Understanding Darfur.... Nomads and farmers

This has always been an ancient political creature. Nomads providing meat and milk, farmers providing millet and other grains. Raiding is also part of the nomadic economy, always has, everywhere it has flourished. Darfur has numerous ethnic groups, all much intermixed, where the "Arabs" can be as dark as the "Africans". This conflict has always been presented on racial lines. Arabs vs Africans. But that is a poor way of looking at it. The Fur are the dominant African people in Darfur. Once they had a sultanate of their own. These people were farmers and land claims date from the Fur sultanate. Ownership derives from this. The Abbala Rizeigat and Baggara Rizeigat are nomads. They descend from Arab tribes entering the region around 500 years ago. They came from the Jeddah region region of Arabia in Hejaz. The Abbala raise camels, the Baggara raise cattle. They are nomadic. The Baggara do have land which they "tribally own". The Abbala do not. They have always been on the move and on the fringes of government. The great Sahel drought changed many traditions in Africa. People moved, they crossed traditional tribal borders. Conflicts ensued. Nomads claim the farmers were encroaching on traditional pastures, and bullets began to fly.
Omar el Bashir was able to fan this ancient divide into full fledged genocide. He played on differences and caused hatreds to grow. He armed the Abbala and Baggara and created the Janjaweed. The horror began.

But this an old political ploy, is it not. Slobodan Milosevic did in Kosovo,fanning the flames of ancient religious differences that had been forgotten by many. Racism, it appears, doesn't disappear, it just goes underground. During the recent American presidential election it raised its ugly head again. Republicans in general and Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh in particular always played on difference to divide people. Now outright racism is frowned upon these days in America. Civil rights changed all that. Nobody was running around using the N word, at least within media earshot. But I sure received alot of very provacative cartoons and jokes from some of my more conservative acquaintances. These people hunt, fish, cut wood, go to church on Sunday,dip snuff. They don't make these cartoons. But who did? Some "literary" minds at work somewhere, I reckon, sending this crap out. Of course I have acquaintances who claim not to be racists( some of my best friends are colored) but guess who they voted for, even the liberal ones. Not Barack Obama. The old hatred was still there, deep down, ready to be awoken.
Darfur is a worst case scenario of what happens when these old differences are used politically. In the old day, shaykhs of the Fur and Abbala would have sat down and worked it out, as they have for centuries. A tribute of grain would suffice for any land taken by farmers. Blood monies paid to end vendettas. Then comes an Omar el Bashir or Slobodan Milosevic with truckloads of AK 47's for their chosen side. The balance is upset, hatred flares and genocide begins. The Fur, Zahgawa, Abbala, Baggara and others aren't going to go away. People like Omar el Bashir and Ahmed Haroun need to go away... far away and for a very long time.