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Title: Me Against My Brother : At War in Somalia, Sudan and Rwanda by Scott Peterson ISBN: 0415921988 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.09
Rating: 5
Summary: The ills of nations....
Comment: British journalist Scott Peterson was an old hand at reporting in Africa by the time the 'New World Order' was tested by Somalia in the early '90s. For this reason, his shock and horror at the events he describes in this book carries weight. Covering Somalia, Sudan, and Rwanda, different approaches to solving the same problems of civil war and hunger are effectively juxtaposed - ultimately providing few concrete answers to the 'peacekeeping problem', but being highly instructive all the same.
For those just home from seeing the new movie _Black Hawk Down_ (Americans especially), I think _Me Against My Brother_ should be required reading. Peterson spends half of his book on Somalia, and provides clear and concise background information on the origins of the unrest there. His analysis is evenhanded, spreading plenty of blame around: to the UN, the U.S. Armed Forces, the Somali warlords, and the Somali people themselves. I felt the book portrayed a bad situation steadily made worse by all parties involved, rightly leaving them smarting from their involvement.
The next quarter of the book examines the Sudan. A timely topic in this time of heightened sensitivity to Muslim/Christian conflict, Peterson shows how damaging such conflicts can be. Again he provides good, brief background material and plenty of firsthand accounts from southern Sudan; the front lines. The section on the Sudan underscored a civil war where, unlike Somalia, humanitarian aid was distributed without accompanying military intervention. The result is a graphic illustration of how such well meaning aid organizations can be manipulated, prolonging suffering rather than quelling it.
A third contrast is provided by the last section of the book - Rwanda. There, the conflict was so terrifying that not only was there no military intervention, but no humanitarian effort either. Rwanda was so atrocious, so dangerous, that Peterson (who had been-there-done-that as far as African wars are concerned) was almost too overwhelmed with fear to go there. No aid, few pictures, nearly a million dead. Essentially an inferno of violence that burned until there no no fuel of Tutsi and moderate Hutu bodies left to sustain it.
I consider myself fairly educated and aware. Peterson jolted me awake. His eyewitness accounts are riveting, his analyses fairly impartial. In this book he shows a conflict where we tried to intervene with force, one where the intervention was in the form of aid, and one where no one lifted a finger. In all three cases, the results were varying degrees of the same hunger, anarchy, and death. Therefore, Peterson gives no prescription for curing the ills of Africa, but does a fine job of noting the symptoms of the illness.
I highly recommend this book. I learned from it immensely, and I'm sure you will too.
Rating: 4
Summary: revealing
Comment: This book written by Scott Peterson who is a journalist that covered the events of the 3 countries in the 90's.The title appropriately comes from a Somali proverb.It is divide into 3 parts each dealing with a Country. Somalia He describes in harrowing detail the events that led a UN humanitarian mission to derail and become a tragedy.He shows how a series of initially small misteps became a catastrophe with the UN gradually being drawn in as a combatant in a fatricidal civil war.He introduces us to the various dramatis personnae including General Farah Aideed.A historical perspective is also given to the conflict starting from Precolonial to Colonial times. SUDAN He discusses the 45 year old fatricidal civil war between the largely Arab North and the African Chritian and African Traditional religionists in the South.He also shows that both sides have been dependent on AID and also committed atrocities.He interviewed the 2 factions in the South.He also illuminates the discussion with a quite brilliant historical perspective to the conflict.However since oil has recently been exploited in commercial quantities this has fueled the conflict,but this was not discussed probably since it was not an issue when he was in Sudan. RWANDA The genocide of 1994 by the largely HUTU government and Hutu citizens agains the Tutsi minority is discussed.He also describes the events that led to these problems.The involvement or lack thereof of the UN,French,Belgians,Catholic church and Mass media is also discussed.He discusses the conditions in the camps in Congo and also the Tutsi Kibeho massacre of the Tutsi's. This book is highly recommended.My take is that unless the root cause is addressed history will repeat itself.
Rating: 5
Summary: Don't miss it
Comment: A previous Amazon reviewer described this book as "dispassionate." Must have been reading a different book to the one I bought.
As a former foreign correspondent (for Australian television)I also spent time in Somalia, Rwanda and Sudan. I picked up this book out of curiosity but without much in the way of expectations.
Having read it, I am stunned and in awe.
There are many more famous and exalted names in foreign journalism than Scott Peterson's - at least until now. The sheer passion of his reporting, the level of his commitment, his fearlessness both when faced by African violence and the equally grotesque rationalisations of those who clumsily intervene (and those who fail to intervene)deserve him a place in the highest rankings.
He stuck with Somalia when most of the rest of the world lost interest (I plead guilty). He took trouble to understand the Somali perspective when most others saw it as an American story. He writes illuminatingly about Sudan - perhaps the world's most overlooked war zone, rich in terrible, hopeless, wasteful loss. His writings on Rwanda add renewed freshness to the gut-churning horrors of the genocide - after Gourevitch's "We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families" apparently left little more to be said.
Peterson returns the degraded craft of journalism to its purest form: he "bears witness." He risks his life to do so. He loses friends. He confesses his fear. He disdains received wisdom. He redeems the lazy journalism of the pampered hacks with one eye on the room service menu and the other on how well their "heroism" will play back home.
Anyone with an interest in Africa, reporting, the nature of the human condition, the politics of humanitarian intervention, or just a damn good, disturbing read about the ways of the world would do well to read this book.
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Title: We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch ISBN: 0312243359 Publisher: Picador Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Inside Sudan: Political Islam, Conflict, and Catastrophe by Donald Petterson ISBN: 0813336570 Publisher: Westview Press Pub. Date: 01 July, 1999 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Emma's War: An Aid Worker, a Warlord, Radical Islam, and the Politics of Oil--A True Story of Love and Death in Sudan by Deborah Scroggins ISBN: 0375403973 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo by Michela Wrong ISBN: 0060188804 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 24 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power ISBN: 0465061508 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 19 February, 2002 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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