It is fascinating to read Horowitz’s chapters about Sudan before the Darfur genocide officially began. From his description it seems that a need for cleansing was already in the air. Sudan and especially, “Khartoum, is like something from Kafka.” (193) Being a fan of The Metamorphoses, I instantly imagine a whole city of Gregor Samsas. Thousands of people with nothing better to do than waiting to turn into giant bugs. When the, “government is on strike like everyone else,” (182) it is easy to understand how an ethnic purification can occur. When the government is the “bad guy” there is no one to stand up for what is right and decent. There is no social order and when thousands are in refugee camps doing nothing all that can come from it are starving, angry civilians. All that anger that amassed in those refugee camps is now spent killing Arabs. It is easy to understand why these people are so angry. They lack a decent supply of education, food, and decent work which has resulted in a country that is stuck. Sudan is a country that is caught in a web of economic failure and the inability to help better its situation. It is a country with nothing to do and no way to get out of the poverty and tension between the Arabs and the Sudanese. Sudan is in a vicious cycle of hate that is fed by its people’s starvation and lack of freedom. Horowitz paints a grim picture of a country that is currently in the depths of government sponsored genocide.
H.C.F.
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HF wrote about how fascinating it is to read Horwitz’s chapters on the Sudan, considering the country’s current situation today. I find these chapters almost eerie, setting the stage for what will happen 15 years later. Horwitz writes about the difference in culture in Sudan. This unstable, impoverished country has to support two incredibly different ethnic groups; the Arabs, and the traditional Africans. Horwitz even goes into a few personal accounts of citizens in Sudan to hear their stories. One African boy with an estimated age of 17 tells Horwitz that the only reason why he is at the refugee camp is to get healthy, so that he can go back to his home and kill Arabs. Horwitz also recounts stories of Arab militiamen raiding African villages and taking Africans for slaves. Clearly this is the beginning of an ethnic conflict whose effects will plague the country for years, climaxing now in 2007. Another thing that was shocking when reading these chapters on Sudan was how coarse and how unindustrialized Sudanese society is. Horwitz compared the country’s industrial status to that of Great Britain 200 years ago. To think that there are countries in our world that even in this present age are 200 years behind modern society is mind-boggling. The center of economy in Sudan is grain trade. This economic situation would be the same in Western nations…had the industrial revolution never happed. It sounds so cliché, but to think that there are people who would literally give an arm or a leg to get to the United States makes me feel incredibly lucky.
BD
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