Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1301 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Tue 01 May 2007 01:56 Post subject: Arabs Turn Blind Eye To Dafur Because of Race?
Black Dafurian
Arab Sudanese
April 28, 2007
Darfuri refugees say they face apathy, silence from most of their fellow Muslims
By Robert King
robert.king@indystar.com
April 28, 2007
FORT WAYNE, Ind. -- They are devoted to Islam but increasingly skeptical of Muslims.
This is the strange paradox Darfuri refugees in Fort Wayne are facing: A fundamentalist government in Sudan turned on them, and the Muslim world has largely stood by silently.
Here in Indiana, the Darfurians say, mosques and Muslim groups have offered little help. Abu Baker Suliman-Mahaht, 37, a recent Darfuri immigrant, says that when he needed money to pay for his wife's doctor visits, a mosque turned him down. A local church gave him the money.
Another Darfurian, Suliman A. Giddo, said groups such as the Islamic Society of North America, based in Plainfield, could have made a difference early in the conflict by calling on the Sudanese government to stop the killing. Instead, a delegation ISNA sent to Darfur in 2004 came back saying there was no sign of genocide.
The greatest irony for many Darfuri immigrants is who has helped: Jews and Christians.
Giddo, 44, said the Sudanese schools he attended taught that Jews and Christians were the enemies.
"I was excited to find out that the thing that everybody has in his mind is completely wrong. We found that we are respected here," said Giddo, co-founder and president of Darfur Peace & Development in Fort Wayne.
Christian churches and Jewish community leaders have offered humanitarian aid, such as paying medical bills; helped refugees through the process of gaining political asylum; and engaged in grass-roots activism and political lobbying on their behalf.
Beth Reilly, a Fort Wayne stay-at-home mother of three, became interested in Darfur after reading that children the same age as her own were being raped and killed in Darfur.
She asked her Methodist pastor to devote a Sunday to Darfur awareness, even taking an offering. Dozens of Methodist churches followed the example, and a movement was born: the Indiana Coalition to Save Darfur.
The Rev. Joe Johns of Fellowship Missionary Church in Fort Wayne first tuned in to the developing tragedy in Darfur when a friend introduced him to some local Darfurians over coffee at Starbucks. Eventually, he would make two trips to Darfur.
"This isn't just a world away," Johns said. "This is business that is in our own backyard."
That was never clearer than on Johns' second visit to Darfur. In a dusty desert village, he found the father of a Darfurian he had met in Fort Wayne and had the man sign an affidavit confirming his son's story of torture and persecution, which might help his asylum case.
The man said he never expected to see his son again and asked Johns to look after him.
"He bequeathed his son to me and basically said, 'Now you are a father for my son,' " Johns recalled. "It is something that is pretty meaningful to me."
Local Jewish leaders have publicly likened the genocide in Darfur to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, and worked vigorously for a bill requiring Indiana to divest its pension money from companies doing business with Sudan's government.
The Darfurians say Muslim apathy is due to racism and that Arab Muslims see black African Muslims as inferior. They also say Muslim governments don't want to accuse another Islamic government of mass murder.
Local Muslim leaders agree that the Islamic world has done little to end the crisis in Darfur. But they say the situation is not about racism. They say the problem is systemic.
"Now that we have built our mosques and our schools, we really need to build a social services infrastructure so that we can reach out to people that are poor and needy within our community," said Shariq Siddiqui, executive director of the Muslim Alliance of Indiana.
ISNA joined the Save Darfur Coalition in December 2005, a year and a half after it formed. And Muneer Fareed, ISNA's secretary general, calls the situation there a tragedy. But Giddo and other Darfurians in Fort Wayne don't understand what took so long.
"If from day one all the Muslim communities, especially here in the United States, had stood up and said, 'We are Muslims, and we don't want your Muslim country to kill your own Muslims,' that may have made a lot of difference," Giddo said.
"Instead, we the people of Darfur paid that price."
Last edited by Dragon Horse on Tue 01 May 2007 02:10; edited 1 time in total
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1301 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Tue 01 May 2007 02:09 Post subject:
fwsweet wrote:
Shouldn't the title of the thread be "Indiana Muslims turn Blind Eye To Darfur Because of Race"?
