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Book review of Mahmood Mamdani Mamdani accuses the Hmong (allies of the USA) of being mercenaries and terrorists (they were and are a Christian minority oppressed by the communist regime), but does not say a word about, for example, the two million people massacred in Cambodia by Pol Pot, the madman that the Hmong were, indirectly, fighting against. Mamdani totally misses the point of what the USA had to gain from invading Iraq, despite the fact that it is pretty obvious: the geopolitical importance of Iraq has been known to any historian since the ancient Greeks. Mamdani does not state what his solution of the problem would be, but it sounds like the only solution would be that the USA stops "messing" with the rest of the world (even when the rest of the world very much wants the USA to mess with their tyrants). www.scaruffi.com /politics/mamdani.html   (4260 words)

Mahmoud Mamdani   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10) Mahmood Mamdani is the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University. Mahmood Mamdani's reputation as an expert in African history, politics and international relations has made him an important voice in contemporary debates about the changing role of Africa in a global context. Professor Mamdani holds a BA from the University of Pittsburgh (1967). www.columbia.edu /cu/sipa/RESEARCH/bios/mm1124.html   (322 words)

United for Peace of Pierce County, WA - We nonviolently oppose the reliance on unilateral military actions rather than ...   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10) Mamdani has written, "it translated into a United States decision to harness, or even to cultivate, terrorism in the struggle against regimes it considered pro-Soviet." The real culprit of 9/11, in other words, is not Islam but rather non-state violence in general, during the final stages of the stand-off with the Soviet Union. Mamdani explained, "What I have in mind is the policy of proxy war." As his book recounts, the African continent became a major front in the cold war after the rapid decolonization of the 1960's and 70's gave rise to a number of nationalist movements influenced by Marxist-Leninist principles. Mamdani's account of the late cold war, and its emphasis on Africa in particular, is likely to be disdained by specialists on Islam, some of whom are criticized by name in the opening chapter. www.ufppc.org /content/view/411/2   (1479 words)

Untitled Document Mamdani, unlike most of his contemporaries, begins his explanation of the evolution of Hutu-Tutsi enmity (which would eventually culminate in the genocide) by examining the origins of the Hutu and Tutsi ethnicities in Rwanda dating back to the thirteenth century. Thus, Mamdani claims, the tensions between the Hutus and Tutsis were magnified as the Belgian colonial rulers institutionalized Tutsi superiority in the colonial system by giving Tutsis preference in the public and educational sectors, primarily between 1927 and 1936. Thus, Mamdani points out, General Juvénal Habyarimana (a Hutu) assumed power in a military coup in 1973 to prevent the widespread social chaos that was emerging between the resident Hutus and Tutsis. web.africa.ufl.edu /asq/v5/v5i3a16.htm   (1009 words)

Foreign Affairs - The Unanswered Question: Attempting to Explain the Rwandan Genocide - Jeffrey Herbst Mahmood Mamdani's When Victims Become Killers is a rich history of Hutu and Tutsi identity, but how it applies to the genocide is unclear. Mamdani writes defensively that he is interested not in narrating atrocity stories "ad infinitum" but rather in understanding the political nature of the crimes in historical context. Mamdani's failure to draw in more evidence in support of his arguments means that despite the sophistication of his theoretical work, there is simply no way of knowing how much he has contributed to the understanding of the genocide. www.foreignaffairs.org /20010501fareviewessay4773/jeffrey-herbst/the-unanswered-question-attempting-to-explain-the-rwandan-genocide.html   (1702 words)

H-Net Review: Elisa von Joeden-Forgey on When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and ... Mamdani writes, "[p]recisely because Hutu and Tutsi had, under colonialism become synonymous with an indigenous majority and an alien minority, decolonization was a direct outgrowth of an internal social movement that empowered the majority constructed as indigenous against the minority constructed as alien" (p. Mamdani argues that the "refugee soldiers who formed the core of the RPF--who had been nearly 4,000 of the roughly 14,000 NRA who took Kampala in 1986 and were probably another thousand-plus in 1990--found themselves between the Rwandan devil and the Ugandan deep blue sea. Mamdani does not say whether his use of the term civil war is intended to subvert the logic of the Hutu state, which created the refugee problem and refused to acknowledge refugees' citizenship for decades after the revolution. www2.h-net.msu.edu /reviews/showrev.cgi?path=12971025209981   (7632 words)

