"At a time when everyone from George
Clooney to George Bush is an instant expert on
Darfur, Kevin Funk and Steven Fake have given us what
we so urgently need: a clear, sober assessment of the
conflict and how it fits into the foreign policy of
the United States. With neither fear nor favour, they
take us back stage, show us our blind spots, and come
up with some troubling conclusions. Explosive,
masterful, and impeccably fair. Consider it the
thinking person's
guide to Darfur."
--John Ghazvinian, author of Untapped:
The Scramble for Africa's Oil
"Kevin Funk and Steven Fake have
written a devastating critique of the 'humanitarian'
response of the United States to the Darfur crisis,
while offering a genuine humane alternative that
would lessen the ordeal, if not bring it to an end.
Well-researched, easy to read, and utterly
convincing, a crucial book for anyone concerned about
achieving a morally and politically acceptable U.S.
foreign policy."
--Richard Falk, Milbank Professor of Law Emeritus,
Princeton University, and since 2002, Visiting
Distinguished Professor, Global Studies, UCSB
"Sudan has been a nightmare for many.
It still is. The outside world is responsible as
well. This book shows why. The authors avoid
easy answers, and provide a quality analysis
with compelling arguments to revise Western
policies."
--Jan Pronk, Special Representative of the
Secretary-General and Head of Mission for the United
Nations Mission in Sudan, 2004-06
"A commanding exposé of the
duplicitous and damaging role played by U.S.
leaders and others in a dark drama.
Well-written, well focused, deeply informed--an
excellent corrective for the many who cannot tell the
difference between humanitarian assistance and
imperial
aggrandizement."
--Michael Parenti, author of Contrary
Notions and Against
Empire
"Elegantly written, erudite without
being academic, and with a forceful yet sensible
political argument, Scramble for
Africa is a must read for
anyone concerned with making sense of one of the most
haunting crises of our time."
--Stephen Eric Bronner, Professor of Political
Science at Rutgers University and author of
Peace Out of Reach: Middle Eastern Travels and the
Search for Reconciliation
"The Scramble
for Africa stands against the
muck of neo-liberal ideology, taking us through the
Darfur conflict, putting it into history and allowing
us to think of a non-imperialist way to bring peace
to a tormented region. Save Darfur, surely; but as
much from Washington as Khartoum, as much from
fantasies of humanitarian intervention as the
brutalities of IMFundamentalism and Islamism."
--Vijay Prashad, author, The
Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World
"This extremely well-researched
analysis reveals the real goals of U.S. foreign
policy in one of the greatest horrors of our
generation. The authors have produced an essential
book for analysts and activists everywhere, together
with a call to action which no-one should
ignore."
--Mark Curtis, author, Web of
Deceit: Britain's Real Role in the World
"One of the few works to tackle
honestly the vexing question of what is to be done
about Darfur. Cheerleaders for intervention and
humanitarians who persist in rosy fantasies about the
U.S. role in the world have had no trouble advocating
'solutions,' but for others on the left the question
has been much more difficult. Not content, like so
many, to simply wash their hands of the question, the
authors have constructed a deeply informed and
carefully reasoned argument that addresses seriously
the possibilities for constructive humanitarian
interventions in an imperfect world vitiated by great
power interests and political posturing. For the
cruise-missile left and the hard-core
anti-interventionist left alike, Darfur is not about
Darfur but about their own self-image; Fake and Funk
rightly bring the focus back to what is best for the
people on the ground."
--Rahul Mahajan, activist and author of Full
Spectrum Dominance: U.S. Power in Iraq and Beyond
"So much of what has been written on
Darfur is either expression of humanitarian concern
without awareness of the imperial context, or
denunciation of Western perfidy without appreciation
of the horrible human tragedy that has been
unfolding. In this extremely well-documented study,
Steve Fake and Kevin Funk combine deep compassion
with a keen critical analysis to show how we might
best support the suffering people of Darfur. This is
a book for all those interested in working for a more
just world."
--Stephen R. Shalom, Professor of Political Science
at William Paterson University in New Jersey and
author of, among other works, Imperial
Alibis: Rationalizing U.S. Intervention After the
Cold War
"For those, like myself, who have
long felt both revulsion and confusion by the
humanitarian crisis in Darfur and wished to know
more, this is the perfect handbook. …an
objective, dispassionate, meticulously researched
account of the conflict… The authors of Scramble
for Africa… startle us
with their documentation of the little known but
equally sordid role our own government has played in
Sudan for the past thirty years - suggesting that our
present official 'humanitarian concerns' are merely
crocodile tears masking another agenda."
