A Muslim blogger asked that question, wondering if more Muslims would be outraged over Darfur if the perpetrator of the genocide were different. And the answer, of course, is yes.
I first encountered Aziz Poonawalla during my dialogue of the deaf with the raving lunatic blogger Dean Esmay, as Poonawalla was and may still be a contributor to his blog. Poonawalla and I also have had several unpleasant exchanges, during which I didn’t get from him an overwhelming impression of honesty or integrity. However, in a post over at Beliefnet (thanks to Twostellas), although larded with Palestinian hate propaganda, he actually manages to state — or at least quote — some truths about Darfur.
Darfur vs Gaza: African muslims are worth less than Arab muslims
Monday February 2, 2009
Categories: Hirabah WatchAli A. Rizvi, a muslim blogger, asks the hard questions:
Where are the large-scale protests and outrage from the Muslim community over the senseless deaths and rape of hundreds of thousands of poverty-ridden African Muslims?
Why is there such a glaring discrepancy between the Muslim world’s response to the atrocities in Gaza and the atrocities in Darfur?
If the Darfur genocide was being carried out by Jews or Christians instead of Arab Muslims, would we see a different response?
Note that the point of this is not to suggest that there should be no outrage over Gaza. But in terms of the scale of human life – 300,000 people dead according to estimates from 2005, equivalent to 300 Gazas – Darfur should at least merit comparable energy and action and blog posts and outrage. Rizvi’s post documents just how little outrage there is to spare.
When the International Criminal Court finally indicted Omar al-Bashir, President of Sudan for his role in arming and supporting the janjaweed militias who are carrying out the literal genocide of non-Arab muslims in Darfur, what was the response of the Ummah? Accusations of bias and injustice, but not for the victims of Darfur, but rather their murderers. Muslim murderers….
Accusations of bias and injustice against those who dare to point out that acts of violence are being committed by Muslims and justified by those Muslims by reference to Islamic teachings? Gee, where have I heard that before?
I’ve cut out the hate propaganda — you can read it for yourself at Beliefnet if you care to do so. But it is refreshing to see a Muslim take his coreligionists to task for placing the solidarity of the umma above all else, even when Muslims are killing other Muslims because, in their view, their Islamic bona fides are not fully intact, or simply as an expression of the Arab supremacism that is deeply embedded within Islam.