I’ve recently finished reading a book about a translator, a tribesman in Darfur caught up in the violence when his village was destroyed by helicopter gunships in 2003, when ‘the Sudanese government-backed militias came to murder, rape and burn’ and drive the tribesmen from their lands. The Translator, his name Daoud Hari, is a Zaghawi who grew up ‘racing camels across the desert, attending colourful weddings and, when his work was done, playing games under the moonlight’ who survived not only the decimation of his village but also a harrowing journey to Chad, six illegal border crossings (each with their own tale of rape and murder), abduction, torture and imprisonment.

It’s difficult to call it a good book, yet it’s probably one of the best books I’ve read in a while. A book that makes you stop and think about life and whether there is something more the better off jokers like me should or could be doing to try and make the world a better place for those of us less fortunate. for those suffering the consequences of a modern genocide let’s say! After putting the book down the world has turned a somewhat shitty shade of brown and left a part of my mind in a permanent state of sadness. I dug out an old copy of the New Internationalist from a lapsed subscription – Darfur: Don’t look away (401 June 2007) – remembering it’s opening:

‘God how grim’, is the most common reaction I’ve been getting when I tell people I’m doing a magazine on Darfur. Often followed by: ‘It’s just so awful – but there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do.’ This feeling of powerlessness in the face of extreme human suffering is unpleasant and upsetting [you're not wrong]; so we’re inclined to look away.

But we shouldn’t be! This is what the UN are calling ‘the world’s worst humanitarian crisis’, we shouldn’t be looking away, we should be tackling this head on – pushing for effective peacekeeping forces with a mandate to protect the people. Sounds good on paper eh? But how do we do this? Well, I’m not so sure but I do know that Amnesty International is always a good starting place for anyone looking for current information or wanting to take action.

So back to the book. After losing his brother, Ahmed, one of the village defenders left behind to slow the attack and helping to push his people (those with no animals who could hide and make a temporary life) into the mountains, burying the newly dead along the way Daoud arrived in Chad and got to work moving around the refugee camps helping in any way necessary. In Chad refugees are welcomed by the government but restricted from working – even for free – and so this is how Daoud came to be Suleyman Abakar Moussa of Chad and how he was able to begin using his knowledge of both English and Arabic to work as a translator for journalists and NGOs documenting this occurrence of state-sponsored ethnic cleansing.

Essentially this book is a memoir of one man’s horrific journey through life using language skills as a weapon against war. It’s a tale of his survival aimed to tell the story of those lost and of those still fighting and of those left waiting for peace, for those wanting to return to their homeland free from fear. It is written for those wanting to learn more about the people of Darfur and the cause of their conflict, for those wanting to know what happened to young children like Amma, stabbed through the stomach with a Janjaweed’s bayonet, thrust into the air and then left to die a slow painful death under her Abba’s tear drenched eyes. It is for all of us wanting to find hope behind the horror stories embedded in Darfur’s long and complex history who want to help rebuild their communities in whichever way we can. And lastly it’s for those of us wanting to spread the word and speak out or rather ‘whine and kick and scream until everyone has everything they need’.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 at 8:46 am and is filed under Reviews and tagged as books, darfur, genocide, history, human rights, refugees. Print this blog post. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.