--Timothy Kendall, Ph. D., Senior Research Scholar,
Dept. of African-American Studies, Northeastern
University and Director of Archaeological Mission,
Jebel Barkal (Karima), Sudan, Sudan Dept. of
Antiquities and Museums (NCAM), Khartoum, Sudan
"Scramble for
Africa: Darfur-Intervention and the USA is
the book we've all been waiting for. Clearly written,
and scholarly without losing its skeptical edge, this
new work takes on the U.S. Government and the Save
Darfur coalition alike, offering a fresh analysis of
Darfur in its larger geopolitical context. Scramble
for Africa belongs on every
Darfur activist's bookshelf."
--David Morse, Darfur activist and journalist
"This excellent book presents the
basic information on the political and military
aspects of the conflict, examines the options from a
clear and transparent ethical position, and presents
ways forward with a concern for broad international
implications and concern for the hundreds of
thousands of victims. It is exactly what is needed
and I hope it is very widely read. I will recommend
it to everyone."
--Justin Podur, writer and activist
"The Darfur conflict has proven to be
intractable, at terrible cost to the people of that
region. There is a crying need for on-going
international activism based on a thorough analysis
of Sudan and the role of the U.S., China and other
states. Scramble for Africa
by Kevin Funk and Steven Fake is a well-researched,
important and progressive contribution in this
regard. It should be widely read, from the White
House to the grassroots."
--Laurie Nathan, research fellow at the London School
of Economics and a member of the African Union
mediation team for Darfur in 2005-06
"At last there is a book on Darfur
that places the conflict in the context of the new
'scramble for Africa,' the contest between the old
imperialism of England and its successors, the U.S.
and China. Fake and Funk's analysis unmasks the
propagandistic deploying of powerful language
alleging 'genocide' and the 'world's worst
humanitarian crisis' in Sudan for its political
advantages to the U.S. and its neglect of the
suffering of Darfur's victims. When analyzing the
politics of the 'Save Darfur Coalition' the
journalists-authors work with a scalpel in a
refreshing and penetrating analysis of why the Darfur
conflict became the 'cause célèbre,' when it should
have been the war in Iraq. Activists and astute
observers of the contemporary global political scene
will find this scrupulously researched volume a must
read, virtually unique among available works on the
subject."
--Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, Professor of Anthropology,
Rhode Island College, veteran Sudan researcher
"The existing 'Save Darfur' movement
has tended to perpetuate the notion that a
well-intentioned United States government has 'not
done enough' to save the suffering people of Darfur,
and should be pressured to intervene more actively.
This well-documented book should help dispel such
illusions, by providing enlightening background
information about the history of U.S. policy in Sudan
which, as in most such cases, has tended to make bad
matters worse. The authors suggest that progressive
activists should try to influence the movement to
adopt more practical and constructive strategies,
which do not rely on getting Great Powers to use the
situation to pursue their own ends."
--Diana Johnstone, author of Fools'
Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions
"Kevin Funk and Steven Fake provide a
forensic and astute examination of the Bush
administration's politically cynical and opportunist
exploitation of the people of Darfur's terrible
plight, using them as pawns to regain access to
Sudan's oil riches and to promote the self-serving
imperialist concept of 'humanitarian intervention'.
Funk and Fake reveal the hypocrisy of Washington,
which can in the same breath declare the Sudan
regime's slaughter of hundreds of thousands of
Darfuris 'genocide' while--out the general public's
earshot--praise and collaborate the very same
butchers as allies in its 'war on terror'. The
mainstream 'Save Darfur' movement's leadership also
comes in for a similar investigation for its
willingness to allow the interests of the people of
Darfur to play second fiddle to Washington's foreign
policy double standards.
However, unlike most of the U.S. left,
Funk and Fake do not try to prettify the reactionary
Sudanese regime and its crimes by placing a plus sign
against it where U.S. imperialism places a minus
sign. They do not engage in much of the U.S. left's
knee-jerk denial of the humanitarian and political
crisis that is underway in Darfur, nor refuse to
accept that it needs to be addressed. They offer the
principled anti-imperialist left with a 'manifesto
for Darfur activism' with which to campaign for the
people of Darfur and challenge the pro-imperialist
direction of mainstream 'Save Darfur' leadership and
expose U.S. imperialism's hypocrisy. Had the U.S.
left adopted such an approach before now, the
right-wing dominance of this movement may have been
broken, the genuine activists in the U.S. would have
been won to a leftwing perspective and much of the
left itself would not--on this issue--now be seen as
callous apologists of a tyrannical regime.
Thankfully, there is still time."
--Norm Dixon, Sudan writer, Green
Left Weekly
(http://www.greenleft.org.au); editor, Links
International Journal of Socialist Renewal
(http://links.org.au)