by R.S. O’FAHEY

The genocide in Darfur was long in the making and is a result of many factors, including population explosion, distribution of resources, marginalization and politicization of the people. Although there are no sectarian differences among the Sudanese, the conflict is largely seen as “Arab” versus “African,” in the Muslim world as well as within Sudan. The solution? The Sudanese can work it out, but in Darfur, there is desperate need for humanitarian aid. 

There is a terrible genocidal war going on in Darfur—a war that began slowly in the 1980s, accelerated in the 1990s, and burst forth in 2003. Over 400,000 people have died or been killed, while some 2.5 million are in IDP (Internally Displaced Peoples) camps. Virtually every one of Darfur’s 6.5 million people is at risk as I write. The Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Angola, etc.—Darfur joins the rank of the black holes in Africa where thousands die unrecorded and uncared for, or cared for by very few. Why?

Let me begin with some background. Darfur is a slice of Sudan from north to south of the great swathe of territory south of the Sahara and north of the tropical regions of western and central Africa, known to Arab geographers in medieval times (al-Idrisi and his successors) as the Bilad al-Sudan, “the land of the blacks,” or Sudanic Africa to historians of Africa.
Darfur is about the size of France (about 114,000 square miles) and can be crudely divided into three occupational zones, largely defined by ecology and rainfall: camel nomads in the north, farmers in the center and cattle-keepers in the south.

In all three zones there are tribes (the operative unit in Darfur) who identify themselves as either Arab—that is they speak Arabic and trace their ancestry ultimately to the Arabian peninsula—or African, who speak African languages such as Fur, Maslati, etc. There are others who speak Arabic but do not primarily identify themselves as Arabs.

All are Muslim and there is absolutely no difference in religious practice between the different groups. The dominant school of Islamic jurisprudence (madhhab) is Maliki and the main Sufi brotherhood affiliation is the Tijaniyya. Many are now in fact followers of the Nyasiyya branch of the Tijaniyya based at Kaolak in Senegal. Sadly, there has been a recent tendency for attendance at mosques to be along ethnic lines, a form of apartheid.

From about the 13th century CE, Darfur has been the home of primarily Muslim states. From the mid-17th century, Darfur was a powerful sultanate that traded with Egypt and combined a complex synthesis of African and Islamic traditions of government. In 1874, it was conquered by a northern Sudanese slave trader and briefly incorporated into the Egyptian-ruled Sudan, but after the British conquest of the Sudan in 1898, the sultanate was re-established by its last sultan, ‘Ali Dinar. In 1916, during the First World War, the British—for reasons that had little to do with Darfur per se—invaded the sultanate, killed ‘Ali Dinar and annexed Darfur to the Sudan. Having conquered Darfur, the British promptly forgot about it. There was no development and its administration was essentially a modified continuation of the sultanate. This neglect continued after 1956, when the British left the Sudan and handed over power to a small, Western-educated, northern Sudanese elite—products of the University of Khartoum.

When I first went to Darfur in 1968, it was a colonial backwater. It was as if the British had left the day before I arrived. Being Inglizi (English) doing research in Darfur was no disadvantage. Darfurians generally had positive memories of the English, who did not bother them much. But in retrospect, developments that underlay the current catastrophe were pre-sent under the surface.

There are two fundamental factors at the root of the problem: demography and ecology

The population of Darfur has grown from 1.5 million in 1956 to 2.8 million in 1983 to 6.5 million today; a growth rate of about 4.5 percent, far above a normal (2.3 percent to 5 percent) growth rate. I have not come across a satisfactory explanation for this phenomenon.

Ecology provides the counterpoint: desertification—namely the southward movement of the desert, soil erosion, loss of fertility and pressure on water supplies. Any analysis of the crisis in Darfur has to take these factors into account, while global warming promises a grim future.

The key word in any discussion of the politicization of the latent conflict in Darfur is marginalization. The history of the Sudan since independence in 1956 has been marked by an overweening concentration of resources within the “Three Towns”—Khartoum, Khartoum North and Omdurman, as well as the surrounding area, at the expense of the rest of the country (which is not much smaller than India). To visit Khartoum today is to see a process of Dubaiization, in the midst of abject deprivation, creation of an island of plenty largely due to oil and Chinese investment. This serves a Northern elite whose links are outward into the large and complex Sudanese mahjar (worldwide diaspora).