Muslim WakeUp! How the American Empire Used Islam; Review of Mahmood Mamdani’s new book Good Muslim, Bad Muslim; ... Enter Mahmood Mamdani whose new book, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim; America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror, is a much needed corrective for remedying the ill-effects of the prevailing paradigm on the roots of “Islamist” terrorism. Mamdani, a Professor of Government at the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University, starts his book with a well-executed criticism of America’s two most cited gurus on all things Islam, Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis. According to Mamdani this premise is self-serving and morally bankrupt for “ascribing the violence of one’s adversaries to their culture goes a long way toward absolving oneself of any responsibility.” Specifically, writes Mamdani, “Terrorism is not a necessary effect of religious tendencies, whether fundamentalist or secular. www.muslimwakeup.com /main/archives/2005/09/how_the_america.php   (1602 words)

H-Net Review: Arlette Vandeneycken on When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10) Mahmood Mamdani tries not simply to explain the mechanisms that made the genocide thinkable by parts of the Rwandan populations, but also to analyze possibilities and barriers for reconciliation. Mamdani analyzes the citizenship crisis in both the Congo and Rwanda, rooted in land allocation practices, that resulted from the 1996 PF invasion of the Congo. Mamdani's analysis of the political reforms after genocide as victor's justice is probably too extreme and has to be reviewed if one takes into consideration the processes initiated in the late 1990s in Rwanda. www.h-net.msu.edu /reviews/showrev.cgi?path=12571088401493   (1602 words)

Amazon.ca: Books: Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10) While I believe that Mamdani is not an apologist for 'suicide' bombings, some people are going to have difficulty with his explanation of this phenomenon, which he frames in light of Israeli aggression and compares to similar oppression and violent reactions in South Africa. Mamdani is somewhat reductionist as it fails to address the internal circumstances of Muslim societies. Mamdani shows how the period between the late 1970s and the late 1980s was the crucial period during which various players, including and in no small part directly resulting from the actions of, the United States. www.amazon.ca /exec/obidos/ASIN/0375422854   (1610 words)

village voice > arts > Education Supplement: Spring 2004 by Ward Harkavy Case in point is Mahmood Mamdani, the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at Columbia. Mamdani argues that it's not a question of good and bad Muslims, "just as there are no 'good' Christians or Jews split off from 'bad' ones. Mamdani reminds us that Ronald Reagan declared in 1985 that the Contras and the Afghan "freedom fighters" were the "moral equivalents of America's Founding Fathers." After Vietnam, we couldn't send troops around the globe to rout our enemies (for a while, at least). www.villagevoice.com /issues/0415/harkavy.php   (695 words)

CSIndy: Comfort in deception (March 10, 2005) Mahmood Mamdani chooses his words more carefully, but even so, his sixth book, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror, lays out a damning -- and alarming -- indictment of America's involvement in the formation of Islamic terrorism. Mamdani accuses the United States of legitimizing terrorism by enveloping it as a religious war to defeat the Soviet "evil empire." He acknowledges that on one level it worked; the Soviets withdrew. The reader is left with an increasing sense of incredulity; Mamdani's sources, though, are credible and his background as an African immigrant perhaps provides him with a more insightful analysis of American foreign policy. www.csindy.com /csindy/2005-03-10/fineprint.html   (635 words)

The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Enemy (washingtonpost.com) Mamdani's central thesis is that the struggle against the Soviets made use of proxy wars in the Third World, which concentrated and privatized violence within non-state actors. Mamdani points out that during the Reagan presidency, the American, Saudi and Pakistani intelligence agencies shared the objective of uniting the most radical anti-communist Islamist movements worldwide in a jihad against the godless Soviets. Mamdani leaves out of this sordid tale the trail of death and destruction left by the Soviets in Afghanistan: They destroyed some 80 percent of the structures, drove millions from their homes and sowed vast parts of the countryside with land mines. www.washingtonpost.com /wp-dyn/articles/A30333-2004Aug24.html   (750 words)

