Mamdani’s ‘Settlers’, ‘Natives’, and the War on Terror

摘要

Mahmood Mamdani’s latest contribution as a public intellectual has producednmore controversy than any other book on the Darfur conflict. This isnlargely because his book is not primarily about Darfur; it is about America.nReaders who would like to follow the detailed critique of Mamdani’s book,1nand his defence, can go to the blogspot, ‘Making sense of Darfur’.2 I do notnwish to repeat in detail the criticisms of historians such as Martin Daly andnSean O’Fahey, but will confinemyself to a brief comment on three aspects ofnMamdani’s argument: that it was the British who ‘racialized’ Darfur by identifyingnits inhabitants as either ‘settlers’ or ‘natives’; that there is no directnconnection between the war in Darfur and the civil war between Khartoumnand the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) that endednin 2005; and the role of theWar against Terror in the international responsento Darfur.