BOOKER RISING OP-ED: An Anti-Occupation Proposal With Prime Minister Ariel Sharon clinging to life in an Israeli hospital, everyone is talking about implications for the peace process between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East. Meanwhile, a far bigger occupation - that has historically been far more brutal - rages on. I'm talking about Arab occupation of black land in Africa - which they invaded - and their gross human rights violations towards black populations. White folks have (rightly) been called to task for their historical brutality against black folks in Africa, while Arab folks continue to get let off the hook. It is long overdue to have this discussion.
There are now almost 200 million Arabs in Africa. There are almost as many Arabs in Africa (169 million) as there are in the Middle East (187 million). The Arab world's largest city and largest university are both on the African continent, and not in the Middle East. Yet these are points that few people know, or if they know it, they conveniently overlook while talking about occupation.
This Wikipedia entry outlines the history of Africa and the start of the Arab invasion: "In the 7th century occurred an event destined to have a permanent influence on the whole continent. Beginning with an invasion of Egypt, a host of Arabs, believers in the new faith of Islam, conquered the whole of North Africa from the Red Sea to the Atlantic and continued into Spain. Throughout North Africa Christianity nearly disappeared, save in Egypt (where the Coptic Church was allowed to continue), and Upper Nubia and Ethiopia, which were not subdued by the Muslims. In the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries the Arabs in Africa were numerically weak, holding the countries they had conquered only by military superiority; but in the 11th century there was a great Arab immigration, resulting in a large absorption of Berber culture."
If Arabs and their diaspora (and their Iranian allies) can argue for a Jew-free Middle East, then black Africans and those of us who are part of the diaspora can argue for an Arab-free Africa. After all, Arabs have been occupying black land and committing massive atrocities against blacks - atrocities that far surpass anything Israel has done to the Palestinians - for 1,400 years. And while Jewish presence in the Middle East long precedes that of Islam and Jews are indigenous to that region, this is not the case for Arabs in Africa.
While there is no African country where Europeans are a majority, this is not the case with Arabs. Using Arabs' own logic, how about they return to the Arabian Peninsula where they belong? Why should I get upset about Israel's tiny sliver of land in the Middle East (and mind you, I support a two-state solution) when Arabs occupy huge portions of land in Africa, are enslaving black folks to this day in Sudan and Mauritania, razing black villages in Sudan and undermining black religiosity through their 'Arabization' campaigns in places like Mali, and every year there is seemingly a new country on the continent gets called Arab? More importantly, where is the outrage from black folks?
Examples: "To be Arab is to stake out a certain political and cultural history although you may live on the African soil. The culture that identifies Arabs as Arabs originates in Arabia; African culture originates in Africa. To have Arabs in Africa who exercise their Arabness against the people whose land they occupy is to raise a new level of African international debate. Indeed Iran has recently given Sudan 300 million dollars to purchase Chinese weapons to prosecute its war against the southern [and black] Sudanese. But Iran has extracted its pound of flesh from the African country. Sudan has been asked to make every Moslem woman wear the chador to veil her face. In fact, the Islamic Sudanese have been required to give up their own traditional dress for the Iranian style. Failure to follow the regulations means that women are whipped."
Northern Africa, where most Arabs in Africa live, is not Pan-Africanist (an idea that I support, but with a capitalist twist), but Pan-Arabist. Their occupation in Africa has occurred for far longer than the existence of the state of Israel. Yet why is the cause of the Palestinians more noble? Their lighter skin? "We got that land fair and square, by the sword", Arabs may respond. Fine. How is that different than the Jews and the military ass-whooping that they gave the Arabs in the Six-Day War? Perhaps black folks should start suicide bombs in Cairo, Tunis, Rabat, and Algiers to draw attention to this issue. Then again, we have something the Arabs are just now getting: a history of civil rights and democracy. And they don't have an Arab Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
# posted by Shay @ 8:58 AM Comments (20) | Trackbacks (4) Comments: BRAVO -- well said!
Let's see what the apologists for Islamofascism have to say to THIS!
# posted by Anonymous : 2:38 PM
This issue needs to addressed because our success in the US hinges on a free Africa. We must have a Africa devoid colonialist seeking to strip it of natural and human resources to prop up Arab homelands. Thank you for your courage. As a Muslim, I support your position wholeheartedly and I see nothing wrong with having a viable democratic Israel in the Middle East.
# posted by Anonymous : 8:18 AM
I appreciate the article you wrote about Arab occupation in the MOTHERLAND. I am Muslim who is an African American and I always have this discussion w/Arab muslims who resides in America. They try to act like they are in ignorant to what I'm talking about but, I tell most Arabs don't worship with Black Muslims in the United States or even want to live around them. The Arabs-Muslims or no better than the Euro-Christians who went around the world and conquered darker people of the world, who were very civilized and happy, before Euro-christians brought the way they practiced Christianity and forced it on them, and also took their land and resources.
# posted by Robert : 8:59 AM
The reasoning here is not quite accurate. The so-called Arabs in Africa are not ethnic Arabs for the most part. The true Arabs hail from Yemen and the Arabian peninsula.
