Liberal Talk Radio

At my office, there’s a stack of National Geographic magazines in the breakroom. I’ve been browsing the February 2003 issue on and off, especially an article on Sudan. I was hoping that maybe the article would shed some light on the current Darfur conflict. So imagine my surprise when I couldn’t find the word “Darfur” anywhere in the article, not even on the accompanying map (which only shows an area in western Sudan called “Fur”).

Does Darfur actually exist, I thought?

The NG article focuses the Sudanese Civil War (basically Northern Arabs versus Southern Africans), and in fairness, it pre-dates the current conflict, which began in July 2003. (Most gut-wrenching sentence: “I hope oil helps create a new era of stability in Sudan.” Because the discovery of oil always brings stability!) But Wikipedia’s Darfur entry treats the “Darfuris” like a separate ethnic group.

Browsing the NY Times archives, there are several pages of articles from pre-2003 on Darfur, so it’s not like the word was unknown before the NG article. It’s just odd that it wouldn’t even garner a mention in a 5,000+ word piece.

Anyway, the important thing is that Darfur is in trouble and you should really help save it. That’s far more important than my little mid-afternoon journalistic sleuthing.