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Tag(s): Arrest; Books; Cruelty; Darfur; Evil; Government; People; Richardson Bill; Translators
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June 11, 2008 at 11:53:31

Book Review: "The Translator" by Daoud Hari

by Peace Brother Page 1 of 2 page(s)

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I would encourage anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the complex and ongoing situation of genocide in Darfur, Sudan to read Daoud Hari's book, The Translator, published in January of 2008 by Random House. In this book, Mr. Hari recounts his harrowing experiences translating English from his native Zaghawa language for reporters and non-government organization (NGO) workers in Darfur and the surrounding region.

Daoud Hari seems to have an uncanny knack for being in the right place at either the right or wrong time, depending on how you look at it. He describes in chilling detail how his own Zaghawa village was attacked, and the perilous journey that followed for him and others who fled into neighboring Chad to escape being massacred by the ruthless Janjaweed militia.

Mr. Hari provides readers with many stirring and poignant glimpses into the violent and dangerous Darfur region, where chaos and death seem to be as matter-of-fact and commonplace as the sun rising each day. He describes being arrested by Sudanese authorities and cruelly tortured along with an American journalist from National Geographic and their driver. As I was reading about Mr. Hari's ordeals, I came to respect and admire this man's remarkable strength of character and his ability to maintain hope, dignity, and even his sense of humor throughout these traumatic experiences. It is truly shocking to hear his descriptions of being sadistically tortured at the hands of his Sudanese government captors.

Fortunately for Mr. Hari, because he was arrested and detained with an American National Geographic reporter, his case caught the attention of the United States government. The US State Department exerted strong pressure on the Sudanese government to release its three captors. If not for the fact that he was arrested with a reporter from a major American publication, no doubt Mr. Hari's outcome would not have been such a "happy" one.

Along with thanking his many friends that he'd made through his previous translating assignments for working so tirelessly to secure his release, Daoud also expresses his profound thanks to former governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson, who was also influential in helping Daoud and the others gain their freedom.

I too, have great admiration for Mr. Bill Richardson. Richardson's involvement in helping secure the release of Daoud and his fellow captors is just one of many reasons why I think that the smartest thing Barak Obama could do right now would be to select Bill Richardson to be his vice-presidential running mate. Richardson is a universally respected and admired diplomat and a tough but fair negotiator whose formidable experience would serve to significantly complement Obama's relative greenness. Adding Bill Richardson to the Democratic ticket would provide balance, maturity and credibility to a potential Obama administration. (Barak, I hope you read this and follow my unsolicited but wise counsel.)

Statistics vary considerably concerning the exact number of people affected by the genocide in Darfur. This ambiguity concerning how many have been affected is quite understandable when one considers the Sudanese government's penchant for either publicly denying or minimizing the extent of the ongoing genocide. However, even the most conservative NGO estimates place the number of people killed somewhere at a minimum in the hundreds of thousands. Apparently, this number falls short of the threshold required to shock our collective consciences into action. When compared to the millions of people who perished in the Nazi holocaust, I suppose that the paltry sum of only hundreds of thousands of deaths is hardly enough to enrage our "modern" consciences to the point where we are ready to act. But no matter how we look at it, hundreds of thousands of people is a lot of people!

The Nazis killed millions of Jews and others who were considered inferior to their evil and twisted minds more than half a century ago. I have visited the site where the Dachau concentration camp once served as an extermination center during the holocaust. The central theme that most visitors to this gruesome place walk away with is: "Never Again". The sad truth is that it is happening again. Perhaps the relatively "small" number of those killed during the present holocaust occurring in Darfur – mere hundreds of thousands – is too low to even compare to the millions of Jews and others hunted down and killed by the notoriously wicked Nazis of a half a decade ago. After all, if only hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives in this genocide, we can dismiss it from our minds as just a freak isolated incident.

But the Nazi holocaust was then. The genocide that is being perpetrated by the Bashir government of Sudan and his Janjaweed henchmen is now. Perhaps our generation has developed a much higher tolerance for violence and injustice on the way to our "advanced" state of development? Perhaps we are not cut from the same fabric as our forefathers who, upon hearing of the atrocities that were occurring across the Atlantic Ocean throughout Europe, mobilized the civilized world to stop them.

We have come a long way indeed. We have reached the point where we are now willing to engage in wars of commission, such as the one we are fighting today in Iraq, as well as wars of omission, such as the one that we are not, but should be fighting in Darfur. Perhaps, if we give it enough time, the situation in Darfur will someday resolve itself. Perhaps one day President Bashir and the Janjaweed fighters will wake to find that they have grown a conscience and voluntarily stop their genocide. Or maybe, if we wait long enough, the death tolls will eventually reach into the several millions required to provoke our "modern" consciences into action. Perhaps one day we Americans will join with other "civilized" peoples to take real action to intervene in the situation and prevent further atrocities from occurring. Perhaps?

The humanitarian refugee crisis created by the genocide in Darfur is one of staggering proportions. Even conservative estimates from NGOs such as the Save Darfur Coalition place the number of refugees who have fled Darfur at probably more than 2.5 million people. These refugees survive today in squalid conditions in camps scattered throughout eastern Chad or other areas inside Sudan. Many of these refugees would like to return someday to their villages in Darfur. However, they know they would face certain extermination if they were to attempt to return to their homes now.

Mukesh Kapila, the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, called Darfur the "world's greatest humanitarian crisis" in March of 2004. Since then, despite the efforts of several movements advocating humanitarian intervention, only token progress has been made in resolving this crisis. As the governments of the "civilized" world continue to quibble over semantics about whether or not what is happening can be properly called a "genocide", the disenfranchised people of Darfur continue to suffer and die.

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