Sudan’s president and the genocide

JMJ says Bashir has the outlook of the military man that he once was: he came about in Sudan in a military coup and ever since then the biggest challenge for him has been the bloody civil war between North and South, which he prefers to settle militarily and not through diplomacy. He’s resorted then to the use of militias as the way to undermine the rebel support base. (How has he been able to survive?) he’s secretive and contradictory, but he’s also a pragmatist and will accept settlements when he has to. But he’s also proud and can be prone to rages. (Bashir has aligned himself with Islamic, but how important is his Islamic identity to him?) Extremely important, in terms of the Palestinian cause and also because Sudan has been pushing to become an Islamic state itself. (Why is he then encouraging and sponsoring militias which kill people in Darfur?) The twist to this is that Islam intersects with race so you need to add this element of Arab identity as inclusion as an Islamic state, and this is what Sudanese people have objected to. You need to be an Arab Muslim and not just a Muslim in Sudan. (What drives Bashir to these extremes?) I think it’s just a question of pride in Bashir himself. He won’t accept failure and responds with rage to the prospect of failure.