links for 2009-04-22

• White antiracists appropriate the words of people of colour to advance their thesis. « Restructure!
  "White antiracists should not treat the words of people of colour as “raw data” that require intellectual processing."
  (tags: blog northamerica race)
• This week on Voices of the Middle East and North Africa | vomena.org
  Dr. Mahmood Mamdani talks about the neoconservative faction within the U.S. elite and how it is trying to pursue a military intervention in Darfur and the Sudan and how things in Sudan are not what we have been lead to believe; especially concerning the racializing of the conflict between "Arab" and "African" by the West and the use of the term "genocide" as a political tool.
  (tags: news northafrica history race imperialism)
• Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror by Mahmood Mamdani
  "Mahmood Mamdani explains how the conflict in Darfur began as a civil war (1987—89) between nomadic and peasant tribes over fertile land in the south, triggered by a severe drought that had expanded the Sahara Desert by more than sixty miles in forty years; how British colonial officials had artificially tribalized Darfur, dividing its population into “native” and “settler” tribes and creating homelands for the former at the expense of the latter…

  Mamdani also explains how the Cold War exacerbated the twenty-year civil war in neighboring Chad, creating a confrontation between Libya’s Muammar al-Qaddafi (with Soviet support) and the Reagan administration (allied with France and Israel) that spilled over into Darfur and militarized the fighting. By 2003, the war involved national, regional, and global forces, including the powerful Western lobby, who now saw it as part of the War on Terror and called for a military invasion dressed up as “humanitarian intervention.”"

  (tags: literature northafrica history imperialism politics northamerica foreignaffairs)
• In Adopting Harsh Tactics, No Inquiry Into Their Past Use – NYTimes.com
  "Top U.S. officials involved in the adoption of brutal interrogation methods did not investigate the origins of the techniques they approved with little debate."
  (tags: news northamerica politics humanrights)
• ei: Ethnic cleansing, one home at a time
  "In the Old City, as elsewhere, the court, the police and the colonists work as a team to further dispossess Palestinians. However, without a police force or a legal system to protect Palestinians in Jerusalem, and without the ability for most Palestinians to travel to their capital city, it is far more difficult for Palestinians to resist the takeover of their homes in the same coordinated fashion. Nevertheless, Palestinians in each of these neighborhoods under threat are determined to fight for their right to exist on their land."
  (tags: middleeast occupation)