Kruse's Keys: Read "Dancing in the Glory of Monsters" to Learn About the Most Brutal War You've Never Heard Of (DRC)

Horseshoes and Hand Grenade History of DRC:
King Leopold II uses Congo as his own private playground, factory, and torture chamber until the Belgian government wakes up and takes it away from him. They create the Belgian Congo which they run for the next 50 years until Congolese independence in 1960. Rising nationalism combined with the fact that Belgium finally realized they couldn’t administer a country three times the size of Texas. Patrice Lumumba becomes Prime Minister until 1965 when, amidst the Cold War, the US conspires to support Mobutu in a coup to overthrow Soviet sympathizer Lumumba. From 1965 into the 90s, Mobutu Sese Seko rules the country that he renames Zaire. Eventually, in 1996 Laurent Kabila heads up a multi-national, multi-ethnic coalition of forces and takes Kinshasa from a fleeing Mobutu by 1997. Kabila promptly renames the country the DRC. Kabila proves ineffective and a Ugandan-backed rebel movement starts the next year led by warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba. Eventually this second war devolves into a struggle between six bordering countries. In 2001 Kabila is assassinated and succeeded by his son Joseph. By 2003 the war ends after much death and destruction. Since then Joseph Kabila has continued to rule through several corrupted election cycles. DRC continues to be a country on edge.

NOTE: In this book we are talking about the Democratic Republic of Congo (if you get them used confused just remember: if a country has “democratic” in its name, it likely is anything but. See a great explanation on the two countries here). The DRC is also referred to as “Congo-Kinshasa” (after it’s capital), and Republic of Congo as “Congo-Brazzaville”.

The Story:
I listened to this lengthy journalistic endeavor by writer Jason Stearns while driving home from work to Annapolis during the month of June. In it Stearns attempts to unravel the most complicated conflict that the world never cared about: the two wars in the Congo as he notes: “generally we do not care about a strange war fought by black people somewhere in the middle of africa.” This stands in stark contrast to the conflict in, say Kosovo, by contrast (Ch 23: 21:10).

As Stearns digs deeper and deeper into the wars, however, you are quickly struck by the overwhelming intensity of violence. Eventually it starts to weigh down upon you as you hear tale after graphic tale of rape and murder by every side (and there are many). In particular, the sheer level of sexual violence in incomprehensible as there’s likely no one in the country of 64 million who doesn’t know someone who was raped or assaulted (this Guardian piece notes that 12% of women in the Congo have been raped at least once). The reality of this becomes readily apparent as Stearns cautiously queries a gathered mixed crowd in one village as to whether they know anyone who’s been raped. Their reply: “We’ve all been raped, every single one of us!” (Ch 19: 40:36) The women go on to explain that in most cases, the rapists still live in their community.

Ultimately, it is the absence of justice that marks the conflicts in Congo as distinct from those elsewhere in Africa. There have been no truth and reconciliations commissions or gacaca courts to salve the deep wounds of most in the country. When one couples this festering infection with the lack of any effective state institutions, one is left without much hope. As Stearns observes, with no real state or effective governance, people default to ethnic identification which in turn only amplifies instability and further conflict (Ch 16: 44:31). The book does not end on a hopeful note but this was never the author’s mission. Rather Stearns has sought to reveal an incredibly complex issue that will hopefully inspire action and understanding. As the renowned Congolese singer Koffi Olomide notes in one of his songs: “Lies come up in the elevator, the truth takes the stairs but gets here eventually”

*One of my Reading Around the Continent books--the full list is here.
See our 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014 Reading Lists.

Key Quotes:

• “Lies come up in the elevator, the truth takes the stairs but gets here eventually” -Congolese singer (and assaulter extraordinaire) Koffi Olomide (Ch 1: 25:36)
• Laurent Kabila, stereotypical Congolese big man. “Who has not been Mobutists in this country? We saw you all, dancing in the glory of the monster.” (Ch 2: 18:25)
• “Where elephants fight, the grass is trampled” Common excuse used by those who had committed atrocities in Rwandan genocide. In this case it was used by Rwandan leader Rwarakabije, who is today a Rwandan military leader responsible for much of the murdering. This proverb was a refrain commonly used by many leaders who perpetrated evil. You can read more about him today in this 2009 New Yorker Piece. (Ch 3: 54:09)
• “Africa has the shape of a pistol and Congo is its trigger.” -Frantz Fanon (Ch 5: 00:16)
• “We’ve all been raped, every single one of us!” (Ch 19: 40:36)
• “Generally we do not care about a strange war fought by black people somewhere in the middle of africa.” As opposed to say Kosovo (Ch 23: 21:10) 

