APCJ_1528_Win2010_00i_122_4 12/30/10 3:22 PM Page 115 Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror 115 strangely, ‘African Arabs’ (pp. 93–101). This leaves unresolved and unexplained the crucial question of who exactly is an ‘African’ in Darfur. Third, and equally problematic, is the author’s use of the term tribe, which is repeated ad nauseam throughout the book. The reader must wait until page 169 to find the explanation for its use: Mamdani is in fact using the term in a colonial administrative sense, or more precisely, to indicate ‘an administratively produced political identity’. He is completely wrong when he asserts, peremptorily, that ‘anthropologists have often used tribe and ethnic group synonymously . . . to denote groups that are culturally identifiable, such as through language’ (p. 169). Anthropologists, however, would be particularly mindful of the essentially negative connotation lent to the term tribe by colonial administrators intent on demeaning the importance of ethnic groups. Pursuing a theme from his earlier works—most notably Citizen and Subject (1996), When Victims Become Killers (2001), and Good Muslim, Bad Muslim (2004)— Mamdani confirms that he is enamored with binaries, in this book looking at saviors versus survivors; riverine, sedentary Arabs versus western, nomadic Arabs; Arabs versus non-Arabs; Arabs versus Africans; Arab supremacists versus Fur nativists; cattle nomads versus camel nomads; sedentary farmers versus camel nomads; landless tribes versus land-rich tribes; native tribes versus non-native settler tribes; tribal identity versus racial identity; Muslims versus Christians; tradition versus modernity; and victors’ justice versus survivors’ justice. While such binaries are definitely neat and aesthetically pleasing, they generally tend to grossly oversimplify a sociologically complex reality and thus result in a greatly impoverished analysis. Most disturbing is the author’s assertion that ‘Darfur is . . . where genocide has become ideological’ (p. 8). If genocide is, indeed, ‘ideological’, then why did he revise downward the post–February 2003 death toll in Darfur from 400,000 to 70,000? More to the point, why deny that a genocide ever took place in Darfur? Could it be because of expectations that the naive reader will watch passively as murder and mayhem progresses unabated in ‘Negro Africa’ (pp. 77–78)? Equally puzzling is Mamdani’s almost total exoneration of any responsibility on the part of the Sudanese government and political leadership for the Darfur conflict. Commenting on the warrant requested on 14 July 2008 by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for the arrest of President Bashir on charges of conspiracy to commit genocide and other war crimes, Mamdani states, ‘[N]one of these allegations can bear historical scrutiny’ (p. 271). He goes on to assert that ascribing responsibility for the massacre of tens of thousands of civilians in Darfur to Bashir ‘is demonization masquerading as justice’ (p. 273). This is contradicted by his own earlier statement to the effect that the post-2003 government-sponsored counterinsurgency included three groups: the Janjawid, the Popular Defense Forces, and ‘additional armed forces’, who coordinated their operations with military intelligence and the air force (pp. 255–58). Exonerating the Sudanese government and leadership contradicts all available evidence and also leaves one wondering about the author’s actual political agenda. As to policy recommendations, they are limited to suggesting ‘survivors’ justice’ (as practiced in South Africa), and should the crisis in Darfur worsen, an external intervention under the auspices of the African Union (pp. 299–300). After finishing Saviors and Survivors, the reader is left more confused than enlightened about the origins, root causes, manifestations, consequences, and prospects for