Talk:Janjaweed
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This Article is One Side of the Story
The Janjaweed referred to as Arabs, Muslims or Baggara. My experience in South Kordofan (Nuba Mountains) showed that Baggara were massacred but NOGs never go to their camps to report massacres assuming that they are on the goverment side or they are the culpirt since they are Arabs (Arabs and Terrorism are synonymous). This article should be considered carefully, for any story the other point of the story is missing. -
- Can you refer readers to any sources on this issue published elsewhere? - Mustafaa 14:38, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Janjaweed: The Other Side of the Story
What's in a name Janjaweed? Dr. Abdullahi Ali Ibrahim The media reporting about the Janjaweed, the allegedly Arab militia wreaking havoc in Darfur, puts in perspective the distinction made by James (Scotty) Reston between news and sociology. News, he says, is only news at the receiving end; the other end is sociology. Today in Darfur there is a lot of news, but very little sociology. The on-going discussions about the etymology of the catchword, Janjaweed, itself illustrate how news echoes a tragedy but fails to reveal its sociology. The media's use of the name makes it sound vile and draconian. But it has a simple explanation in the culture of Darfur. The commonly held view is that "Janjaweed" combines "jan" the Arabic for "evil jinni, ghoul" and "jawad," the Arabic for "horse": horsemen bent on wickedness. To emphasize the evil, some people would embellish it to make it mean "a jinni riding a horse armed with a G/J3 attack weapon. But this embellishment adds another "j" to the word that is not actually there. Mark Lacy of the New York Times, who was counting, pointed out this discrepancy to a Sudanese journalist. Ma'awia Abu Grun, a reporter with Khartoum al-Sahafa daily, investigated the Janjaweed practice. What emerged in his story is that the Janjaweed belongs to a recognized tradition of banditry of camel thievery in Darfur. These bandits, who come from all ethnicities, are rebellious young men. Unable to conform to the prescribed rules of achievement in their societies, they drop out of their tribes to form a group of their own. These misfits undergo two phases before becoming Janjaweed. First, they become "Abu Bazaras," roughly translated as the "black bag" stage. In this period a misfit begins a life of voluntarily homelessness characterized by carrying an "abu bazra," black bag, where he keeps all his belongings. This loafer then becomes an "um bolty," that is, a trouble maker leading a life of mischief. Shunned and jealous of the success of his peers in their migration to various work sites in Sudan and the Gulf area, the misfit would join follow drop-outs and take to banditry. He would find no difficulty obtaining equipment for his new business. The thirty years war in Chad (1962-1992), a Cold War battle that pitted Libya (supported by the Soviets against various Chadian rebels supported by the USA, Egypt, and Sudan), overflowed into Sudan, dumped billions of dollars worth of arms in both Chad and Sudan, and attracted "mercenaries" particularly among the well-funded, Libyan Islamic Legionnaires who operated against Chad from bases in Sudan. The ideal season for Janjaweed activity is when inter-tribal wars take place like the ones raging in Darfur. Camel thievery has been long romanticized in pre-Islamic Arabia and Sudanese pastoral regions. The tradition has had something of a Robinhood quality. Thieves would seize the camels of rich land owners and drive them home in broad daylight. They would butcher some of them at bars for their lovers and friends. The poetic tradition emerging from this banditry evokes a belligerent loneliness and insights on the worth of life, money, women, courage, and the company of fellow bandits. Janjaweedism turned this poetic tradition of thievery into thuggery. Considering the complex political economy of Darfur, one is inclined to take seriously the Sudan government's denial of having control over the Janjaweed. Historically it should be remembered that central governments in Sudan have had a tenuous control over a country approximately one third of the size of the USA. Darfur alone is the size of France. Measuring their limited reach, the central governments have been in the habit of using selected local communities to fight a proxy. To bring Darfur into the fold of Sudan in 1874 and 1916, the Turkish regime (1821-1885) and the British administration (1989-1956) both had to mobilize local forces to achieve their goals. Furthermore, post independence governments allied with local communities in Southern Sudan to destroy the rebels of the region from within. Hence it is logical to assume that the current regime might have occasionally