عبد الله على ابراهيم فى تلفزيون السودان

What's in a name Janjaweed? Dr. Abdullahi Ali Ibrahim The media reporting about the Janjaweed, the allegedly Arab militia wreaking havoc in Darfur, puts in perspective the distinction made by James (Scotty) Reston between news and sociology. News, he says, is only news at the receiving end; the other end is sociology. Today in Darfur there is a lot of news, but very little sociology. The on-going discussions about the etymology of the catchword, Janjaweed, itself illustrate how news echoes a tragedy but fails to reveal its sociology. The media's use of the name makes it sound vile and draconian. But it has a simple explanation in the culture of Darfur. The commonly held view is that "Janjaweed" combines "jan" the Arabic for "evil jinni, ghoul" and "jawad," the Arabic for "horse": horsemen bent on wickedness. To emphasize the evil, some people would embellish it to make it mean "a jinni riding a horse armed with a G/J3 attack weapon. But this embellishment adds another "j" to the word that is not actually there. Mark Lacy of the New York Times, who was counting, pointed out this discrepancy to a Sudanese journalist. Ma'awia Abu Grun, a reporter with Khartoum al-Sahafa daily, investigated the Janjaweed practice. What emerged in his story is that the Janjaweed belongs to a recognized tradition of banditry of camel thievery in Darfur. These bandits, who come from all ethnicities, are rebellious young men. Unable to conform to the prescribed rules of achievement in their societies, they drop out of their tribes to form a group of their own. These misfits undergo two phases before becoming Janjaweed. First, they become "Abu Bazaras," roughly translated as the "black bag" stage. In this period a misfit begins a life of voluntarily homelessness characterized by carrying an "abu bazra," black bag, where he keeps all his belongings. This loafer then becomes an "um bolty," that is, a trouble maker leading a life of mischief. Shunned and jealous of the success of his peers in their migration to various work sites in Sudan and the Gulf area, the misfit would join follow drop-outs and take to banditry. He would find no difficulty obtaining equipment for his new business. The thirty years war in Chad (1962-1992), a Cold War battle that pitted Libya (supported by the Soviets against various Chadian rebels supported by the USA, Egypt, and Sudan), overflowed into Sudan, dumped billions of dollars worth of arms in both Chad and Sudan, and attracted "mercenaries" particularly among the well-funded, Libyan Islamic Legionnaires who operated against Chad from bases in Sudan. The ideal season for Janjaweed activity is when inter-tribal wars take place like the ones raging in Darfur. Camel thievery has been long romanticized in pre-Islamic Arabia and Sudanese pastoral regions. The tradition has had something of a Robinhood quality. Thieves would seize the camels of rich land owners and drive them home in broad daylight. They would butcher some of them at bars for their lovers and friends. The poetic tradition emerging from this banditry evokes a belligerent loneliness and insights on the worth of life, money, women, courage, and the company of fellow bandits. Janjaweedism turned this poetic tradition of thievery into thuggery. Considering the complex political economy of Darfur, one is inclined to take seriously the Sudan government's denial of having control over the Janjaweed . Historically it should be remembered that central governments in Sudan have had a tenuous control over a country approximately one third of the size of the USA. Darfur alone is the size of France. Measuring their limited reach, the central governments have been in the habit of using selected local communities to fight a proxy. To bring Darfur into the fold of Sudan in 1874 and 1916, the Turkish regime (1821-1885) and the British administration (1989-1956) both had to mobilize local forces to achieve their goals. Furthermore, post independence governments allied with local communities in Southern Sudan to destroy the rebels of the region from within. Hence it is logical to assume that the current regime might have occasionally set the Janjaweed loose against the two rebel movements in Darfur. The regime especially abhors one of these movements for its suspected subjection to the control of Dr. Hasan al-Turabi, the godfather of the Sudan government before the famous fallout in 1999. It remains to be seen if this is the case. This government co-option of the Janjaweed, however, is a far cry from saying that it created it or even that it can break it . Sudanese government officials may have promised the international community something beyond its capacity when they committed the government to subdue the Janjaweed within a month ending September 2. While it protested that a month was not enough, the government succumbed under pressure, and the broken promise is haunting it. The report presented by the UN envoy to monitor the compliance of the government was critical of the Sudanese authorities for not restraining the Janjaweed after the passage of the month. And now international intervention in Sudan is being seriously considered. The international community may be right to intervene in timely fashion to protect a population at risk. But this intervention should take into consideration the long-term interests of the nation-building process in a country as raw as Sudan. Salman Rushdie said it best when he advised that the West should respond to 9/11 in a deft and measured way lest a random attack lead to bombing another Sudanese aspirin factory as the Clinton Administration did in 1998 to punish Sudan for its alleged role in destroying the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. But this intervention should be short and sweet. No Kosovo, please. After five long years of the intervention of the international community to save the Kosvars from Belgrade, the province is in limbo: the mobish, bloody outbreak last March is weighing heavily on the interventionist. The international community has to take the statistics of Darfur death victims with a grain of salt. Forensic teams estimate now that the Serbs and Kosvars who died as a result of ethnic confrontations before the war as a few thousand. Although enough to warrant an intervention, the number is way below the estimated 100.000 to 200.000 that mobilized people to support the Clinton war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Janjaweed