It struck me that Professor Reeves used the very devise in his comment that had been pointed out by Jayne Blayton in her articles. By using the imagery of his work having “been thrown upon a procrustean bed of crude literary criticism” Professor Reeves created in my mind a violent metaphor where his work was the helpless victim of a heinous assault by Ms. Blayton. While it was a very artful and talented use of the language, it seemed to distort the nature of Ms. Blayton’s critique.

In Greek mythology Procrustes, a son of Poseidon, had an iron bed to which he would force his victims to conform in length by hacking off the limbs of those who were too tall and stretching those who were too short. [I must divert briefly to point out that secretly Procrustes had two beds, so no one ever fit the bed exactly – which makes him an even more evil character, intent on making everyone a victim.]

It may be the case that Professor Reeves intended less violent imagery, but this is the image that came to the mind’s eye of this reader.

In addition to casting himself [or at least his work] as the victim to Ms. Blayton’s villain, Professor Reeves uses what I suspect to be exaggeration to illustrate that her criticism is unwarranted. Professor argues that he is well informed because he “continuously survey[s] all news reports from the ground in Darfur.” It may well be the case that Prof. Reeves surveys “all” of the news reports from the ground in Darfur as he stated, but his statement does raise questions. I ask myself, and I would like to ask Professor Reeves as politely as possible if it is the case that he surveys reports written in Arabic, Japanese and Chinese? There are many Arabic speaking observers on the ground in Darfur, and the Chinese have been there for some time. Also, the Japanese Senior Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs, Itsunori Onodera, visited UNAMID Headquarters in El Fasher on May 5, 2008 and I imagine that there were probably news reports by the Japanese press accompanying the Senior Vice Minister. I do not know that Professor Reeves does not read all news reports. He may in fact do this. But it may possibly be an overstatement for him to say that he literally reads “all” news reports from the ground in Darfur.

Based upon his reading, Professor Reeves says that he then attempts “to bring together and highlight what seems most important at the time in Darfur…” And I have absolutely no doubt that Professor Reeves’ perception of “what seems most important at the time in Darfur” is based upon his humanistic desire to improve the quality of life for the people of Darfur and in Sudan generally. But his desire to do his best at discerning what is “most important” may not, in fact, accomplish that goal in the eyes of others. His taking this task upon himself may, in fact, ignore some very legitimate concerns of others who are just as earnest in their humanistic desires to help the people of Darfur and Sudan. And for him to say that no one else has taken on this task – as he defines it – seems to imply that he is speaking to a specific audience that is less than all encompassing. I am not sure that he is highlighting what seems to be most important to many communities, including the people of Sudan or even of Darfur, as the people of those communities are not homogeneous.

As Professor Reeves’ confidential sources can not be evaluated, he seems to ask us to accept his judgment regards their reliability. I hope that it is understandable to him why many individuals may not choose to do this. Professor Reeves’ credibility does not carry enough strength with many individuals as to allow him to be able to vouch for the credibility of unidentified sources.

It is not that Professor Reeves ignores reports or realities that contribute to the complexity of the picture of Darfur (as he ascribes to Ms. Blayton’s critique. Rather it “appears” to many individuals that there is a slant in his presentations that seem to oversimplify the situation in Darfur; and in this oversimplification he creates caricatures of villains and victims, the depiction of which, often interferes with the ability of his readers to understand the true nature of the conflict – much in the same way that he offered up a metaphoric image of Jayne Blayton hacking off his limbs as he lay helplessly strapped to a “procrustean bed.”

We are all individual human beings searching for some meaning in our own life stories and in the horrors of world events. I personally felt that human rights would be a protection of the person’s individual value as a human being and a secure place for them to understand the world. It has been a revelation to me that human rights are a human activity like any other, like journalism or business.

I did not say anywhere in my paper that you consider the rebels to be “good” or “purely good” in contradistinction to the “evil” of the Sudanese government. Your writings contain many cases of castigating the humanitarians, the human rights organizations and the rebels too for not being good enough or falling short of what you expect of them. But without going back to your corpus and reading every article again I don’t think I can remember any example where you said that the Sudanese government was doing something right or even more so doing something right for the right reasons.

I do think it is fair to characterize your writings as pinning the overwhelming share of blame for the Darfur mass atrocities on the Sudanese government, in quantity and also the differential quality of the violations they have perpetrated. There is no ambiguity in your characterization of them. Though these are Richard Just’s words (quoted by Alex de Waal in his comment) and not yours, they are like characters in a plot who arrive only to commit evil acts or scheme to obstruct the goodwill of the others. Against this foil of totally dark character, the other characters such as rebels and humanitarians can have some ambiguous qualities but this is overshadowed by their role vis-a-vis the leading protagonist that is evil.

I did not say that you consciously set out to create the genre (or sub-genre) of the human rights report or to emulate a genre that already existed. What I tried to do was to show how the writing style that you adopted, developed and exemplified, has created a genre that I think has been fantastically successful. When it is compared against the definition of genre it may be idiosyncratic but by definition any new genre that emerges must be sui generis and idiosyncratic.

I make note of this because Ms. Blayton does not: these numerous moments of criticism simply don’t fit the “genre” of human rights reporting she would have me represent, don’t comport with the “Manichean” views she insists characterize this new genre. In short, my work—which is largely reportage and synthesis—has been thrown upon a procrustean bed of crude literary criticism and made to seem incapable of registering ambiguity.

Here it is important to know that for all my writing the chief sources are the reports of human rights and policy organizations, as well as those of humanitarian organizations and individual workers. I also continuously survey all news reports from the ground in Darfur. Again, my efforts are chiefly those of reportage and synthesis, attempting to bring together and highlight what seems most important at the time in Darfur and Southern Sudan. No one within the news, advocacy, or human rights community has taken on this particular task, which I find justification enough for my efforts. I also have numerous confidential sources, which I feel obliged to protect as carefully as possible, given the Khartoum regime’s penchant for exacting revenge. These include humanitarian workers on the ground in Darfur, UN humanitarian officials, US government sources, and many members of the Darfuri diaspora (some of whom I am able to identify).

Of course I am shaping these materials, organizing them around a contemporaneous issue or development; but I am not creating them or seeking to fulfill particular “generic requirements”—and I am not ignoring reports or realities that make for a more complex picture of Darfur and Sudan, which is my point in citing previous criticism of the Darfur rebels.

“Genres” are best defined as a complex set of formal and thematic expectations that are brought to bear by a community of readers on a given text. Ms. Blayton’s “expectations” of my work seem too idiosyncratically her own.

Eric Reeves
http://www.sudanreeves.org