slavery and redemption in sudan

Last night I attended a screening of Moon Over Sudan, a documentary by journalist Eddie Harris Jr. featured as part of Ebony's "Hollywood in Harlem" film festival. The documentary, that I had hoped would shed light on the genocide occuring in the Darfur region, chronicles Al Sharpton and other delegates' pilgrimmage to southern Sudan to witness "slave redemptions." Granted a documentary on Sudan is long overdue and the issue of slavery is as important as the genocide. However, though well-intentioned, Harris' film provides more fuel for the Christian Right's anti-Islam campaign.

Al Sharpton's visit to Sudan in 2001 occurred with little to no media coverage. Sharpton even mentions in the film that although both Clinton and Bush made well-publicized trips to Africa, neither president even mentioned the crises in Sudan (though Clinton did visit Rwanda--a few years too late I might add). Although it may have been motivated by his bid for president, Al Sharpton's show of concern for Sudan could encourage more African Americans to protest Human Rights abuses in Africa. My main concern is that the religious undertones of his visit will once again place the black church community in the Christian Right's lap.

The film does a poor job of framing the slavery and "redemption" process. It offers no background on the conflict between the southern Christian Dinka and the northern Sudanese "Arabs." No explanation of Sharia. Most of the footage features Al Sharpton asking slaves about their experience as captives of Islamic enslavers. Sharpton even questions one woman about concubinage and genital mutilation. Clearly he missed cultural sensitivity training prior to his visit.

One central scene is the buyback or "redemption" of slaves by representatives of Christian Solidarity International from Muslim "retrievers," go-betweens who reputedly take a great deal of risk to sell the slaves back. The Christian "redeemer" presents stacks of money to the retrievers in exchange for a bunch of enslaved Sudanese, mostly women and children who have been abused, malnourished and obviously psychologically scarred. Most of these redeemed slaves have no family or community to return to. So what happens to them, if they are lucky enough to avoid recapture? What will all these single mothers do in order to provide for themselves and their children?

Clearly faith not fate was the main focus of the film. The good Christians get to rescue all these women and children from the big bad Islamic boogeymen. But no one mentions how foreign participation--those stacks of bills were green--drives up the price for slaves and interferes with some of the bartering that indigenous leaders engage in with their foes who really prefer cattle to slaves and will exchange one for the other. While CSI can raise more money and purchase more slaves than any Sudanese Christian organizations can alone, redemption through foreign intervention actually makes slave trading a more lucrative endeavor and could encourage more kidnappings.

But that wasn't the point of the film, was it? Subtle references to the exportation of child soldiers to Iraq and Iran suggested that Sudan should be of interest to the West if, for no other reason, it is a potential training ground for Islamic terrorists. Now granted, terrorism is bad, slavery is bad in any form and so is religious extremism of any kind, but this film circumvents a really important point by hinting at but not interrogating the crux of the conflict in Sudan (and Iraq by the way): OIL. Moon Over Sudan mentions foreign interest in Sudanese oil but this economic conflict gets downplayed by the focus on religion. Christianity "1" Islam "0."

Did I mention that Christian Solidarity International invited Sharpton and entourage to Sudan? Could they have staged the buyback just in time for the cameras to arrive? Nah. That would presume they have a political agenda.

Oh right, they DO. What is the effect of the global conflict over oil and bad foreign policy getting framed as an Islamic holy war against Christians? Well, for one, it deflects attention away from western (read: Christian) governments and corporations who literally have an "interest" in ongoing conflicts throughout the Third World. No wars are fought over religion per se are they? They are fought over land and diamonds and oil.

It's also interesting to me that Christians, those Crusading evangelicals who are implicated in both the transatlantic slave trade and the Jewish holocaust, come out of this film, and in the international movements for Christian solidarity in general, smelling as sweet as roses, as the innocent victims of Islamic extremism. If a global movement for Christian solidarity--composed of several organizations with different but interrelated agendas--makes you sort of nervous, it probably should because if the so-called war against terror keeps being translated into a war against Islam, we're headed for serious trouble. Meanwhile, the real issue of capitalism's exploitation of Third World lands and people will remain unaddressed.