African scholar Mamdani to lecture   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10) Mahmood Mamdani, the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at Columbia University, will deliver a free public lecture titled "Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War and The Roots of Terror," on Thursday, Oct. 28, at 4:30 p.m., in the lecture gallery of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. Mamdani's reputation as an expert in African history, politics and international relations has made him an important voice in contemporary debates about the changing role of Africa in a global context. Mamdani earned his B.A. at the University of Pittsburgh in 1967 and received his master's and an MALD from Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1969. www.news.cornell.edu /Chronicle/04/10.21.04/Mamdani_lect.html   (371 words)

IslamOnline - Views Section   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10) Mahmood Mamdani, Professor of Government and Director of the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University, is widely acknowledged as one of the foremost analysts of the history and politics of the nation state in the developing world. Mamdani’s area of expertise is the constraints imposed by Western colonial and post-colonial powers on the prospects for popular non-Western nationalist movements to create viable states, and hitherto his work has focused on Africa. Mamdani devotes most of the book to an exploration of the ways in which the US government developed the policy of proxy war; the context, Mamdani argues, in which fundamentalist Islamic “terrorists” have flourished in the contemporary world. www.islamonline.net /english/Views/2004/07/article03.shtml   (2025 words)

LiP | Book Review | Good Muslim, Bad Muslim In this excellent, well-documented book, Mamdani dispels the notion that terrorism is based in culture (rather than politics), and explains 9/11-and the popularity of terrorism as a tactic-as the direct result of the Cold War. Mamdani's history lesson here is dizzying and complete, covering mercenaries in Laos, the Congo, southern Africa and Central America, and the elevation of highly ideological Islamist factions in Afghanistan. In his final chapter, Mamdani links this creation of conservative terrorist movements to their popularity in much of the Third World, demonstrating that violent methods in service of social movements are neither new nor specific to Islamism. www.lipmagazine.org /articles/reviwiegand_mamdani.htm   (703 words)

NOW with Bill Moyers. Politics & Economy. The U.S. and World Opinion: Mahmood Mamdani Biography | PBS Mahmood Mamdani, a third generation East African of Indian origin, was born in Kampala, Uganda. Mamdani dispels the idea of "good" (secular, westernized) Muslims, and "bad" (primitive, fanatical) Muslims, underlining the fact that Islam is not a politically based religion. Focusing on the reasons Islam has become politicized, Mamdani illustrates how the American government's indirect, post-Vietnam-era sponsorship of terrorist leaders in Indochina and Africa began as a way of dealing with the perceived threat of spreading Soviet influence in these regions. www.pbs.org /now/politics/mamdani.html   (345 words)

Jihad Watch: Columbia prof: America created violent political Islam inadvertently as part of its Cold War strategy Astonishing that Mahmood Mamdani would think that Fallujans reading the Bible was an appropriate reductio ad absurdum to dispose of this, despite the readily demonstrable fact that for all the dark suspicions about Bush's Christianity, American policy has never proceeded according to Biblical or Christian precepts, either explicitly or implicitly. Mahmood, you're just setting up a straw man. The problem with Islam and jihad is not about being modern and pre-modern. Mamdani is *astonished* that some Americans thought there would be clues to Islamic violence in the Koran, when the perpetrators of such violence unashamedly proclaim their religious motivation? www.jihadwatch.org /archives/004852.php   (2567 words)

Powell's Books - Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror by Mahmood Mamdani   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10) Mamdani dispels the idea of “good” (secular, westernized) and “bad” (premodern, fanatical) Muslims, pointing out that these judgments refer to political rather than cultural or religious identities. This book argues that political Islam emerged as the result of a modern encounter with Western power, and that the terrorist movement at the center of Islamist politics is an even more recent phenomenon, one that followed America’s embrace of proxy war after its defeat in Vietnam. Mamdani writes with great insight about the Reagan years, showing America’s embrace of the highly ideological politics of “good” against “evil.” Identifying militant nationalist governments as Soviet proxies in countries such as Nicaragua and Afghanistan, the Reagan administration readily backed terrorist movements, hailing them as the “moral equivalents” of America’s Founding Fathers. www.powells.com /cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=17-0375422854-0   (786 words)

