The Lost Boys

The New York Times magazine recently published an article that regarding to the group of Lost Boys of the Sudan.  In short the Lost Boys fled to avoid being kidnapped by soldiers from northern Sudan.  The article presents that a new digital archive of their refugee records have surfaced from Ethiopia.  These documents have brought traumatic memories back to these refugees, but also closure.  Refugees note that although they remember details from their childhood and flee to the United States, it was a difficult topic to share with others, especially without hard proof.  These new archives give the Lost Boys proof of what they went through.  It makes it easier for them to vent and articulate their hardships which in turn helps them to heal psychologically.  Although it may present hard topic, the new archives will benefit these Lost Boys and others in the future.

Read about the Lost Boys and the new digital archives here!

The Women's Empowerment Issue

While finishing up my research this week, I was flipping through papers and sources to compile my bibliography.  I happened upon a New York Times Magazine issue that Dr. Ferdowsi has given me a couple months back.  Due to work, soccer, and school, I had put off my 'pleasure reading' for until after finals.  But as I was just about to bypass the issue, I noticed the cover picture of a young white women surrounded by some young Afghan children.  After taking a closure look, I noticed that the issue was The Women's Empowerment Issue.  I flipped through the magazine and found articles on issues about a lot of problems of third world nations.   These articles included commentary on eradicating female genital mutilation in Africa, and also a D.I.Y. (do it yourself) piece on foreign aid.  I will bring the issue to class for people to look at.  If you want to take a closer look, here are the articles pertinent to our class!

1. The Art of Social Change (eradicating female genital mutilation in Africa)
2. D.I.Y Foreign-Aid Revolution

Another Perspective

As we know, all reporters, bloggers, and humans innately have a bias.  Usually in for my classes when articles are involved, I attempt to keep them as unbiased as possible.  Or if that is not the case, I note the obvious bias.  But this morning I came across a writer/blogger who is so one sided I caught my breath.  The article I stumbled upon was in regard to the bailouts and rescues worldwide.  This individual expressed such disdain for the western European countries and the United States I was in awe.  Yet I decided that it was intriguing to see a world issue from such a strongly opinionated person.  Although I may not agree, it was good to get a sense of how other people see our world today.  So take a look at Paul Adujie and his views on the world!

EU and Africa

This Monday and Tuesday (December 29-30) there is a summit being held in Tripoli, Libyan with an underlying focus on free trade agreements.  In short, the European Union wants its former colonies in Africa's five regional groups to "open their doors to European goods and services in return for duty-free access to European consumer and commodities markets" but so far none of Africa's regions have complied (Brussels).  African leaders are very fearful of these advances being made by the European Union, and they should be.  Once an Economic Partnership Agreement has been made, the European Union will undoubtedly "swamp [Africa's] states with European goods and services" (Brussels).  This in turn will essentially decimate any of Africa's growing local history.  Additionally, according to the article it appears as though the European Union wants to take over Africa.  For a continent that was once under European colonial 'dictatorships' these requests may seem daunting.  And African leaders have expressed that to the European Union.  If these agreement talks continue to fail, leaders claim that their countries may have to stop the Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations.  I think that if Europe wants to gain any type of connections with Africa, their best bet is to tone down their overly ambitious demands.  If they do not, they are going to lose any security Africa may have left in the European Union.

The UN Discusses Human Development

I found this article from the BBC regarding the progress, or lack there of, of human development globally.  The article itself is not very dense, but the 9 charts at the bottom of the article are worth looking at.  They show Africa’s progression between it main regions, but also amongst the world.  It illustrates that Northern Africa is overall doing much better than the rest of the continent, and also quite better than its surrounding continents.  Take a look!

Somalia's Government Under Attack!

The Al-Shabaab is a militant group that is at odds with the government in Somalia.  The rebel group, Al-Shabaab has been pushing the Somalia’s government to impose sharia within the country.  Sharia, is in its simplest terms, a stricter form of Islamic law.  When the conflict began months ago, everyone thought that the Al-Shabaab group held little to no threat to the western government of Somalia.  But recently this group has directly attacked government officials and the violence has gotten worse.  Al-Shabaab leaders say that they will stop at nothing to get what they want in their country.  These fighters have been linked to Al-Qaeda.  They have implemented scare tactics that include mass killings, both within and outside of the Somalia’s borders.  Keeping the citizens of Somalia in a state of terror if a key factor as well.  The Al-Shabaab has begun to accuse uninvolved citizens of being a spy for the Somalia government.  This tension and war between Somalia’s government and Al-Shabaab has recently escalated so greatly that it is quickly becoming a humanitarian crisis.  The Al-Shabaab has now been listed as a terrorist organization.  Due to the escalating violence, the African Union has stepped in with peacekeeping soldiers primarily from Uganda and Burundi.  The Al-Shabaab has responded with plots for revenge attacks in the capital cities in Uganda and Burundi unless they withdraw from Somalia.  If they withdraw, this leaves the already weaken Transitional Federal Government of Somalia utterly helpless to the attacks from the Al-Shabaab.  What can be done to salvage this developing nation and diminish the Al-Shabaab?

What really agitates me though is that a religious group is using violence to fight for their religion.  I know that this happens all across history, yet it still baffles me.  Is that really what your God wants…?

Public execution article

CSI Las Vegas

In class on Monday I mentioned an interesting CSI Las Vegas episode.  It captured the life of a "survivor" of the Rwandan genocide (Laurent).  I went and found this episode on HULU and it can be directly viewed using this link.  Aside from the normal investigation that ensues on any episode of CSI, the remaining scenes are extremely captivating. When matching fingerprints an agent matches one to Matthew Babajide, a member of the Hutu Power Movement wanted for crimes during the Rwandan genocide. When the agent looks at the picture of Matthew Babajide, she realizes Matthew and Laurent are the same person.


The episode ends with these last words from Matthew Babajide, "Lucky is the man who never has to confront what he’s capable of."  It’s a powerful cap to a such an unexpectedly moving episode. This episode manages to showcase what humanity is capable of in both terrible and marvelous ways. Laurent’s crimes and the nauseating racism of the white supremacist group is one end of the spectrum, but on the other side there’s Sean, whose lot in life filled him with anger and hatred… until an unlikely friendship brought out his compassionate side. If this episode highlights the terrible, horrible evil humanity is capable of, it also shows the opposite as well: that our capacity for change is a great strength.