name
calling about Arab-phobia. Who are the racists in this
context? Stop the showmanship, the playing to the
gallery, above people’s heads and lead responsibly. We
all have eyes to see. Who will address Arab racism?
Unfortunately most
of our people in West and Southern Africa, as well as
the Diaspora have no knowledge of the Afro-Arab
borderlands. They depend on the enlightenment of their '
leaders’— which is not forthcoming, because our leaders
historically choose to look the other way or
deliberately conceal the truth.
The Editor of one
of the leading newspapers in Nigeria, who is your
namesake, told me last month in Lagos, that when he is
in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, he is called 'Abd', that is
slave. Arab racism as seen in the borderlands is well
known from Mauritania through to Sudan, as is their
contempt for Africans. This is the cause for the current
genocide in Darfur. We have to do something about this,
not to pretend it is not happening, by our silence.
A decade ago is the
period we saw Libya dominating African affairs and the
Pan-African movement, which necessitated the request
to South Africa to step in and lead the AU. We are still
dealing with the fall-out from those years, with the
attempt to foist on us the US of Africa Concerning the
views of Uganda's Museveni on the Arab threat from
Sudan, bearing in mind that the Ugandan army entered
South Sudan around 1996 to assist the South Sudan army (SPLA),
I quote from his paper published at page 7 of the
South Sudan Post of October 2006, entitled ' The
evolution of the LRA in Uganda' :-
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'...The
people of Uganda who eventually formed a
black revolutionary movement known as the
National Resistance Movement (NRM), having
been fighting colonially-generated violence
and fascism as well as terrorism
orchestrated against them by the Arab
chauvinist regime of Sudan for the last 40
years, all on their own ...
...The
Arab chauvinist regimes of Sudan did not
want to be neighbours with a Uganda led by
black nationalists. They, apparently,
believed that if the black nationalists are
allowed to enrich themselves in Uganda, they
may in the future extend solidarity to their
black brothers in Southern Sudan that had
been fighting to throw off the Arab yoke
ever since 1955 when the British left.
...The
Arab chauvinists, therefore tried to
overthrow our Government by re-equipping the
elements of the defeated former colonial
army of Uganda.
...Thereafter, having failed to overthrow
us, the Sudanese Arab chauvinists aimed at
destabilizing us or intimidating us into
being the usual plaint, quisling black
regimes of Africa that find it easy to sell
the interests of Africa.
...Unfortunately, this was a big
miscalculation by the Sudanese chauvinists.
Although we had always sympathised with the
black people of Sudan, it would not have
been easy for us to extend material
solidarity to them on account of the
Organisation of African Unity (OAU)
principle of non-interference in the
internal affairs of member states. Since,
however, the Sudanese had foolishly
interfered in ours, we had no inhibition in
supporting our black brothers in Southern
Sudan'. . . . |
Best regards, Bankie
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Bankie Forster Bankie -- Lawyer. Member of the General
Council, Sudan Commission for Human Rights (SCHR).
Tajudeen is Nigerian by origin. He was a Rhodes Scholar at
Oxford where he gained his D.Phil in political science.
Source: The
Black List
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posted 6 October 2007 / updated 17
March 2008 |