Key Takeaways:

• Lack of institutions large part of conflict in Congo: Failure to ever build strong institutions = many actors compete for power and resources in this vacuum. There were 40 different Congolese armed groups at height of war with 9 different african states deploying troops in eastern congo. Don’t simplify for the sake of theoretical clarity. (Chapter 1: 12:21)
• International attention is stymied by the complexity and breadth of the conflict: No easy way to describe the war so despite its staggering statistics, it gets lost in the momentary headlines. There’s no easy villains. “War of the ordinary person” 20 different rebel groups. (Ch 2: 5:24-6:00)
• The African World War: The War in the Congo was not a civil war but rather it was African leaders against Mobutu in a regional conflict...in effect Africa’s World War. (Ch 5:28:04)
• Zimbabwe provided money, Eritrea provided boats, ethiopia and tanzania provided military advisors. (Ch 5: 31:13). Most important front of Congo war was being fought by foreign troops on both sides (Ch 20: 19:01)
• On the efficacy of using child soldiers: Child soldiers were used as vanguard special forces because they lacked the judgment of olders soldiers who knew to fear death and who would only accept a limited amount of risk. (Ch 12: 25:33)
• How foreign aid impedes progress: Development of rule of law and governance in the Congo is stymied by foreign aid which takes over the reins of tasks and responsibilities which should fall to a functioning government. (Ch 23: 15:44)
• The unexamined/unrestrained global economy as a driver of instability and violence: Link between Sony Playstation and coltan in the Congo (Ch 20: 41:02)

Key References (for further study)
My review of "A Bend in the River" is here.

NY Times 2011 Book Review of "Dancing"
WaPo Review of "Dancing"
African Arguments 2011 Review of "Dancing"
Telegraph 2011 Review of "Dancing"
New Republic Review of "Dancing"
Foreign Affairs Capsule Review of "Dancing"
Lonely Planet Founder Review of "Dancing"
The Life After Fifteen years after the genocide in Rwanda, the reconciliation defies expectations (2009)
Inside Africa's "Playstation War" (2008 Wired)
BBC Country Snapshot
A Tale of Two Congos blog
Pulitzer Center Report on "Plight of the Banyamulenge"