NOW: Printable Pages . April 16, 2004 Transcript | PBS MAMDANI: Well, the most important thing for Marines to know is that they have to make a distinction between the person who wants the occupation to end and the person who wants to strike at America. MAMDANI: Whose notion is of a theocracy, is closer to that of a theocracy. MAMDANI: Sure, what President Bush said in his speech, "This is the time to change the world." That's an admission that the objective of this war has changed. www.pbs.org /now/printable/transcript316_full_print.html   (6863 words)

Book Review: "Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror" by Mahmood Mamdani (by Iqbal ...   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10) Mamdani who is a Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and director of the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University, says that he got this impression listening to the public discussion in America after 9/11. For instance, Mamdani asserts that political violence in modern society that does not fit the story of progress tends to get discussed in theological terms and cites the example of the Holocaust, which is explained as "simply the result of evil". Mahmood Mamdani's thorough research opens many doors to an entirely refreshing vista of a past and present inextricably linked to most of the world's pressing issues today. usa.mediamonitors.net /content/view/full/16166   (1079 words)

White Oak Books Mahmood Mamdani is Professor of Government and Director of the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University. Mamdani proposes that Burundi and Rwanda need to reform the state and citizenship within their own borders so that power recognizes equal citizenship rights for all based on a single criterion: residence. Mamdani goes behind the scenes of history to dig out the 'why' of this ugliest of human ventures. www.whiteoakbooks.com /productdetail_new_books.asp?asin=0691102805   (476 words)

THE BROOKLYN RAIL - BOOKS Mamdani sees Indochina in the 1960s as the birthplace of the U.S. strategy of fighting the Cold War through proxies relying on CIA-backed mercenary forces instead of deploying national ground troops. Mamdani then finds the origin of the U.S. liaison with contemporary political terror in Southern Africa, beginning well before the proliferation of the radical Islamist movements of the 1980s and ’90s. Mamdani’s critique of "Culture Talk"—whose formulation he accredits to Lewis and Huntington—debunks the widely held notion that radical Islam is a throwback to pre-modern times. www.thebrooklynrail.org /books/june04/offtheshelves.html   (2635 words)

Programming Tutorials - Books : When Victims Become Killers : Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10) Mamdani proposes that Burundi and Rwanda need to reform the state and citizenship within their own borders so that power recognizes equal citizenship rights for all based on a single criterion:... This new book by Mahmood Mamdani, one of the world's most respected Africa scholars, stands a good chance of replacing Gérard Prunier's "The Rwanda Crisis" as the standard English-language introduction to Rwanda and its genocide. Mamdani's highly-readable account focuses on the political construction of Hutu and Tutsi as racial/ethnic identities, tracing the tale from the pre-colonial era, through Belgium's administration of the country, to the 1959 Revolution and subsequent attempts to develop... www.programmertutorials.com /ItemId/0691102805   (744 words)

Mamdani, M.: Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. Mamdani, M.: Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. In analyzing the obstacles to democratization in post- independence Africa, Mahmood Mamdani offers a bold, insightful account of colonialism's legacy--a bifurcated power that mediated racial domination through tribally organized local authorities, reproducing racial identity in citizens and ethnic identity in subjects. Apartheid, Mamdani shows, was actually the generic form of the colonial state in Africa. www.pup.princeton.edu /titles/5839.html   (368 words)

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim : America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror : MAHMOOD MAMDANI   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10) Mamdani locates the origins of terror in American Cold War foreign policy and shows how Al Qaeda is a product of American efforts to 'contain' and 'rollback' communism. But for Mamdani, terror is not simply an anti-American thing; rather, on many occasions American terror has had equally devastating consequences in Angola, Mozambique and Nicaragua. Mamdani knowledge of Islam in general and political Islam in particular is exceptional and his analysis of different strands of Islamic thought in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria is meticulously matched by his understanding of political processes in these countries. www.bookreviewsandsummaries.com /books21/0375422854.htm   (279 words)

African Writers Index: Countries; Uganda He finds answers in the nature of political identities generated during colonialism, in the failures of the nationalist revolution to transcend these identities, and in regional demographic and political currents that reach well beyond Rwanda. Mamdani's analysis provides a solid foundation for future studies of the massacre. Mahmood Mamdani is Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Director of the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University. www.geocities.com /africanwriters/Countries/AuthorsUganda.html   (986 words)

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