Dark Threats and White Knights: The Somalia Affair, Peacekeeping, and the New Imperialism

by Sherene H. Razack

Somalia. March 4, 1993. Two Somalis are shot in the back by Canadian peacekeepers, one fatally. Barely two weeks later, sixteen-year-old Shidane Abukar Arone is tortured to death. Dozens of Canadian soldiers look on or know of the torture. The first reports of what became known in Canada as the Somalia Affair challenged national claims to a special expertise in peacekeeping and to a society free of racism. Today, however, despite a national inquiry into the deployment of troops to Somalia, what most Canadians are likely to associate with peacekeeping is the nation's glorious role as peacekeeper to the world. Moments of peacekeeping violence are attributed to a few bad apples, bad generals, and a rogue regiment. In Dark Threats and White Knights , Sherene H. Razack explores the racism implicit in the Somalia Affair and what it has to do with modern peacekeeping. Examining the records of military trials and the public inquiry, Razack weaves together two that of the violence itself and what would drive men to commit such atrocities, and secondly, the ways in which peacekeeping violence is largely forgiven and ultimately forgotten. Race disappears from public memory and what is installed in its place is a story about an innocent, morally superior middle-power nation obliged to discipline and sort out barbaric third world nations. Modern peacekeeping, Razack concludes, maintains a colour line between a family of white nations constructed as civilized and a third world constructed as a dark threat, a world in which violence is not only condoned but seen as necessary.

Genres: Canada, Nonfiction, History, Africa

230 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Aliya Kassam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Explains the 'white savior complex' and the ways in which the agency of 'third world women' is/are completely ignored. Also, it begins deconstructing masculinity and the ways it plays out in the context of war or war rhetoric.

[Alex Paterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an important analysis of Canadas experience and response to a public crisis associated with the way racism can boil over in military missions. It has deep insight to offer in its analysis and for an academic book it is surprisingly well written.

It should be critically read alongside Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations to understand deeply what Razack means about "a family of white nations." This concept is under developed in the work and deeper development of it would have improved Razack's contribution to discussions of Canadian identity, imperialism, and geopolitics.

[Federico Nemmi · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of interesting ideas and a compelling overarching theory, but it partly fails in convincing the reader that those ideas and that theory really apply in the case at hand.