set the Janjaweed loose against the two rebel movements in Darfur. The regime especially abhors one of these movements for its suspected subjection to the control of Dr. Hasan al-Turabi, the godfather of the Sudan government before the famous fallout in 1999. It remains to be seen if this is the case. This government co-option of the Janjaweed, however, is a far cry from saying that it created it or even that it can break it. Sudanese government officials may have promised the international community something beyond its capacity when they committed the government to subdue the Janjaweed within a month ending September 2. While it protested that a month was not enough, the government succumbed under pressure, and the broken promise is haunting it. The report presented by the UN envoy to monitor the compliance of the government was critical of the Sudanese authorities for not restraining the Janjaweed after the passage of the month. And now international intervention in Sudan is being seriously considered. The international community may be right to intervene in timely fashion to protect a population at risk. But this intervention should take into consideration the long-term interests of the nation-building process in a country as raw as Sudan. Salman Rushdie said it best when he advised that the West should respond to 9/11 in a deft and measured way lest a random attack lead to bombing another Sudanese aspirin factory as the Clinton Administration did in 1998 to punish Sudan for its alleged role in destroying the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. But this intervention should be short and sweet. No Kosovo, please. After five long years of the intervention of the international community to save the Kosvars from Belgrade, the province is in limbo: the mobish, bloody outbreak last March is weighing heavily on the interventionist. The international community has to take the statistics of Darfur death victims with a grain of salt. Forensic teams estimate now that the Serbs and Kosvars who died as a result of ethnic confrontations before the war as a few thousand. Although enough to warrant an intervention, the number is way below the estimated 100.000 to 200.000 that mobilized people to support the Clinton war.
The Author
Dr.Abdullahi Ali Ibrahim teaches African history and Islam at the University Of Missouri-Columbia. His book Manichaean Delirium: Decolonizing the Judiciary and Islamic Renewal in Sudan, 1898-1885 is forthcoming from Brill.
- This is an interesting quote; its points should be incorporated into the article too. But where was this article published? - Mustafaa 00:58, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
categorizing Janjaweed
(moved from user talk pages)Hi, you have put the Janjaweed under Category:Islamist groups. While most people seem to agree that the Sudanese government (which supports them) can be called islamist, I haven't been able to google more than one reference which labels the Janjaweed islamists, rather than, say, more secular Arab nationalists. You seem to have more information about the group's ideology, why not add it to the article? For now I have removed the category. regards, High on a tree 18:51, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- Well, actually I just used this list of terrorist groups to make the category. Janjaweed was added there by User:Sesel, so I'll forward the message to him Fuelbottle | Talk 01:36, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- The Janjaweed have little in the way of an ideology, and their aims are not very clear. The Government of Sudan is clearly Islamist; however, President Bashir has sacked and persecuted Islamist clerics from his Government if they do not suit his needs politically, and Sudan also sponsors the Christian fundamentalist
'
'Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda. The Janjaweed, on the other hand, are following a scorched-earth policy that has little to do with religion (although they are Muslims) or nationalism. According to Human Rights Watch, the militia have "destroyed mosques, killed Muslim religious leaders, and desecrated Qorans belonging to their enemies." These facts make them very hard to classify, because there is seemingly little "ideology" other than genocide. Perhaps others on Wikipedia have an opinion on this, because I can't reach one conclusively. --Sesel 19:15, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- In my opinion it is a matter of two opposing cultures with opposing economic needs; the arabs (janjaweed) are nomads, the africans are agricultural. Because of growing herds the nomads need more access to grazing grounds and water. By killing the farmers they acquire this. Both parties are muslim. It is an injustice to call these people an "Islamist group" as it has nothing to do with Islam.
