Protecting Black Women From Rape has been organised by Afrosphere to publicise two horrendous cases of rape against Black women in the United States.

Ms. Megan Williams

Megan Williams thought she was going to a party. For more than a week, authorities say, the 20-year-old black woman was kept captive in a shed, tortured, beaten, forced to eat rat, dog and human feces, and raped by six white men and women who taunted her with racial slurs. “They just kept saying ‘This is what we do to niggers down here,’” Williams told The Associated Press in one of her most extensive interviews since the shocking case made national headlines last month.

In Dunbar Village Case

4 males aged between 14 and 18 have been charged as adults on a 14 count indictment

Hoping to steal money and jewelry, Avion Lawson, 14, said he and someone else wore masks when they entered the 35-year-old woman’s apartment that night, according to the documents. Once inside, Lawson said, he and his accomplice, whose name is blacked out on the report, encountered the woman in bed with three other masked males around her. Lawson told police he sexually assaulted her and stole two video games and a truck.

The victim returned home from her job delivering phone books about 9 p.m. the night of the attack, according to her statement to police. While fixing her son something to eat, a young male with braids knocked on her door to tell her the tires on her truck were flat. Once outside, she said, she saw a male with a large gun and two others armed with guns. They wore black clothing over their faces, she said, and ordered her back into the apartment, where they demanded money.

After being told there was no money, the attackers tore off the woman’s clothes and raped her until five others arrived, according to the documents. The new arrivals took turns having sex with her and then sodomized her. The mother was then ordered into a tub filled with vinegar and water where they used hydrogen peroxide, alcohol, nail polish remover and ammonia on her. At gunpoint, the assailants forced the mother and son to have sex.

Throughout the attack, the victims suffered beatings, including having a bowl and light bulbs smashed over their heads. The encounter was recorded on a cell phone camera, according to the mother.

Reading about these two horrific acts of violence against women, I am reminded of a piece I wrote after the rape, torture and murder of two South African lesbians this past July, Sigasa and Masooa and the millions of other Black lesbians, bi-sexual and heterosexual women who have been raped over the centuries. Raped by white men, by black men, by gangs, violated in the most horrific ways.

I have been thinking about the rapes and murders. Wondering about the safety of my friends. I do want to know the why and the who of rapes of women. I am sure much has been written on why men rape and who these men are. But I want to think this through for myself. When rape takes place every minute then I have to ask some more questions on why this is happening. People are not sleeping thinking about being raped. Thinking about their mothers, sisters, daughters and friends being raped. Who have been raped. Women are suffering from terrible anxiety thinking about these things. The pain of one rape goes beyond the victim or survivor and spreads to every other woman she knows. The knowledge that you were raped because of your sexuality, when that sexuality is viewed as being unnatural, doubles your anxiety. When everyone around you is continually saying you are sinful or ostracising you because of who you love – it fucks up your head. You are strong but at night you cry. You live in fear because every time you walk out of your house or compound the predator(s) maybe watching and waiting.

We are living in fear, in Darfur, in the DRC, in South Africa, the US, in Haiti, in Britain - everywhere we are living in fear of rape and hate. The hate, the misogyny It comes with attitudes and language as well as physical, emotional and sexual violence. It is not just men who need to take account of their brothers, fathers, sons and male relatives and friends. Often women are themselves complicit in these acts of violence, less often they are participants.

We all have choices every time silence is chosen over speaking one more woman is left unprotected against violence.

Tags:
Black Women
Rape

Our bowls clanking
like frail vessels,
we stand against sun and wind,
and death that loops over
to take our vision,
when all else has deserted us
in the blankness of the hour,
the horizon our last scene,
coming at us
from where no sun
has ever risen.
© Rethabile Masilo

This poem is in memory of Kevin Carter, and that little Sudanese girl in his snap.

Later today, Reuters and Global Voices are facilitating a debate on Darfur as part of it’s Newsmaker events. The debate asks the question

“What are the responsibilities of the international community to Darfur?
Reuters and Reuters AlertNet gathered a distinguished panel to debate the Darfur crisis as concerns mount over the effectiveness of peacekeepers and aid workers.

Apart from the Sudanese Ambassador to the UN, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad, there are no African voices on the panel. I believe Reuters and GV could have made an effort to invite some continental voices (there are many) to contribute their understanding and knowledge on Darfur.

In an attempt to provide a better understanding of the conflict and to place it in an historical context, Pambazuka News has recently published a number of articles by Pan-African voices.