Quote:
Local Jewish leaders have publicly likened the genocide in Darfur to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, and worked vigorously for a bill requiring Indiana to divest its pension money from companies doing business with Sudan's government.
The Darfurians say Muslim apathy is due to racism and that Arab Muslims see black African Muslims as inferior. They also say Muslim governments don't want to accuse another Islamic government of mass murder.
Local Muslim leaders agree that the Islamic world has done little to end the crisis in Darfur. But they say the situation is not about racism. They say the problem is systemic.
I believe they are talking about Arabs or Muslims in Muslim countries (as they refer to governments). The Darfurian in Indiana is saying this about foreign Arabs and Muslims.
I believe they are talking about Arabs or Muslims in Muslim countries (as they refer to governments). The Darfurian in Indiana is saying this about foreign Arabs and Muslims.
Suit yourself. It's your thread. But it looks to me like they are catching it from both directions. Overseas Muslim governments are not interested in stopping the genocide. And in Indiana only Jews and Christians are willing to help the refugees.
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1301 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Tue 01 May 2007 02:24 Post subject:
fwsweet wrote:
Dragon Horse wrote:
I believe they are talking about Arabs or Muslims in Muslim countries (as they refer to governments). The Darfurian in Indiana is saying this about foreign Arabs and Muslims.
Suit yourself. It's your thread. But it looks to me like they are catching it from both directions. Overseas Muslim governments are not interested in stopping the genocide. And in Indiana only Jews and Christians are willing to help the refugees.
This is true, but I think the emphasis should be on Arab Muslims in the region as Sudan is a member of the Arab League and this is happening in their region but they say little to nothing about obvious genocide.
To me this is like WWII.
It may have been true that the average WASP didn't do anything to stop NAZI persecution and put little to no pressure on the the U.S. government because they had anti-semetic views (although they did not know about the death camps they knew about the restrictive laws and deporations to "the East").
So if you place Darfurians with Jews, Sudanese Arabs with Nazis, and other Arabs with Gentile whites.
I would say the actions of Gentile whites in Europe is more applicable to the situation because they live in the region and are placating the Nazis, hell in the real history, they often gave up the Jews to the Nazis willingly...most nations did anyway.
This is why I say the Arab Muslims in the region who say nothing are far more important to this conflict.
AMericans, even if outraged are not going to send troops into Sudan to stop anything and even if we wanted we could never get UN permission to do so because it would be vetoed by China and Russia. Arab Americans are could raise holy hell over Darfur and I doubt that would persuade the Administration due to their small numbers.
For these reasons when I read the article I felt the reaction and response of Arabs in the region were far more important.
Arab Americans are could raise holy hell over Darfur and I doubt that would persuade the Administration due to their small numbers.
Most Arab Americans are in fact Christians. Did you mean both Muslim and Christian Arab Americans or just the Muslim ones?
A few months ago on C-Span I caught an interview with a DC Area Southern Sudanese. He was discussing the situation in Darfur (which involves non-Arab Muslims) and his own people's struggle in the south against Arabization and Islamization (he was a Christian who had animist relatives).
Many if not most of the callers who appeared to be either Arab or (probably) South Asian Muslims consistently diverted attention away from the two crises in Sudan to how how even discussing the situations in the Sudan is "anti-Arab" and "anti-Muslim". These callers were more concerned about how attention to this problem would make (Arab) Muslims look bad than the actual suffering caused by the Arab Islamic government and its indigenous allies in that country.
Based on that interview, I doubt that most Arab Muslims (or any Arabs for that matter) would be all that concerned about these non-Arabs, regardless of their religious affiliation.
Joined: 02 Feb 2007 {Posts: 255 } Location: California
Posted: Wed 02 May 2007 00:52 Post subject:
G-Man wrote:
Dragon Horse wrote:
Arab Americans are could raise holy hell over Darfur and I doubt that would persuade the Administration due to their small numbers.
Most Arab Americans are in fact Christians. Did you mean both Muslim and Christian Arab Americans or just the Muslim ones?
A few months ago on C-Span I caught an interview with a DC Area Southern Sudanese. He was discussing the situation in Darfur (which involves non-Arab Muslims) and his own people's struggle in the south against Arabization and Islamization (he was a Christian who had animist relatives).
