The Black Book/The Arab Alliance: The Politics of Race Identity in Sudan

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What's the deal with race politics in Sudan? I've been giving some consideration to Francis Deng's view of the Darfur crisis. As an anthropologist, diplomat, and Sudanese national, his perspective is informed by a unique combination of scholarly insight, firsthand knowledge of facts on the ground, concern for human rights, and real political interest.

One potential shortcoming with a purely anthropological view is that it may gloss over or ignore current politcal trends, and may be poorly equiped to grasp or account for rapid social transformations. That shortcoming has been noticable in a few of the articles I've posted about ethnicity and ethnic tensions in Darfur. Part of the problem may lie with limitations inherent in the academic viewpoint, and not with any particular branch or school of the social sciences. In any case, it seems that in times of crisis our best knowledge often appears to be dated, overtaken by events, and of uncertain applicability. At the same time, as those of us on the outside struggle to understand and envision potential resolutions to the crisis, we may be excused for reaching for the conceptual tools we have at hand, imperfect as they may be.

Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, an anthropologist who has done fieldwork in Sudan, argues that "Ethnic, 'racial' and religious diversity in Sudan is obscured by media stereotypes of Sudanese 'Arabs' fighting or carrying out ethnic cleansing against 'blacks' when these racial designations are asserted by politicians and journalists from outside Sudan"(The Arab/black fault line in Sudan). On the face of it this seems like an easy argument to make. Media distort and oversimplify. That's a given. And yet, this same anthropologist notes that Sudanese civil society has been characterized by an ethnic domination which has a strong racial component, that racist terms are common, that the National Islamic Front has been accused of intensified racism, that the government of Sudan has engaged in ethnic cleansing, and "race baiting." Having read many news reports from the area, it seems to me that the Arab/African division is on the lips of the Darfuris themselves, which isn't to say there hasn't been media distortion and obfuscation. The question is, whose media distortion?

Journalist Sam Dealy, in his Misunderstanding the truth in Darfur, argues that it is a "myth" to believe "that the conflict pits light-skinned Arabs against black Africans." He cites a witness to confirm his demythification, a militia leader named Khaber, "a dark-skinned Berti African," who "describes himself as an Arab." What that tells me is that Khaber, the man Dealy interviewed, has a very different perception of his racial identity than Dealy does. It does not bolster the argument that the conflict isn't essentially between Arabs and Africans. On the contrary, it seems that Khaber, though he claims not to be taking sides with the government, is definitely taking sides on the matter of his racial identity. What is mythical is the notion of race, and in that sense Dealy is 100% correct. What appears not to be a myth is that Darfuris perceive a racial difference between Arabs and Africans, and that perception is driving events.

If journalistic accounts don't reflect the complexity of Sudan's particular constellation of ethnicities, neither do the debunkings do justice to facts that have been reported. I suggest that is because a racist distortion of Sudanese reality has been imposed upon the situation, and is now driving events. What is missing is a detailed knowledge of the ways in which political actors have created and promulgated doctrines of racial supremacy, and instituted the racial divide between Arabs and Africans.

Does Deng provide such detailed knowledge? Not really. But his views are nevertheless pertinent. Here's how he characterized the conflict just last week:

As the world knows, the crisis erupted in February 2003 when two rebel movements, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and Sudan Liberation Movement(SLM), staged a surprise, devastating and almost overwhelming attack on the Government forces in the region. The Government then called on the local Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed, to help confron the rebels. I must add though, that these labels of "Arab" and "African" are largely matters of perception, as even those who could justifiably consider themselves Arabs are actually a mixed African/Arab race. What counts though, is how these people percieve themselves, and even though the differences may not be so obvious to an outsider, to the local people, they are quite clear and cricially important to one's position in society.

Francis M. Deng, Live Online Chat, 081804

A few years ago, when Deng was asked address the question of whether the government of Sudan was perpetrating a genocide against Southern Sudanese, he had this to say:

The war in Sudan is over the very soul of the country. Powerful factions in the north, spearheaded by the NIF , believe that Sudan is an Arab, Muslim country and that anyone who wants to be part of it must either adopt this identity or consent to being grossly marginalized. Southern Sudanese, most of whom adhere to traditional religious beliefs, and the modern elite of which is primarily Christian, believe that Sudan is African, syncretic, and pluralistic.

These are mutually exclusive realities, mutually unacceptable models—the basis for a genocidal war, even if there is no widespread intent to physically eliminate the other group. Whether they can be reconciled within the framework of unity, or the country split into two independent states, is the critical question confronting the Sudanese.

