What else is new with Abdul? Heck, a few weeks ago, he was praising the brother leader for having sponsored a few of his Sierra Leonean compatriots to the holy pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, lamenting that, with his ouster, these folks will no longer be able to fulfill one of the pillars of their religion. Conveniently missing from this Ghadaffi-centered narrative is how, even as he was paying for the pilgrimage of a handful of Sierra Leonean Muslims, the murderous dictator was also unleashing Charles Taylor and his clones on Sierra Leone and Liberia, destabilizing the entire Mano River basin and causing the mayhem that is marked most gruesomely by the "short sleeve" phenomenon. It's like the flesh eating mouse that chews off fingers or toes and blows into the wound to numb the pain and keep the sleeping victim asleep.
My biggest problem with Abdul's newfound outrage against Bengazi racists is twofold:
1. It is obviously selective, informed by his love for the Brother Leader and by the Bengazi folks' disdain for his hero
2. Abdul has a credibility problem here; he is a terrible messenger for a valid, albeit selective, outrage. Let me explain. A few years ago on this very list, I published an article on Arab racism against black Africans. It was not a scholarly, comprehensive essay by any means, just an Op-Ed on a subject I am passionate about: the fate/predicament of blacks and blackness in the Arab World and the Arabized, Islamic Maghreb. Abdul responded to the piece with what was essentially a polite denial and rationalization of Arab racist practices towards black Africans. Where he admitted that such practices existed, he sought to cast them as outliers, even disagreeing with my critique of the widespread use of the racist epithet/prefix "abd" (slave) to refer to black people all over the Arab world. He sought to exonerate the Arab world from the charge of widespread racist discourse and praxis towards black Africans, a problem embedded in centuries-old travel, political, literary, and historical accounts of Arab and Maghrebian scholars, in Arab Islamic traditions and practice, in contemporary anti-black discrimination and marginalization all over the Arab world. A problem illustrated most poignantly by the fact that Saudi Arabia, the religious and, in some sense, cultural cradle of Arab identity only abolished slavery (primarily the enslavement of black people) in the 1960s!
Today, because of his love for brother Ghadaffi and disdain for his revolutionary enemies, Abdul has discovered that Arab racism against blacks exists and is an outrage. And I am supposed to take him seriously as someone who is genuinely concerned about the widespread problem of Arab racist verbal, textual, and physical violence against black Africans, a problem that in fact was a perennial sport all over Ghadaffi's Libya as African immigrants were regularly attacked and savaged across the length of the country. A problem that the former dictator condoned in the interest of his own survival.
--
There is enough in the world for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed.
---Mohandas Gandhi
-- On Sun, Sep 25, 2011 at 6:23 AM, Ayo Obe <ayo.m.o.obe@gmail.com> wrote:
Prof, are you looking for Abdul Karim Bangura's trouble? What qualifies the Benghazi rebels specifically to be called 'racist' is that they have used skin colour as the main determinant of whether someone should be killed, punished or merely imprisoned for being a Gadaffi supporter. Now you might say that in using mainly people with black skins (or rather, blacker skins) for many of his anti-people activities and as torturers, the Brotherly Leader was himself making racist distinctions, but that is another matter. The sure result was to add on top of an existing pre-disposition* in North Africa to see all Black Africans as inferior beings an extra element for complaint which found perfect expression once hostilities commenced and the excuse of needing to guard against attacks from with by 'enemy aliens' was thereby created.
Then, by investing in African countries, some Libyans feel that Gadaffi was giving their money away to Black Africans. Were they thereby deprived? That is one of those 'perception v reality' questions. But added to the contributions, grants, donations and bribes given by Gadaffi to many African leaders, in the same way that people are labelling everybody in Benghazi because of the actions of some, so all of us in Africa, we too, get labelled as shiftless beggars etc. because of the actions of some.
That may have been behind their refusal to accept the mediation of the African Union at the time when they had not yet toppled Gadaffi or expelled him from Tripoli, but many of us took a great deal of exception to the contempt for all things African that they totally failed to hide when rejecting the efforts of the AU. Since most of those being rejected were black, we must be excused for seeing that behaviour as racist.
So while it doesn't mean that there are no racists elwhere in Libya - far from it! - the silence of most of those on the rebels' side in the face of clearly racist targeting of people with black skin, leaves those of outside to interpret that silence as consent, and thence to conclude that they are all racists. Of course, the silence is probably more to do with not wanting to stand up to be counted on the side of the human rights of ALL in a climate where the racist voices are loudest. It could be labelled cowardice, but such is the nature of most human beings - it takes a bit more to stand in the gap on the side of oppressed and despised minorities, especially when the pack is in full cry.
At the same time, it is not enough to just label them racists. We can and should demand better of them. Even racists have to stick to the code of conduct these days!
Ayo
*Think of how you might view Mexicans and people from Central and/or South America if most of what you saw of them was 'wetbacks', cheap labour and domestic servants, with a vicious drug trade thrown in. As a Mexican in Mexico City you might know that there is far far more to your country than that. But the Texan in Texas ... what does he see? That's rather what N. Africans see of the continent behind them - and it is 'behind' only because they are facing the wrong way.)
Ayo
I invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama
--
On 25 Sep 2011, at 03:16, "Emeagwali, Gloria (History)" <emeagwali@mail.ccsu.edu> wrote:
>
> I really can't understand why people choose to label all the people in Benghazi racist.
> Are all the people in Tripoli non-racist? Some are and some are not.
>
> The folks in Benghazi are a mix of many things: pro-Sanusi royalists,
> mainstream secessionists and regionalists - people who felt that they should enjoy more
> petro- dinars ; al-Qaida supporters; moderate Muslims; republicans; europhiles;
> pro-democracy activists ; anti-Gaddaffi activists etc. ...and to complicate
> matters some of the of the people of Benghazi are Black and
> a percentage of them identify with Arab culture ........
>
>
>
>
> Dr. Gloria Emeagwali
> www.africahistory.net<http://www.africahistory.net/>
> www.esnips.com/web/GloriaEmeagwali<http://www.esnips.com/web/GloriaEmeagwali>
> emeagwali@ccsu.edu<mailto:emeagwali@ccsu.edu>
>
> ________________________________
> From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Abdul Karim Bangura [theai@earthlink.net]
> Sent: Saturday, September 24, 2011 10:37 AM
> To: USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
> Cc: leonenet
> Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tripolitanians Will Dribve You Racist Benghazi Arab Libyans Out Of Their Territory
>
> Blasts send huge plume of smoke over Libya capital
>
>
> Photo: AP
>
>
> September 24, 2011 — BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) — A huge plume of smoke is filling the sky over Tripoli's harbor area and explosions can be heard.
>
>
> It's not immediately clear what caused the blasts, which hit Saturday afternoon. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) — The head of Libya's National Transitional Council says an interim government will be announced in the coming week.
>
>
> Mustafa Abdul-Jalil says Libyans must united to form a new government. The NTC failed to seat a new Cabinet last week amid disagreements over which cities should be represented and other issues. Abdul-Jalil spoke to reporters after returning from New York where he and the NTC's premier Mahmoud Jibril represented Libya at the first post-Moammar Gadhafi U.N. General Assembly.
>
> --
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