- More appropriate would be to call them racist as rape victims have recounted Janjaweed rapists have said things to them like "you are too dark" and "we are giving you a lighter-skinned baby" before raping them and branding them as being 'already implanted' (that last phrase -- in single quotes -- is mine, I'm not sure how to phrase it, or what the Janjaweed rapists' intent is in branding their victims.) They do definitely seem bent on near-genocidal ethnic cleansing, but whether they profess to be faithful muslims or not, by their actions they have shown that they do not follow the tenets of the Islamic faith. So "Islamist" is IMO not an appropriate label, any more than calling the Ku Klux Klan a group of "Christian idealogues". They ARE in fact terrorists, though, according to my understanding of that word's common meaning.Pedant 21:31, 2004 Nov 9 (UTC)
- This relates to something I've been wondering for a long while. In the (very few, and not very clear) pictures of the Janjaweed I've seen, they look indistinguishable from black Africans--certainly not in terms of skin color. I know I sound rather insensitive, but I'd really appreciate it if someone could explain to me based on what physical differences that the Janjaweed distinguish themselves from black Africans.
Spelling
UK radio/TV newsreaders pronounce the name "gingerweed", so I've added that as a redirect (after taking ages to find this page!) - MPF 17:18, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I added some more transliterations spellings to the collection, this seems to be a term which can be transliterated in many ways. (Qaddafi, anyone?) Anyway, I ran them through a little script to get a count of Google hits, if you're interested:
- 1 Janjewid
- 1 Junjoeed
- 2 Jinjiwid
- 3 Jangaweit
- 10 Jangawid
- 10 Jangawid
- 12 Jinjawid
- 27 Janjaweit
- 33 Jinjaweit
- 36 Janjeweed
- 55 Janjuweed
- 83 Janjiwid
- 134 Janjawiid
- 138 Jinjaweed
- 409 Jingaweit
- 5130 Janjawid
- 32600 Janjaweed
Obviously adding all these variants to the list of spellings is unwise, so I'm going to take the top five. (There are probably more.)
--babbage 00:23, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- I added redirects to this article for all those on this list that were not done... and put square brackets around them so it's obvious at-a-glance if any on the list are not redirects.Pedant 21:45, 2004 Nov 9 (UTC)
Etymology
The original etymology I was looking at was one I found here:
http://www.islamonline.net/English/ArtCulture/2004/08/article06.shtml:
The term janjewid, originally borrowed from Chad, consists of three syllables: jan means ?man?; je means ?G-3 machine gun,? very popular in Darfur; wid means ?horse.? The whole word therefore means ?the man who rides a horse and carries a G-3 machine gun.?
I the description was referring to an Arabic word, which now that I look at the article again it doesn't say.
Here's another (with dubious English):
http://www.darfournews.net/Darfournews_EN/Janjawed.htm
Janjaweed is A Darfurian local slang ? composed of three words, Dijin Jawad ( horse ) and Gim3 ( Gun ) it means in Sudanese collocial [sic] " A dijin [sic], that is holding a Gim3 gun and riding a horse " The term goes to those youth, who came for looting, raping away from government, local or central eyes ( Supervision ) .
And here's one more, from Al-Ahram:
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/701/re11.htm
Those tribe members who excel in horseback riding and hunting call themselves Janjaweed, an appellation said to blend three words: jinn (spirit), the English word "gun", and jawad (horse). Janjaweed, therefore, can be translated as a gun-toting, horse-riding fiend, so to speak.
Is there some way we could sort out the actual etymology of this word?
Just found this thread on the Arabic Linguist List:
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0409C&L=arabic-l&P=R288&D=1&H=0&O=T&T=1
Maybe I should just let it go :)
--babbage 09:06, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Take it as far as you want/can, is my attitude. If you can come up with the definitive answer, and a source we can point to, that would be an INVALUABLE service. BTW, reading that thread I find "al-janjaweed" (which I've added as a redirect, maybe I will add "al-" to the beginning of those other words on your list, and do those...), I'm not sure of our best arabic language resource... I'll put "seeking an expert in Arabic language issues" in my edit summary, and see if that brings help. I'm off, I'm going to see if there's some help at the wiki embassy...Pedant 21:54, 2004 Nov 9 (UTC)
My suspicion is that it's actually from some Darfurian language like Fur - it sure doesn't sound Arabic... - Mustafaa 15:59, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
NPOV dispute
I am getting rid of the NPOV dispute as there have been no major edits to this article since November and nothing on the talk page since December. — Trilobite (Talk) 22:53, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)