The Arabs in Africa--for the most part--are people who have been Arabized in language and culture following the dawn of the Islamic era. North Africa is populated for the most part by Berbers who are indigenous to North Africa. The "Arabs" in the Sudan are just blacks who stupidly believe that they are Arabs because they speak Arabic. Just as there are blacks who stupidly belive that they are French of British or something else because they have been Europeanised in culture.
In the case of Palestine the facts are that settlers from Europe and Russia came in after 1948 and pushed aside the people who were living on the land that became Israel.
The expansion of Europe into Palestine should be seen as an aspect of the European expansion into all corners of the globe--resulting in the seizing of 3 continents--North America, South America and Australia after exterminating the indigenous populations. The problem with the settlement of Palestine--in strictly Eurocentric terms--by the Europeans of Jewish extraction is that it came too late and a fter the massive destructions of WW II.
# posted by Anonymous : 11:06 AM
I'm a Muslim of African descent and something should be done about the violence and oppression which happens but I think it is a little simplistic to turn it into an us/them issue. Arab has become more of a linguistic group, not unlike Hispanic. So just as Hispanics are a mixed group and can come in any race, so can Arabs. So many of the people you are calling Arabs and trying to paint as non-African are actually of African-descent.
The situation in Israel/Palestine is different because the Jews and Arabs have mixed less with one another. Also many of the Jews have lived elsewhere for generations and centuries before coming to Israel and so in some ways, Israel is still "fresh".
# posted by Abdul-Halim S. : 12:22 PM
I understand your sentiments, but there is a GAPING hole in your argument. The problem is that every Arab looking person in Africa is NOT an Arab and can lay just as much of a claim to the African mainland as any black African.
Contrary to popular belief, most of the light-skinned people associated with the Arab world in Northern Africa are Berbers and not Arabs. These light-skinned Berbers are black Africans who intermarried with Southern Europeans over millenia. Northern Africa was originally sparsely populated with black Africans, who ruled the land from time imemorial. Then the Europeans came in droves and created the Berber race. Since the Berbers are half-originals who originated on the African mainland, why should they be moved to the so-called "middle east"?
At the height of Arab fame, these Berber people became assimilated into the dominant culture and most forgot their own identity. However there are still relentless pockets of resistance in the North African countries where Berbers are engaged in guerilla warfare with the government because they resent the usurpation of their identity by the majority Arab wannabes'.
The proof that Berbers are originally black African is that there are hundreds of thousands of black Berbers and there are NO pure white Berbers.
The north African countries i refer to are Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Mali.
PS- I called a Moroccan man "Arab" and he frowned and quickly asserted his Africaness
Moving on to East and NorthEast Africa. Yes, those Arabs in Kemet are just that, ARABS. They are in the Sudan and Tanzania and other east African countries. The only country that can be truly said to be ruled by Arabs in Africa is Egypt and they are heavily diluted with black-African blood. The darkest Arabs are in Egypt and Sudan and Yemen.
Now the real question for all the Arab look-a-likes and wannabes in Africa is: DO YOU WANT TO BE AFRICAN OR ARAB? And if you choose to be Arab rather than African then you don't belong in Africa.
# posted by truthBtold : 4:35 PM
First of all, we all need to realize and accept the fact that the so-called modern world of the Roman Caucasian and the Hindu-Arab Indian was built on the destruction of the Black Jewish Civilizations in West Africa (Ghana,Mali, and Nigeria-Songhay).Our Ancestors were building a Ethiopic Egyptian-Sumerian Israeli style civilization and these peoples political, religious, scientific and economic leadership could not stand it. Our ancestors in west africa built all those civilization from the roots up! The slave societies leadership did not want the world's peoples to see anything like that and to this day they do not! The promblem that Black America has is the Plantation Negro Leadership that is Confederate and Muslim Slaves to these peoples and their stupid societies whether we are talking about Min. Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Push or Min. Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. We must claim all black land and the ghettos in America and Reclaim Our Land in all of West Africa and we can solve all of our economic promblems and go on from there and solve our spiritualistic, scientific, and racial promblems as well and get rid of a genocidal leadership and negative negroes that bow the knee to serve this ignorant mess to start with.Our Genetic Future and Presence on this Planet itself is at stake!
posted
The poster of the following, hit the nail on the head with this comment:
"The Arabs in Africa--for the most part--are people who have been Arabized in language and culture following the dawn of the Islamic era. North Africa is populated for the most part by Berbers who are indigenous to North Africa. The "Arabs" in the Sudan are just blacks who stupidly believe that they are Arabs because they speak Arabic..."
-------------------- Truth - a liar penetrating device! Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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Some of the posters have to realize that areas like northern Egypt and Middle Egypt had pockets of foreigners before Arabs even came there. In some areas in Middle Egypt and the Delta Arab tribes from Syria were moved in and settled.
The most Arab country in Northern Africa is Libya which is almost all Bedouin Arab with some Berber tribes and nomadic black Saharan groups in southern Libya. During the invasion of Beni Hilal and Sulaim around the 11th century this drove many Berbers southward and also many too refuge in the mountains.
I will agree that Arabs have done some terrible things to Africa and Africans that definately need attention. I seriously doubt that you can deport the entire population of Northern Africa to the Arabian peninsula but most are heavily mixed with the indigenous populations. Arabs are pretty much like Borgs incorporating non-Arabs and assimilating them into their population.
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
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