Are there Nazis in Khartoum? Are radical Islamists who have ruled Sudan for decades fascists? These questions have plagued many, even as the American administration has cozied up to Khartoum in its single minded global war against terror. In that time, Americans have watched Khartoum terrorize its own citizens. Khartoum's murder of blacks has been a hundred fold that of 9/11's terrorists.
With his white turban, Omar Al Bashir doesn't look like a Nazi: either of old or the new vintage. There are no swastikas on the sleeves of his spacious flowing white robes; the mustache is definitely un-Hitleresque. But his life's work -- murder on a grand scale -- clearly resembles that of Hitler's Nazis.
Today's Nazis, white youth with shaved heads, Goring-boots on their feet, can't measure up to Al Bashir. Filled with anger, they roam the streets of Moscow and Berlin. Little rational thought occupies the mind's center. The futility of their anger is easy to appreciate; they represent the residue of white anger at racial harmony; international accommodation and an ever shrinking world.
The same can't be said of Al Bashir and other radical Islamists who are the true inheritors of Hitler's mantle. Indeed, before the First World War and between the two Wars, Arab leaders sided with Germany's fascists. Little has changed. The Sudanese leadership's mental geography has been caught in a weird time warp. Where in other places, other societies, blacks have human rights, for Al Bashir and his cronies, black human life is worthless.
Fascists like Al Bashir have a lot in common with former Serbian Milosevic. Their regimes, like other fascist governments, are distinguished by the following: they use patriotic slogans and symbolism; they disdain human rights; use the military to stay in power and to destroy the opposition. Religion and government are one and they disdain intellectuals and the arts. Corruption in government is the order of the day. Ethnic cleansing is part of their credo.
Al Bashir's evil intent is comparable to Milosevic's; both have the same legendary atavistic tendencies; both have a total disregard for international code of conduct. Al Bashir's crimes include: debasement of man; use of rape as an instrument of genocide and ethnic cleansing. He has expelled two million black Muslims into the desert -- they have no chance of ever returning home. Al Bashir represents a long line of Arab fascists who have consistently and predictably murdered black people for centuries. This nonstop endeavor will continue until the African continent is on fire.
It was with gratitude that I heard of the International Criminal Court's indictment of Al Bashir for genocide. In many ways this is an acknowledgment by the civilized world that this crude murderer, like Milosevic and Liberia's Charles Taylor, is a genocidal monster. I hope he too faces justice at The Hague, like the Liberian and Serbian indictees. His robes have always been besmirched with blood; now he can no longer wear the mien of innocence.
And yes, I'm realistic. The chances of his arrest by the ICC are slim; and what I foresaw is already happening. Arab League leaders - Sudan's main supporters -- are already crying foul. They claim the ICC is disrespectful of a sitting Arab head of state.
That he is a genocidal maniac, who has been killing other Muslims, is of little importance -- of course, they are black. That he has employed rape of the old and the very young doesn't seem to bother other Arab leaders. It's likely another million blacks will die before there is a resolution of the Darfur conflict. It is sadly difficult to see how it can be resolved as long as Al Bashir is at the helm of the government. Already the Comprehensive Peace Accord with the South is in tatters; Eastern Sudan is slowly dipping towards cessation. In it all, Arabs who are militarily superior, are determined to dominate.
The Chinese continue to sing their happy oil song -- little bothers them about human life; human rights. Black genocide exists on a faraway horizon of their cognition. Oil for the Chinese is king.
For many in black Africa, Hitler and Nazis were remote, faraway names. For a long time we didn't know that the most important thing was not Nazi accoutrements, swastikas, the iron Cross, the heil Hitler. Rather it was the philosophy of mass extermination; ethnic cleansing; racism and crass evil -- the very same things that qualify Al Bashir and his Sudanese predecessors as Nazis. His objectives have been: to expel all Blacks from Darfur; convert the desert into their permanent home. And then to once again turn Arab guns on blacks in the South and East Sudan and reoccupy the arable lands. Green blacks' pastures are Arabs' objective. And he will do it. He has Arab weapons; Chinese arms and oil money.
What's not amazing is not that Islam and God have been used as battering rods. But it is surprising that Allah hasn't tired of his name being taken in vain, as these men kill so many black people, God's earth is red with their blood.
And sadly there is no black (African or American) awakening to the danger that has lurked in North Africa for so long. The Arab menace towards Sub Sahara Africa is as real and alive today as it was ten centuries ago.
Al Bashir's arrest and judgment at The Hague will be a way of putting a halt to Sudan's fascists; the first step towards reversing a long historical trend. The question still remains: will it ever happen? I hope and wish for it to happen.