Lord Ivan Canas: Darfur Spread the message. Please read the 'more info' section

This song is dedicated to Darfur.
I am helping to spread the message!

Darfur (Arabic: دار فور‎ daar foor, lit. "realm of the Fur") is a region in Sudan. An independent sultanate for several hundred years, it was incorporated into Sudan by Anglo-Egyptian forces. The region is divided into three federal states: West Darfur, South Darfur, and North Darfur which are coordinated by a Transitional Darfur Regional Authority. Due to the Darfur Conflict, the region has been in a state of humanitarian emergency since 2003.

Darfur is conjectured to have been part of the Urheimat of the Proto-Afro-Asiatic language in distant prehistoric times (c. 10,000 BC), though there are numerous other theories that exclude Darfur.

Most of the region is a semi-arid plain and thus insufficient for supporting a large and complex civilisation. Whilst the Marrah Mountains offer plentiful water, the Daju people created the first known Darfurian civilisation based in the mountains, though they left no records beside a list of kings. The Tunjur displaced the Daju in the fourteenth century and introduced Islam. The Tunjur sultans intermarried with the Fur and sultan M. Solaiman (reigned c.1596 to c.1637) is considered the founder of the Keira dynasty. Darfur became a great power of the Sahel under the Keira dynasty, expanding its borders as far east as the Atbarah River and attracting immigrants from Bornu and Bagirmi. During the mid-18th century the country was wracked by conflict between rival factions, and external war with Sennar and Wadai. In 1875, the weakened kingdom was destroyed by the Egyptian ruler set up in Khartoum, largely through the machinations of Sebehr Rahma, a businessman who was competing with the dar over access to slaves and ivory in Bahr el Ghazal to the south of Darfur.

Camp of Darfuris internally displaced by the ongoing conflictThe Darfurians were restive under Egyptian rule, but were no more predisposed to accept the rule of the self proclaimed Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad, when his forces defeated the British forces (that has just invaded Egypt in 1882) in Darfur in 1883. When Ahmad's successor, Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, himself a Darfuri, demanded that the pastoralist tribes provide soldiers, several tribes rose up in revolt. Following the overthrow of Abdallahi at Omdurman in 1899 by the Anglo-Egyptian forces, the new Anglo-Egyptian government recognised Ali Dinar as the sultan of Darfur and largely left the dar to its own affairs except for a nominal annual tribute. During the First World War, the British became concerned that the sultanate might fall under the influence of Ottoman Empire, invaded and incorporated Darfur into the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan in 1916. Under colonial rule, financial and administrative resources were directed to the tribes of central Sudan near Khartoum to the detriment of the outlying regions such as Darfur.

This pattern of skewed development continued following national independence in 1956. To this was added an element of political instability caused by the proxy wars between Sudan, Libya and Chad. The influence of an ideology of Arab supremacy propagated by Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi that began to be acted upon by Darfurians, including those identified as "Arab" and "African". A famine in the mid-1980s disrupted many societal structures and led to the first significant fighting amongst Darfuris. A low level conflict continued for the next 15 years, with the government coopting and arming "Arab" militias against its enemies. The fighting reached a peak in 2003 with the beginning of the Darfur conflict, in which the resistance coalesced into a roughly cohesive rebel movement. The conflict soon came to be regarded as one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world. Over 2.5 million people have been displaced, many into camps where emergency aid has created conditions that, although extremely basic, are better than in the villages, where there are over 3.5 million people.

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[martinus197333]

Great song.. and good cause.

[IECGGBCF]

Lovely music!! and thanks for helping Dafur.

[sheerbeauty]

As of July 9, 2011 - They rose. :)

[nova1123]

I love this song! Thank you for trying to help spread the awareness of Darfur! I believe it's people doing even such small things like posting this song that will promote improvement to Darfur's condition and more supporters. Thanks so much!

[kholmmn]

Thanks for promoting awareness for Darfur. Great song!