In “The politics of naming: genocide, civil war, insurgency” Mahmood Mamdani compares the violence in Iraq to that of Darfur and questions the naming of the violence in Darfur as genoicde

The similarities between Iraq and Darfur are remarkable. The estimate of the number of civilians killed over the past three years is roughly similar. The killers are mostly paramilitaries, closely linked to the official military, which is said to be their main source of arms. The victims too are by and large identified as members of groups, rather than targeted as individuals. But the violence in the two places is named differently. In Iraq, it is said to be a cycle of insurgency and counter-insurgency; in Darfur, it is called genocide. Why the difference? Who does the naming? Who is being named? What difference does it make?

In “There is no Genocide in Darfur” Andile Mngxitama takes Mahmood Mamdani to task on his assertion that there is no genocide in Darfur and describes him as an apologist for the Khartoum regime.

Has Mahmood Mamdani the pre-eminent African scholar become an Arab supremacist apologist? A careful reading of his much circulated “The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, and Insurgency”, provides more than enough evidence to suggest that this great progressive thinker has succumbed to the charms of tribe and perhaps religion. Mamdani employs strange logic, dubious sources, and nonsensical devices to arrive at his denialist conclusion- there is no genocide in Darfur! If that was his only project, we could perhaps leave him to stew in his new found prejudices. But when he denies the victims of Khartoum’s project of subjugation of Black Africans through elimination and displacement then we are compelled to speak up or be complicit in this deletion of a people under the guise of a crusade against imperialism and Islamophobia. The progression of Mamdani to his current despicable position has been gradual but certain, see his 2004 “Darfur Crisis”.

In “The Dirty Political Underbelly of Darfur” Ayesha Kajee
argues that there is a national and international dimension to the conflict.

No consideration of the political underpinnings of the Darfur situation can be complete without a consideration of international interest in Sudan’s immense natural resource base and indeed, that of the region. Given the political environment in the Middle East and the insatiable demand for oil by nations such as the US and China, substantial oil reserves in both Chad and Sudan make them vulnerable to political manipulation from outside. Sudan’s Muglad Basin alone reportedly contains three billion barrels of crude. Both Chad and Sudan have used oil revenues to purchase arms that sustain conflicts within their countries and across borders, a factor that is ignored by most consumers of oil in the region.

Joseph Yav, “From Rwanda to Darfur - Never Again or Never Say Never Again”
writes that the world community has failed to learn from the Rwandan genocide as it sits by and watches the developing genocide in Darfur.

Even if there is controversy about the definition of genocide in Darfur, there is little doubt that despite the hair-splitting of the proper description of the unfolding tragedy, there is a developing genocide in Darfur which is being met by a similar reaction or lack of action from the world community. Equally, the current situation in Zimbabwe - where the state is oppressing its own people - is another case for the agenda of actions to end this cycle, and move us to finally realise the call of ‘never again’.

Other Links

Podcast by Sudanese Women’s Movement and the Conflict in Darfur

Darfur Archives

Tags: Darfur
Update tomorrow

The politics of apologetics: genocide denial, Darfur version Kwesi Kwaa Prah critiques Mahood Mamdani’s writings on Darfur which essentially deny genocide is taking place and provide solace to the Khartoum regime.

* Mother Jones has a photo essay on commodifying death. We are told that 500 T-shirts are being sold a week by Studio X, based in Liberty City, Miami. The photos of mostly of teenage boys shot to death on Ts are big business [40% increase in the murder rate with twice as many teenage boys killed last year]. The fallen become heroes to be worn as trophy’s by the still living - until possibly they too become a badge, t-shirt, flag or dog tag.

As a documentary essay I find there is something lacking in the sense that the photographer does not engage with the subjects (t-shirt wearers) who are they, who are the dead. Though he does explain the circumstances of one young man’s death - it is still descriptive rather than exploratory. I would have preferred the accompanying text to add to the documentation of the lives of subjects so we are able to look beyond the photo into the social and economic realities of the their lives. Why so much easy death? Why the need to glorify death in this way so that the dead become like martyrs and the living martyrs in the waiting? the ready acceptance of the commercialisation of the deaths through badges, flags, T-s, why not mugs and mouse mats too?

*Mas Voces is a Spanish website that broadcasts alternative voices from across the world. Although they focus largely on the Spanish speaking countries but there are reports from Africa and elsewhere.

