Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Terrorism and Arab culture: Where are the Saudi men risking death to stand between Muslim villagers in Darfur and the Janjaweed?

Today, Instapundit points to a post on Darfur by Joseph Britt at Belgravia Dispatch, May 5. It's about Tom Friedman's culture analysis piece in the Times yesterday, relating the thoughts of a friend of his resident in Cairo about Arab terrorism. Too long to go in to here. Read the whole thing. Journalists like Tom Friedman and Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times take it upon themselves to demand that every trouble happening in the world be sorted out by America when the finger could quite easily be pointed elsewhere. I've given up highlighting how the West is expected to intervene militarily in Darfur while the Arabs next door to Sudan aren't lifting a finger to stop fellow Arabs from killing and marginalising African tribes, driving them from their homeland and using rape as a weapon of war in the Arabisation of Sudan.

Here's an excerpt from Joseph's post entitled "Hidden in Plain Sight" where he points out that Nicholas Kristof writes frequently in the New York Times about Darfur without mentioning any Arab country or government other than Sudan's:
" ... None of them explain the Arab genocide in Darfur; the silence of other Arabs about Arab genocide in Darfur; or the Western media's silence about Arabs' silence about Arab genocide in Darfur. Friedman, for example, seems oblivious to the subject. Kristof, who is not, follows the conventional practice of American journalists witnessing something awful. This is to demand that the American government do something about it."
A few lines later, the post goes on to say:
" ... The Arab world isn't even doing that about Darfur. No peacekeepers, no aid, no media coverage, and for damn sure no guilt. Does Tom Friedman during all his earnest chin-stroking about the problem of terrorism and Arab culture pause to consider that this might be related somehow? Saudi imams get young men inspired to blow themselves up in the middle of Iraqi crowds, but we sure don't hear too many reports of young Saudi men risking death to stand between Muslim villagers in Darfur and the janjaweed.

What about Nick Kristof, who has access to the same maps of Africa that the rest of us do? Does he wonder that the largest Arab country, directly north of Sudan with a large army and an air force hundreds of planes strong, has never made a move toward establishing, say, a no-fly zone over any part of Darfur? Demanded UN sanctions against Sudan, or imposed any of its own? To be honest, I doubt the idea has even crossed his mind."
Heh. Well said. I don't read Kristof anymore. Can't work out what his game is at all. Nor that of the emotive American writers on the quirky Washington Post. One can only conclude they have political motives, which means they are spinning propaganda instead of educating us.
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P.S. Foundations can expect more scrutiny in an age of weblogs, according to this article.

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