Muslims Challenge Islamic Hypocrisy

Joseph Loconte

The Arab regime of Omar al-Bashir in Sudan has long been accused of ethnic cleansing in its war against black African rebels in Darfur. Since fighting broke out in the spring of 2004, various U.N. investigators and human-rights groups have offered strong evidence of government complicity in the destruction of villages, sexual violence against women, and the brutal dislocation of nearly two million non-Arab Sudanese. Indeed, last week the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Mr. al-Bashir, accusing him of genocide. Yet, as best as I can tell, not a single Arab state has spoken out clearly and forcefully against the Islamist government in Khartoum.

The manifest hypocrisy of the Arab world toward Sudan, however, is becoming too much for some Muslims to bear. 

A newly formed coalition of Arab human-rights groups has taken the Sudanese regime to the woodshed. Three dozen non-governmental organizations from twelve Arab countries have formed the Arab Coalition for Darfur, aimed at “rallying the Arab world to find a solution for the Darfur crisis.” Here are some very encouraging words from the coalition’s first communiqué, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). The full dispatch report can be found here.

“For a long time now, the Muslim world—its governments, its peoples, and its nongovernmental organizations—has responded to the daily massacres and to the suffering of millions of Muslims in Darfur with total silence. In order to end this inactivity and silence . . . the Arab Coalition for Darfur, a regional nongovernmental coalition of representatives from 12 countries, held a series of meetings and activities at the periphery of the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers [which took place] this week in Kampala . . . It has been claimed that global imperialism and Zionism are to blame for the conflict [in Darfur]. We have formed this coalition in order to show solidarity with our brothers in Darfur, and to highlight other aspects of the Darfur crisis which have nothing to do with the West or with imperialism.”

It is a welcome moment, indeed, when Muslim voices put aside their grievances—and reflexive hatreds—toward the United States and the West and confront the spiritual cancer that has infected the bloodstream of their own societies. It suggests a moment of moral clarity, a sign of humility that could be the precursor to deeper changes in Islamic societies. Let’s hope for many more moments like it in the days ahead.

Fodder, Good and Evil, War and Peace, Joseph Loconte, Fri 25 Jul 2008