Many if not most of the callers who appeared to be either Arab or (probably) South Asian Muslims consistently diverted attention away from the two crises in Sudan to how how even discussing the situations in the Sudan is "anti-Arab" and "anti-Muslim". These callers were more concerned about how attention to this problem would make (Arab) Muslims look bad than the actual suffering caused by the Arab Islamic government and its indigenous allies in that country.
Based on that interview, I doubt that most Arab Muslims (or any Arabs for that matter) would be all that concerned about these non-Arabs, regardless of their religious affiliation.
For that reason and more, there are subtle and not so subtle tensions between blackamerican Muslims and immigrant Muslims. I remember inviting a blackamerican Muslim (second generation Muslim incidently, and not in anyway affiliated with the NOI) and fluent speaker and writer of Arabic, to speak on campus when I was in grad school. He made a comment during the Q & A session to the effect that American Muslims should not get too caught up in the politics of Palestine or other far off and distant places, essentially saying we have more than enough issues in America to deal with. Well needless to say, a Palestinian brother (and I have a lot of love for many of my Palestinian brothers in the religion--one of my roommates was a Palestinian from the Gaza strip who return to Gaza after completing a dual Masters in Accountancy and Business Admin) objected politely. You see, many immigrant Muslims, unfortunately, don't appreciate or treat the problems indigenous Muslims have here with the same bona fides they do many of the problems in the so-called "Muslim World".
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1301 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Wed 02 May 2007 01:07 Post subject:
I would say it is more than that HighSchool, I believe many Arabs see themselves as the "Guardians of the Truth Faith" and look down on non-Arab Muslims as "converts" or second class. This definitely can be seen in the history of Arabs contacting non-Arab peoples, even Persians, Indians, and Berbers...let alone black Africans.
I'm not saying all Arabs thought this way or do think this way but I would say racism is quite known in the Middle East in regard to how none-Arabs are treated (black Africans and Pakistani/Indians/Bangladeshis and Filipinos).
Joined: 02 Feb 2007 {Posts: 255 } Location: California
Posted: Wed 02 May 2007 02:16 Post subject:
Dragon Horse wrote:
I would say it is more than that HighSchool, I believe many Arabs see themselves as the "Guardians of the Truth Faith" and look down on non-Arab Muslims as "converts" or second class. This definitely can be seen in the history of Arabs contacting non-Arab peoples, even Persians, Indians, and Berbers...let alone black Africans.
I'm not saying all Arabs thought this way or do think this way but I would say racism is quite known in the Middle East in regard to how none-Arabs are treated (black Africans and Pakistani/Indians/Bangladeshis and Filipinos).
I agree for the most part. I recall a white american Muslim (Ph.D) on another discussion forum telling me either on that fora or via private email that while he and a blackamerican Muslim friend of his were living in Saudi Arabia they'd often joke that both of them are "niggers" there.
I would say it is more than that HighSchool, I believe many Arabs see themselves as the "Guardians of the Truth Faith" and look down on non-Arab Muslims as "converts" or second class. This definitely can be seen in the history of Arabs contacting non-Arab peoples, even Persians, Indians, and Berbers...let alone black Africans.
Author Irshad Manji in a Booknotes interview recounted how during a Q&A session after a talk she gave at a college, an Arab Muslim student said that she as a South Asian Muslim was not authorized to question aspects of Islam and her critiques were invalid because Arabs received god’s “true” revelation first through the personage of the Arab Muhammad. She was seen by this Arab Muslim, by virtue of her being non-Arab Muslim (as opposed to being a secular lesbian), as someone less qualified to comment on the religion. She went to say (paraphrasing) that feelings of superiority are not uncommon among Arab Muslims because Islam is so closely tied to their community.
On closer examination this is obvious. For example, the prophet was an Arab, Islam’s holy book was originally written in Arabic and should be read in that language, Arabs are the children of Ishmael, while non-Arab Muslims are simply Ishmael’s “spiritual children”, etc.
I wonder to what degree are Islamic reform movements , the rise of different interpretations of Islamic doctrine or religious expressions like the Ahmadya (sp) movement or various Sufi orders in West Africa, the Balkans and India a response to the Arab-centricity of Islam.
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