Presidential appointee Mogahed doesn’t recognize 1.9 million South Sudanese deaths as inflicted by Radical Islam.  Certainly won’t call it ‘jihad.’

 

By Mark S. Finkelstein     April 14, 2009   

  A commentary on Dalia Mogahed’s appointment  by President Obama  to the Presidential Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.  (1)     

 

Before the crisis in Darfur, Sudan, there was one in South Sudan.   As far back as 1998, Researchers called it genocide and tallied “ an astounding 1.9 million deaths [in the South] since the current phase of Sudan's civil war began in 1983.” ( 2 )

 

What was Sudan’s civil war all about?  “Since [Sudan’s] independence on January 1, 1956 successive Arab and Muslim dominated governments in Khartoum have strived to forcefully bring the South under Arab and Islamic fold.  ...   The National Islamic government [in Khartoum] has even gone as far as to declare "Jihad", an Islamic Holy war against the people of the South and the Nuba Mountains, who it considers as infidels and who must be totally eradicated or brought under the banner of Arabism and Islamism.”  ( 3 ) 

 

 And so the Nationalist Islamic government “forced Islamization and Arabization” ( 4 ) on the Christian Sudanese.  They used a number of means including the imposition of strict Islamic religious law (including amputation for proscribed crimes)( 5 )  on Christians as well as on Muslims and by the “[d]enial of basic human needs and use of food as a weapon for conversion into [the] Islamic religion.” ( 6 )  Slavery has been documented first-hand as well. ( 7A )   Slavery?  Read Simon Deng's testimony (7B ) yourself.

 

 There were 1.9 million Christian and animist victims of supremacist Islamism in Sudan.   But Dalia Mogahed would not acknowledge this.  At a public program in Des Moines, Iowa on May 27,  2008 , I personally asked her to acknowledge these facts, and I expected her to do so, because the case is incontrovertible.  But she refused.

Why did she refuse?  Perhaps acknowledging Sudanese jihadism goes against her apparent need to present  radical Islamic extremism as a reaction to political grievances with the world.  For in the book she co-authored with John Esposito   ( 8 ) – the book she came to talk about – she concludes :  the “data indicate that faith [i.e., religion, i.e., adherence to the tenets of a jihadi interpretation of Islam] is not the distinguishing factor primarily responsible for extremism…” (p. 163) ;  That “ the real difference between those who condone terrorist acts [including, jihad – my addition]  and all others is about politics, not piety.” ( p. 74)  Fortunately there are some pretty  solid critiques of the Esposito- Mogahed book  available, one of them being Robert Satloff’s article entitled: “Just like us? Really?” ( 9 ) 

The fact that Ms. Mogahed is either unable or unwilling to identify the Sudanese jihad for what it is and for what it has done, should make one pause.   Think for a moment about the things she is conveniently able to overlook. 

Mark S. Finkelstein serves as Director of Community Relations for the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines, Iowa.  He may be contacted at jcrc@dmjfed.org

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 References 

1.    http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/President-Obama-Announces-Additional-Members-of-Advisory-Council-on-Faith-Based-and-Neighborhood-Partnerships/

 

 2 .  Testimony of J. Millard Burr, to Congress, 1999.   Burr is the author of “Quantifying Genocide in Southern Sudan.  http://home.planet.nl/~ende0098/content/documents/Burr.htm

 3 . Sabit A. Alley from the iAbolish, the Anti-Slavery Portal, 2005. http://web.archive.org/web/20051221045218/http://www.iabolish.com/today/features/sudan/overview1.htm  

  See also: de Chand, "The Sources of Conflict between the North and the South in Sudan"  http://www.dur.ac.uk/justin.willis/chand.htm who identifies many of the residents of South Sudan as Christians.  “ The 13-year old Jihad (Holy war) being waged by the extremist Islamic regime in Khartoum against Christians in the South has given slavery a come back.”

 4 . and  6 .  Riek Machar Terry-Dhurgon.  “South Sudan: A History of Political Domination” http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Hornet/sd_machar.html

 

 5 .  "In September 1983, as part of an Islamicization campaign, President Nimeiri announced that traditional Islamic punishments drawn from Shari’a (Islamic Law) would be incorporated into the penal code. This was controversial even among Muslim groups. Amputations for theft and public lashings for alcohol possession became common. Southerners and other non-Muslims living in the north were also subjected to these punishments."   U.S. Department of State    http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5424.htm

 

 7A "Slavery Widespread in Sudan, Bishop charges." 1998   http://www.domini.org/openbook/sud80713.htm

  . 

7B   Simon Deng’s personal account of slavery under the Khartoum regime.  "I was abducted into slavery at the age of nine, in which I spent three and half years of my life as a slave."   http://www.satyamag.com/mar06/deng.html

 

 8.  John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed  ,  Who Speaks for Islam . What a Billion Muslims Really Think.  Gallup Press, 2007. 

 

 9.  Robert Satloff .  “ Just Like Us. Really?”   A critique of Esposito & Mogahed's Who Speaks for Islam

 http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/066chpzg.asp?pg=1