the Disillusioned kid: Hypocrisy And The Right Response
| Email | Home | Linkage | Profile |

Thursday, September 30, 2004

Hypocrisy And The Right Response

Justin Podur has a very interesting article on Z-Net (who incidentally are making a drive for funds at the moment) looking at the situation in Darfur and putting it into it's global political context. He begins by revealing the hypocrisy of those leaders who have been quick to denounce the Sudanese regime, but whose own hands are thick with blood from Iraq, Palestine, Haiti and other victims of Western intervention, but is clear that revealing the obvious hypocrisy is insufficient:
The Sudan crisis has provided the interventionists with an opportunity to simply change the subject: "if you care so much about the Palestinians," they can ask, "why don't you care about Sudan? If you care so much about Iraqis, then why don't you support intervention to save people in Sudan?" The next step, of course, is to accuse those who talk about Western murders and crimes as 'anti-semites', 'anti-Americans', or racists. To this, anti-occupation people can reply by calling the liberal interventionists hypocrites, citing liberal indifference or contribution to crimes in the above cases as evidence.

Mutual cries of hypocrisy, however, even when true, won?t help those who are actually being "murdered, raped and assaulted," who are actually "hungry... homeless... sick and... have been driven out of their own country." In the specific case of Sudan and Darfur, for example, the hypocrisy of gangsters like Martin, Powell, and Blair does not make atrocities in the region any less real, or the crisis any less urgent.
He then goes on to consider possible responses, drawing attention along the way to Alex de Waal's excellent backgrounder from the London Review of Books, concluding, "Proposals for an African Union intervention as cited by Gberie, however flawed, could have the best chance of success (it was African intervention that brought the Congo civil war to a halt)." An assessment I agree with.

At the article's end he presents a question posed by Khalid Fishawy and Ahmed Zaki:
Could we imagine building a front for the potentials of peoples and democratic movements in Sudan, hurt and disaffected by war, with the solidarity of the global antiwar movement, to impose democratic mechanisms caring for the interests of oppressed Sudanese communities, races, cultures and classes, against the rapacity of the interests of US and Western European Imperialists? Could this aim be possible? Is it promising for the global justice and peace movement to regain its momentum, instead of supporting undemocratic authoritarian and fundamentalist forces, this time in Sudan, under the title of allying with whomever is against the American Empire?
Podur leaves the question hanging, but it is, I believe, an important one for those of us interested in alleviating suffering and working towards a better world. How we go about answering it could have major consequences for the downtrodden and oppressed of the world.

Side Projects

Carnival of Anarchy
The Peace Pipe
UK Watch Blog

Acquaintances

Against the Current
Atopian.org
Culture hits and gendered bits
Daniel Randall
In The Water
Mike Wood
On The Barricades
Pizarro's Sword
Space Cat Rocket Ship
Surveillant Assemblage
TashCamUK FotoPage
The Naked Lunch
The Peace Pipe
The World of the Dynamite Lady

Strangers

Anarchoblogs
Antiwar.com Blog
Arte & Lingua
Barker in Valencia
Blairwatch
Bloggerheads
Blood & Treasure
Bombs and Shields
Boomablog
Born at the Crest of the Empire
Chase me ladies...
Chicken Yoghurt
Craig Murray
Dead Men Left
Direland
Disreputable Lazy Aliens
Empire Notes
Europhobia
Friends of Al Jazeera
Global Guerillas
Guerillas in the Midst
I Blame the Patriachy
Informed Comment
Insultadarity
Janine Booth
Lenin's Tomb
Life of Riley Blog
Media Watch Watch
Neil Shakespeare
NO2ID NewsBlog
One Hump or Two?
Otto's Random Thoughts
Perfect.co.uk
Pitch In For Uzbekistan
Registan.net
Run over by the truth
Solidarity With Iraqi Workers
Shut Up You Fat Whiner!
Sudan: Passion of the Present
Talk Politics
The Anthropik Network
The Daily (Maybe)
The Devil's Kitchen
The Disillusioned
The f-word
The Head Heeb
The Killing Train
The Revenge of Winston Smith
The Socialist Unity Blog
The Wicked Truth
Theory of Power
Things I Don't Have Time For
This (Fresh) Gringo
This Is My Truth
Thumping the Tub
Time The Dreaded Enemy
UK Watch Blog
UK Poli Blogs
underbrella
Under The Same Sun
Uzbekistan.neweurasia.net
What Fresh Hell Is This?
Where is Raed? (RIP)
Who Are You to Accuse Me?
Words and Rocks
Zeropointnine
Z-Net Blog

Neighbours

Asbo Community Space
Defy-ID
Eastside Climate Action
Faslane 365
Freecycle
Indymedia
No Borders
Nottingham Student Peace Movement
Refugee Forum
Stop the War
Sumac Centre
The Demo Project

Ivory Towers

Anarchist Studies Network
Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice
Postanarchism Clearinghouse

Miscellania

Anarchist FAQ
Antiwar.com
Chagos Discussion List
Chagos Support Forums
Electronic Intifada
Future of Iraq Portal
Index of Political Blogs
Indymedia UK
Infoshop
Iraq Occupation Focus
Pledgebank
Refuser Solidarity Network
SchNEWS
Socialist Unity Network
The New Standard
UK Chagos Support Association
UK Watch
Weekly Worker
Wikipedia
WriteToThem.com
Z-Net

The Progressive Blog Alliance

Register here to join the PBA.