tdaxp

de Montesquiou, A. (2007). Rebel attack came at the end of Ramadan fast. Associated Press.

Facing a genocide, hard to fault the strategy (if what you are doing -- waiting for the teethless African Union to save you -- is not working stop doing it) of the Darfuri rebels.

The rebels overran the African Union peacekeeping outpost, seized six armored vehicles and fled Sunday morning when the Sudanese army arrived at the base on the outskirts of the town of Haskanita in North Darfur where 157 peacekeepers and support staff were stationed.

An Associated Press reporter who landed at the base hours after the attack heard bursts of sporadic gunfire in the distance.

"We were just preparing for dinner when the first rocket hit us," said one peacekeeper, a stocky man in his 20s with a sharp nose.

Another soldier, fighting back tears, said: "The fighting was terrible. I can't even describe it."

The AU peacekeepers at the base repelled the first attack after dusk, but the rebels returned and a fresh battle raged for hours. Surviving peacekeepers said the rebels used several armored vehicles and rocket-propelled grenades — an indication they possess heavier weapons than previously believed.

The move naturally discourages the international community from finding a peaceful solution. The rebels are hoping that even after the attacks, the world's hostility to Sudan trumps sympathy for Khartoum's "law and order" program.

Hari, Johann. 2007. White Man for the Job. The New Republic. April 23, 2007. Available online: https://ssl.tnr.com/p/docsub.mhtml?i=20070423&s=hari042307.

Eddie of Hidden Unities emailed me a "hit piece" against Andrew Roberts that recently appeared in The New Republic. In particular, felt the follow passage justly put Roberts in a bad light:

In 2001, Roberts spoke to a dinner of the Springbok Club, a group that regards itself as a shadow white government of South Africa and calls for "the re-establishment of civilized European rule throughout the African continent." Founded by a former member of the neo-fascist National Front, the club flies the flag of apartheid South Africa at every meeting. The dinner was a celebration of the thirty-sixth anniversary of the day the white supremacist government of Rhodesia announced a Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Great Britain, which was pressing it to enfranchise black people. Surrounded by nostalgists for this racist rule, Roberts, according to the club's website, "finished his speech by proposing a toast to the Springbok Club, which he said he considered the heir to previous imperial achievements."

I'm generally unaware of the Springbok Club, and can't comment on its mix of affection for the Commonwealth and liberationalist republicanism. Instead, I will address what appears to be the substantive theme of the paragraph: that "civilized European rule throughout the African continent."

Of course it was.

The European Powers conducted the most massive, and most intense, Systems Administration Work in the history of the world in Africa. The European regimes stretched from the horrendous (Congo Free State) to possibly the best the continent had ever known (the British Empire). This period of interventionism stretched roughly from the 1878 Congress of Berlin to after the Second World War (though native left-of-center governments took power in Rhodesia and before the end).

The retreat of the Empires saw genocides, ethnic cleansing, massacre, and terrorism of all stripes. The middle part of Africa saw near immediate devastation, while decline and stagnation would soon encircle the continent from the Pacific to the Indian, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Southern Ocean.

If not for the terrible toll, in blood and money, of fighting the Axis in World War II, Dar Fur would have never happened. Rwanada would have never happened. Because the Europeans would still be there.

Instead, a combination (in increasing order of importance) of national liberation movements, leftist-isolationist domestic intellectuals, and bankrupt Empires led to the abandonment of a good slice of humanity. While other states pulled off the grid in the twentieth century (the Soviet Union and the Chinese People's Republic, for example) experienced record-breaking democides, they had enough internal social capital to either slowly decline (Moscow) or eventually rebound (Beijing). Africa does not and did not.

I titled this post "The Genocide in Darfur is the Fault of Those Who Oppose Colonialism" not because the genocides and democides truly are the moral fault of anticolonialists, any more than a spate of immolations would be the "fault" of those who just don't feel like funding a fire department anymore. The title of the post is true in the functional sense.

European colonialism was a once-in-a-millenia opportunity for Africa. Sadly, neither Europe -- nor Africa -- were up for it.