"I threw myself toward a leg. I would bite it to the bone, anything to stop these men hurting Mamma. But as I sank my teeth into the soft flesh, I felt a hand tighten around the back of my neck. I was dragged to my feet. The hand was so strong, so powerful. I couldn't move, couldn't hear. It felt as if a giant were swinging me through the air in his fingers. I wanted to breathe but my throat was too tight. I could not take in any air. Looking down, I felt a wet stain spread across the front of my shorts as darkness exploded in my eyes. Everything went black.From a book that recounts Emmanuel Jal's life-story as a seven year old boy in Sudan growing up amidst the civil war that claimed most of his family. Before succeeding as a rapper in the UK, he would fight as a child soldier in the Christian Sudanese Liberation Army. Review of the book in WaPo here.
Looking back, I can see that the seed of hatred was sown inside me that day. Until then I hadn't understood what was happening around me - why the people called Arabs seemed to hate people like my family, why they were richer than us, why police beat men and women on the street, or why Mamma was so silent and sad most of the time. But the day an Arab raised his hand to my mother was the day that set me on a path to hatred. I was too young to give the feeling a name, but each time I thought of what the man and his kind had done, I felt my stomach twist and my heart beat faster."
Showing posts with label Janjaweed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Janjaweed. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Origins of Hatred
Thursday, February 14, 2008
The Genoside Olympics
The 2008 Summer Olympic Games to be held later this year in Beijing seems to lurch from one controversy to the other. Recently it was the rumors of doctored air quality tests in and around Beijing that made news. Yesterday, word that Steven Spielberg was quitting as an artistic adviser to the 2008 Olympic Games made the rounds.
While doctoring air quality is reprehensible but fairly commonplace in the face of looming timelines, the reason for Spielberg’s quitting merits more attention. He is quitting because he wants to point out China's poor track record when it comes to aiding and abetting human rights abuses in Darfur. While Darfur registers dim glimmers of recognition in our country swept up by election fever, it is worth remembering that the conflict between the Sudanese government backed Janjaweed and the poorer non-Arab tribes in the south of Sudan has been raging for about 5 years now.
About 2.5 million people have been displaced and about 400,000 people killed as a result of the quasi-ethnic-cleansing systematically put in place with the Sudanese government. With America busy in a mess of its own making in the Middle East, the government of Sudan continues funding one of the largest genocides of modern times. Add to this the recent news from the Chadian capital N’djamena about Sudanese government trying to overthrow the Chadian government ostensibly to cut off supply lines to the Darfur rebels makes the case ever more pressing.
How do the Olympics fit into all this?
Well, the following facts point to the need for people to start calling these games the Genocide Olympics:
- China is Sudan's largest foreign trading investor (China has invested more than $400 million in the Darfur region alone)
- Sudan's biggest oil export destination is China (7 percent of China's imported oil comes from Sudan and China National Petroleum Corp. has a 40 percent share in the international consortium extracting oil in Sudan)
- China is Sudan's largest arms supplier (Chinese-made AK-47's have been the main weapons used to slaughter several hundred thousand people in Darfur)
- China is Sudan's chief diplomatic sponsor (active lobbying on its behalf at the United Nations to water down any and every resolution that seeks to condemn or reign in the Sudanese government).
The Olympics is supposed to be special celebration – one that is supposed to belong to all humanity – warts and all. The games are laced with stories of struggle and triumph over adversity. The Olympics has traditionally been touted as an event that portrays global unity amidst diversity. Using these Games as a backdrop, countries have been known to elevate their status around the world and hitch their wagons to lofty sounding sentiments like unified global vision and similar claptrap. Well, nothing of this sort happens to be behind the spirit of China pandering to Sudan as the facts above illustrate.
In retrospect, the simple fact remains that China has more power than any other nation on the earth (right now) to force the genocide in Darfur to come to a close.
Please start referring to the 2008 Olympics as what it is supposed to be - the Olympic games hosted by a country that directly and indirectly sponsors genoside, in other ways, a Genoside Olympics. Small steps go long ways.
Banksy, 'Ruined Landscape', 19” x 23”, oil and spray paint on canvas, 2007
While doctoring air quality is reprehensible but fairly commonplace in the face of looming timelines, the reason for Spielberg’s quitting merits more attention. He is quitting because he wants to point out China's poor track record when it comes to aiding and abetting human rights abuses in Darfur. While Darfur registers dim glimmers of recognition in our country swept up by election fever, it is worth remembering that the conflict between the Sudanese government backed Janjaweed and the poorer non-Arab tribes in the south of Sudan has been raging for about 5 years now.
About 2.5 million people have been displaced and about 400,000 people killed as a result of the quasi-ethnic-cleansing systematically put in place with the Sudanese government. With America busy in a mess of its own making in the Middle East, the government of Sudan continues funding one of the largest genocides of modern times. Add to this the recent news from the Chadian capital N’djamena about Sudanese government trying to overthrow the Chadian government ostensibly to cut off supply lines to the Darfur rebels makes the case ever more pressing.
How do the Olympics fit into all this?
Well, the following facts point to the need for people to start calling these games the Genocide Olympics:
- China is Sudan's largest foreign trading investor (China has invested more than $400 million in the Darfur region alone)
- Sudan's biggest oil export destination is China (7 percent of China's imported oil comes from Sudan and China National Petroleum Corp. has a 40 percent share in the international consortium extracting oil in Sudan)
- China is Sudan's largest arms supplier (Chinese-made AK-47's have been the main weapons used to slaughter several hundred thousand people in Darfur)
- China is Sudan's chief diplomatic sponsor (active lobbying on its behalf at the United Nations to water down any and every resolution that seeks to condemn or reign in the Sudanese government).
The Olympics is supposed to be special celebration – one that is supposed to belong to all humanity – warts and all. The games are laced with stories of struggle and triumph over adversity. The Olympics has traditionally been touted as an event that portrays global unity amidst diversity. Using these Games as a backdrop, countries have been known to elevate their status around the world and hitch their wagons to lofty sounding sentiments like unified global vision and similar claptrap. Well, nothing of this sort happens to be behind the spirit of China pandering to Sudan as the facts above illustrate.
In retrospect, the simple fact remains that China has more power than any other nation on the earth (right now) to force the genocide in Darfur to come to a close.
Please start referring to the 2008 Olympics as what it is supposed to be - the Olympic games hosted by a country that directly and indirectly sponsors genoside, in other ways, a Genoside Olympics. Small steps go long ways.
Banksy, 'Ruined Landscape', 19” x 23”, oil and spray paint on canvas, 2007
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