THIS is an issue that has been staring us in the face for the past three years now. Over 300,000 people dead; three million driven from their homes and a country at war with itself. Darfur remains a huge challenge for the conscience of the Arab and Muslim world and an ever growing black spot on its visage.

Why are the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, otherwise swift to protest any slight or perceived injustice in any part of the globe, then silent on the shame of this great humanitarian tragedy unfolding in Sudan’s Darfur?

For one, most Arabs and Muslims, an overwhelming majority of them, do not really know what is going on in Darfur. For two, they suspect that the hue and cry of the West over Darfur and its indignant condemnation of Sudan are politically motivated, as always. Most Arabs and Muslims believe that the West has an axe to grind in seeking action against Sudan on the question of Darfur. Given the current tendency in the West to target everything Islamic, this suspicion is not really without basis.

Indeed, the Islamic world has every reason to be distrustful of Western motives in seeking action against Africa’s largest, Muslim-majority and Arabic speaking country. After all, the Middle East and Africa share a long history of manipulation and exploitation by the colonial West over the past couple of centuries.

The West may indeed have an agenda in pushing for an international peacekeeping force in Darfur. Many in Sudan suspect, and not without reason, that the Western concern for the people of Darfur is motivated by a greed for the country’s rich natural resources. Sudan is home to huge and largely untapped energy resources.

But even if the West’s interest in Darfur is driven by its political and economic interests, should the Muslim world ignore the larger issue at stake? That is, the endless and systematic ethnic cleansing of the people of Darfur?