War Strikes at the "Very Soul" of Sudan

Deng's current position on Darfur favors what he calls (unfortunately, perhaps) "constructive engagement" with the government of Sudan, and he contrasts this with the view that there needs to be a finding of genocide and, therefore, an intervention to prevent it from from going forward. Having argued that the conditions for a genocidal war previously existed by virtue of the government's racial politics (and, one might add, penchant for massacres), would Deng deny that massacres were committed in Darfur with genocidal intent? Well, I can't say what's on his mind, but he seems rather evasive on the matter. One may question whether he places too high a value on the Navaisha agreement and North/South reconciliation. On the other hand, he is absolutely right that the failure of the peace agreement would be disasterous for Sudan and the region. To the extent that other groups can be accomodated within the framework of the agreement, that would seem to be a natural way forward.

If Deng's brand of realpolitik has a weakness, besides the obvious moral questions, it would seem to be the trust he places in the Sudanese government. Not "trust" in the sense that he puts credence in their official representations, but trust in the sense that one can expect those in power to act rationally in their own best interests. Certainly there are realists and possibly even doves in Bashir's government, but it is the militant racists who have driven more than a million darfuris from their homes, and it is the militant racists who would seem to have the upper hand. How do those people think?

What is missing, still, is a detailed knowledge of the ways in which political actors have created and promulgated doctrines of racial supremacy, and further, how those ideologies have shaped percieved interests and courses of action, and whether the political force this racist activity represents can be defanged without, speaking figuratively, lopping off any heads.

In The Black Book history or Darfur's darkest chapter, journalist William Wallis takes a fresh look at the Black Book and the reaction to it by Sudanese authorities. (For more on the Black Book, see my earlier post, The Black Book: Imbalance of Power and Wealth in Sudan.) Wallis has many fresh insights, but of notice are his observations on a group calling itself the Arab Alliance:

He <Sultan Fadel Seasy Mohamed Ateim> traced the territorial aspect of the conflict back to the 1970s and 1980s, when creeping desert and drought drove nomadic pastoralists further south at the same time as farmers were expanding production on available fertile land. But where before social mechanisms existed to resolve tribal disputes, by the 1980s relations between the tribes were breaking down.

Left alone, he suggested, the peaceful co-existence of Darfur's tribes might have continued even in adversity. But external interference from Khartoum and further afield has taken its toll. Towards the end of the 1980s, groups of Arab fighters were returning home with weapons after participating in Colonel Muammer Gadaffi of Libya's failed attempt, during the civil war in neighbouring Chad, to annex the semi-desert belt south of the Sahara to his pan-Arab cause. Arabised militia from Darfur and next door Kordofan had also been hardened to battle after their deployment by Khartoum to fight the rebellion in southern Sudan.

It was a period of scattered conflict and an arms race between competing tribes. During it, said the sultan, a small minority of political and tribal leaders among Darfur's Arab clans began promoting expansionary political ambitions. These crystallised, according to documents from the time, around an openly supremacist agenda, which they allegedly carried around Darfur. In a letter written to prime minister Sadiq el Mahdi in 1987, the group - calling itself the Arab Alliance - demanded control of the state government and called more broadly for the subjugation of the "Zurga" or blacks. It was the first time that a political project in Darfur revolved explicitly around race.

Traditional leaders and politicians from various of Darfur's tribes and from within the National Congress are convinced the shadowy Arab Alliance has seized the opportunity provided by last year's revolt to regroup around the same supremacist agenda. If this is true, it goes some way towards explaining the cruel and brutal humiliation inflicted on African villagers, and lends some weight to those who call it "ethnic cleansing".

Who are the Arab Alliance? Are they the same group as the "Arab Gathering" identified by the International Crisis Group? (Darfur Rising, pdf). Their sources are Yousef Takana and especially Hussein Adam al-Haj, both writing in Arabic. From the information and dates they provide, it would appear to be the same group.

Human Rights Watch also makes mention of the Arab Alliance (Tujammo al Arabi), but in a historical context (Darfur in Flames, background).

The Arab Alliance (Altajammu’ Alarabi) has been mentioned by Sudanese activists in exile, for instance this group accessible via google's cache: http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:TY92ILKDAOIJ:www.darfour.net/Report-1.htm

Awareness of the group has not travelled far beyond the community of human rights activists. Its ideology, activities, membership and relation to Sudanese government authorities have not been scrutinized by the independent press--with a handful of exceptions such as Wallis' piece. Is this something the public needs to know, or can it be left to later competent investigators? I'm sure many people would rather not know, just as most Americans would prefer to ignore hate groups like WAR or the National Alliance and the ugliness they represent.

I'm not one for burying my head in the sand. I suspect that future investigations will show conclusively that militarist hardliners in the upper echelons of the Sudanese government partnered with leaders of the Arab Alliance in a campaign to humiliate and destroy the Darfuri "Zurga" once and for all. And I suspect they will be judged to have been largely successful.

The destruction of peoples, ways of life, the nation of Sudan: these aren't difficult to predict. If there are further ramifications, the mockery made of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, a crisis of legitimacy and credibility for the UN and member states, and a further breakdown of international law, other genocidal campaigns conducted with impunity, these ramifications cannot be laid at the feet of the perpetrators of the Darfur genocide. We must look at our own inability and unwillingness to investigate racism and its project of dehumanization.