* The Blog of Jackie Tumwine is a blog dedicated to monitoring the tobacco industry across Africa. This week she reports from Nigeria on a N21billion suit lodged by Environmental Rights Action and the Lagos State Government against British American Tobacco (Nigeria) Limited and five others. The case centers around

“deceptive and fraudulent practices of targeting and marketing their products to young and underage persons, and other reliefs including monetary damages”

* Environmental Rights Action [Friends of the Earth Nigeria] have a brand new website and logo which is a great improvement on their previous site. They have also extended their work from oil issues in the Niger Delta to include a much broader range of environmental issues such as monitoring the tobacco industry and participating in the Commission on Sustainable Development with the aim of campaigning for Africa to become a “stand alone issue” on land, , drought and desertification.

* The Liberator Blog posts on the “psychology of compassion” and quotes (NY Times correspondent, Nicholas Kristof - who has written extensively on Darfur)

NY Times) “Save the Darfur Puppy”: Finally, we’re beginning to understand what it would take to galvanize President Bush, other leaders and the American public to respond to the genocide in Sudan: a suffering puppy with big eyes and floppy ears.

That’s the implication of a series of studies by psychologists trying to understand why people — good, conscientious people — aren’t moved by genocide or famines. Time and again, we’ve seen that the human conscience just isn’t pricked by mass suffering, while an individual child (or puppy) in distress causes our hearts to flutter.

Liberator comments

And now Africa is so “unmarketable” that our only hope is to dumb down the simple truths of human compassion and justice so that people will buy them? Ain’t that somethin. I guess Kristof, as representative of white liberalism, has hit that wall–nowadays even those who demand change, justice, even simple compassion must become pacified at the foot of the market, which itself is determined by what messages people will or will not consume comfortably. Ha.

Egyptian blogger *Rantings of a Sandmonkey has closed down his blog as protest against the Egypitan blogosphere’s lack of focus.

I have stated two reasons for quitting, and the majority of the people took the first one and ignored the second one, even though for me the second one was one of the major reasons for doing what I did. The truth of the matter is, the security situation and intimidation aside, this was a protest, my way of telling the Egyptian blogosphere that we need to focus. That we now have the media attention, the people’s admiration or at least interest, and the “zeitgeist’ is ours if you will, so it’s time we use it wisely. Blogs actually allowed the world to listen to us, so now that we have this tool, the question is : what do we have to say exactly? It’s personally depressing to see that very few, handful really, from those who command the attention, have anything to contribute to the debate, and even those are censoring themselves now. I am not saying that we should take ourselves too seriously, or start going on ego trips over our importance and role and believe that we are leaders and influential, but there are things to be done that we can easily do……………And even if you do feel disheartened about the apathy or the lack of interest or activism on the part of the average Mo in Egypt, well that too needs to be examined and worked on. Let’s face it, the average Egyptian is scared of political reform, and shies away from religious reform, so how do you get them involved? Well, there is still social reform, and they have shown keen interest in that..

Reminds me of the Nigerian blogosphere but I cant see how closing down your blog works as a form of protest? He comes up with some excellent suggestions on how to move forward as blogging activists in Egypt but which apply to almost any country with repressive governments and state run or uncritical media. Maybe he is planning something otherwise his “protest” is pretty a non-event.

Finally * Maveric - a band from Cape Town with a “mixed genre“ -

Maveric is terrific. Bluesy. Jazzy. Pop. Straight up. Township perspectives and jams. With just a little nostalgia. But not much. It’s warm. You haven’t heard it before. Mavo says, “welcome to this genre”. He means this is something you haven’t heard before. In short, mamela sbali, Maveric is hot. .

Sharp Sharp : Listen and enjoy: MP3!

Tags: Miami; Murder; Environment + Nigeria; Tobacco + Nigeria; Spain; Egypt; Freedom of Speech; Darfur; Maveric; South Africa + Music

Google Earth zooms in on Darfur carnage

In an effort to raise awareness about atrocities in Sudan, Google Inc. has updated its online satellite mapping service with images of burned villages, refugee camps and wounded children.

The project, done in partnership with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, offers users of Google Earth a bird’s eye view of the aftermath of four years of fighting between the East African nation’s Arab-dominated government and the largely black residents of the Darfur region. The United Nations has said that more than 200,000 people, many of them Darfur civilians, have died and 2.5 million have been displaced in the conflict…………..Map Layers

Links: There is no genocide in Darfur

Tags: Darfur; Sudan; Chad; Genocide; Google Earth;