Mamdani - Saviors and survivors: Darfur, politics, and the War on terror

Praise For Saviors and Survivors

Mahmood Mamdani is one of the most penetrating analysts of African affairs. In Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror, he has written a learned book that reintroduces history into the discussion of the Darfur crisis and questions the logic and even the good faith of those who seek to place it at the pinnacle of Africas recent troubles. [An] important book.

Howard W. French, New York Times

Say Darfur and horrific images leap to mind: Janjawiid, rape, genocide. But most of us would be hard-pressed to explain the violence there, beyond the popular notion that its ethnic cleansing of Africans by Arabs. Columbia University scholar Mahmood Mamdanis brilliant new book, Saviors and Survivors, explains why this assumption is faulty, and why its foiling peace efforts.

Katie Baker, Newsweek

Mahmood Mamdani demonstrates just how politically charged the word genocide has become and how many shady agendas it can serve, even among those purporting to act in the name of universal values. His extensively documented study of the political and media circus that came to surround the hitherto uncelebrated province of Darfur is a vivid demonstration of the predictably calamitous results of outsiders meddling in places whose history, politics, and culture they can hardly be bothered to read up on.

Benjamin Moser, Harpers Magazine

Very few books on the Darfur crisis have provided such a good analysis of what is happening in the region, and very few voices have attempted to understand the crisis in its local, regional, and international context. Very few books have attempted to discuss the crisis in its historical and geopolitical context. In reality, discovering such an insightful book is like finding a needle in the sea.

Al-Quds Al-Arabi (London)

Whatever one thinks about Saviors and Survivors, the study and practice of contemporary Sudanese politics, humanitarian concerns, peacemaking, and peacekeeping have received a jolt to the present paradigms that may get us all thinking at a new level of depth. Lets hope that it will be lessons learned, and not repeated, and congratulations to Dr. Mamdani for the clarity and courage to challenge conventional wisdom.

Richard Lobban, Sudan Studies Association Newsletter

There are three reasons why this books perspective on the Sudan-Darfur conflict may be of considerable value to readers interested in African politics and international relations. First, Saviors and Survivors is unique in that it presents an African-centered perspective on the Sudan-Darfur crisis in the context of the study of international relations, geopolitics, and the War on Terror. Second, it draws attention to African regional, epistemological, and ideological perspectives on the crisis. Third, it tackles the bogeyman of African politicsthe national-ethnic question in the context of cultural pluralism. Hidden in the middle of Saviors and Survivorss controversial thesis critiquing international interventionism is Mamdanis scholarly genius. The book scrutinizes, critically analyzes, deconstructs, and reconstructs the deep historical transformations that constitute the underbelly of the continents postcolonial citizenship structures.

African Affairs (London)

Mamdanis book is by far the most exhaustive study of the conflict and is carried out with an impressive display of investigative prowess and referencing. This study is reassuring in its learned dependence on a great variety of sources and an admirable depth of research. Indeed, the reader will discover that Darfur is not quite the mysterious and unknown place that we have tended to imagine. It is to be hoped that this book is widely read and debated.

John C. Caldwell, Population and Development Review

[A] sweeping history of Darfur Mamdani argues that calling the events in Darfur genocide is inaccurate and irresponsible. He believes that the Wests concern with Darfur is a preferred distraction from the failed U.S. occupation in Iraq, offering Western citizens a means to reclaim the moral high ground. [P]rovide[s] valuable historical and cultural background to recent events in Darfur and the sure-to-continue scholarly debate on genocide.

Veronica Arellano, Library Journal

Mamdani traces the path to the Darfur tragedy through its historical and colonial roots to the current situation, where drought and desertification have led to conflict over land among local tribes, rebellion, and finally to the brutal involvement of the forces of the state and to the efforts of the United Nations and others to help the victims and stop the violence. His radical reevaluation of the Darfur problem is a major contribution to understanding and, it is to be hoped, to ending a shocking human disaster.

Sir Brian Urquhart, former under-secretary-general of the United Nations

A brilliantly argued and profoundly challenging critique of liberal support for humanitarian intervention in Darfur. Beyond this, Mamdani sets forth an alternative approach to such catastrophic situations. This book should be required reading for the Obama foreign policy team.

Richard Falk, United Nations special rapporteur and professor emeritus, Princeton University

An incisive and challenging analysis. Framing both Darfurs war and the Save Darfur movement within the paradigm of the Wests historic colonial encounter with Africa, Mahmood Mamdani challenges the reader to reconsider whether Darfurs crisis is genocide warranting foreign military intervention.

Alex de Waal, fellow at Harvard Universitys Kennedy School of Government and editor of War in Darfur and the Search for Peace

Mahmood Mamdani has turned his fearless independence of mind on Darfur, Sudan, and the so-called War on Terror, producing a book that is as passionate and well informed as it is intelligent and (for those used only to surface orthodoxies) challenging.

Conor Gearty, director of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights at the London School of Economics

A necessary contribution to the literature surrounding both humanitarian aid and African geopolitics.

Kirkus Reviews

ALSO BY MAHMOOD MAMDANI

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim:
America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror

When Victims Become Killers:
Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda

Citizen and Subject:
Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism

The Myth of Population Control

Scholars in the Marketplace:
The Dilemmas of Neoliberal Reform at Makerere University

From Citizen to Refugee

Politics and Class Formation in Uganda

To those who seek to make an independent African Union,
and especially to
Abdulqadir Mohammed,
Sam Ibok,
Salim Ahmed Salim,
and
Alpha Oumar Konar
Who understood that only those who are able to safeguard their
independence can dare to pursue a path of reform

Part I:

2

Part II:

7

Part III:

When I went to Sudan in 2003, I could not have imagined that it would be the beginning of an incredibly rewarding five-year-long journey. This acknowledgment is an opportunity to thank those family, friends, and colleagues, without whose solidarity I doubt I would have been able to complete it.