• Failure to ever build strong institutions = many actors compete for power and resources in this vacuum. There were 40 different Congolese armed groups at height of war with 9 different african states deploying troops in eastern congo. Don’t simplify for the sake of theoretical clarity. (Chapter 1: 12:21)
• Dan Gertler made fortune off illicit sales of mining rights (US targets Israeli businessman Dan Gertler with fresh sanctions) by exploiting his personal relationship with President Kabila (Chapter 1: 18:17)
• No easy way to describe the war so despite its staggering statistics, it gets lost in the momentary headlines. There’s no easy villains. “War of the ordinary person” 20 different rebel groups. (Ch 2: 5:24-6:00)
• In the Congo, the power of the state has been eroded over centuries. In 1885 King Leopold claimed the space as the Congo Free State until 1908 when he turned the country over to the Belgian government. (Ch 2: 9:57-11:00)
• Good history of Tutsi and Hutu in Rwanda/Eastern Congo (Ch 3: 25:55)
• Humanitarian aftermath of Rwandan genocide in effect whitewashed much of the crimes but erasing good and evil and recasting all as vicitims. (Ch 4: 24:07)
• The War in the Congo was not a civil war but rather it was African leaders against Mobutu in a regional conflict...in effect Africa’s World War. (Ch 5:28:04)
• Zimbabwe provided money, Eritreat provided boats, ethiopia and tanzania provided military advisors. (Ch 5: 31:13)
• Role and history of the Banyamulenge, a persecuted minority discussed in depth and a key group in the conflict. You can read more on it here. (Ch 6: 09:19)
• It’s difficult to convey how the mass killings could have occurred but its equally difficult to convey the generational and societal history of killing on both sides. (Ch 7: 06:21).
• 1937 Belgians brought in tens of thousands of Rwandan workers into Kivu due to their “reputation” as hard working and later morphed to another 100,000..this was followed by another wave around Rwandan independence number (due to unrest) which ultimately resulted in 335,000 living in the Congo as part of the Goma elite in Massisi (as much as 70% of the population there). (Ch 7: 08:18)
• Che Guevara eventually gave up in Congo with his disillusionment with Kabila (Ch 8: 10:12)
• Laurent Kabila accidental leader of AFDL movement (Ch 8: 26:25)
• AFDL troops took on names of famous bad guys...even today some captured villagers describe AFDL leaders named Rambo or Qadaffi. (Ch 10:40:10)
• Congolese army problem was how to reform it structurally but how to reform its corrupt leaders (Ch 10: 52: 36).
• Child soldiers were used as vanguard special forces because they lacked the judgment of olders soldiers who knew to fear death and who would only accept a limited amount of risk. (Ch 12: 25:33)
• Mwenze Kongolo, a former bail officer from Philly became Kabila’s Minister of Interior. (Ch 14: 26:48)
• Big obstacle to progress in Congo is the ethnic identification which is exclusive by nature and which is only strong because the state is absent (Ch 16: 44:31)
• “We’ve all been raped, every single one of us!” (Ch 19: 40:36)
• Since 1998 over 200K women raped in Congo, 39% of the total population! (Ch 19: 40:52)
• Most important front of Congo war was being fought by foreign troops on both sides (Ch 20: 19:01)
• War corrupted anything good in Kabila...he became consumed by it (Ch 20: 49:38)
• Link between Sony Playstation and coltan in the Congo (Ch 20: 41:02)
• Development of rule of law and governance in the Congo is stymied by foreign aid which takes over the reins of tasks and responsibilities which should fall to a functioning government. (Ch 23: 15:44)
• Congo is an outlier because they haven’t had tribunals to bring some measure of justice to victims (Ch 23: 19:29)

Kruse's Keys: Read "The Memory of Love" to Learn About Love, Courage and Enduring (Sierra Leone)

Sierra Leone “Horseshoes and Hand Grenades" History:

The first European influence in this West African nation came from the Portuguese in the 1400s. Prior to that Muslim traders spread Islam throughout the area. Formal efforts at colonization didn’t begin until the late 18th century, however, as successive series of freed slaves arrived--first from England, then from America via Nova Scotia (the Freetown settlement), and finally from Jamaica (the “Maroons”). At this point, the British government took over and spent the better part of the 19th century “freeing” “recaptured” slaves from across the Atlantic in Sierra Leone (that’s a lot of air quotes n’est-ce pas). These 50,000 former slaves bore a mixture of cultures and languages and England worked to homogenize them and was generally successful in this effort after a generation (i.e., this Creole group came to represent a West African elite group). Fast forward to 1961 when the people of Sierra Leone gain independence from Great Britain in a bloodless (compared to other colonies) transition. The next 30 years saw a number of coups and political transitions, to include an extended period under the one-party rule of Siaka Stevens and his APC party.

Then came a decade-long civil war (1991-2002) that, among other things, popularized the term “blood diamond.” as Liberian president cum warlord cum murderous lunatic Charles Taylor outfitted the Sierra Leone Revolutionary United Front (RUF) with weapons in exchange for the diamonds. The war would claim some 50,000 lives and was characterized by widespread sexual violence to include a particularly high occurrence of multiple perpetrator rape (some sources claim as many as a quarter million women were victims of sexual violence). The cessation of violence came only after the arrival British forces to backup a lethargic U.N. force. Since then, successive cycles of corrupt and ineffective governance has stymied the country’s development.

The Story

“We all were happy here once” reminisces Kai, the local Freetown surgeon, after the death of his last link to the time before. In “The Memory of Love”, with beautiful, striking prose author Aminattah Forna reveals the soul of a nation where nearly everyone is stricken with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from the time after. And while PTSD may be the official western diagnosis, as one local notes: “You call it a disorder, my friend. We call it life.” The life that the reader discovers is one of contradictions as buddinglove constantly collides with the memory of pain. On one hand, Forna expertly frames the bittersweet nature of love as character Elias Cole remarks: “People are wrong when they talk of love at first sight. It is neither love nor lust. No. As she walks away from you, what you feel is loss. A premonition of loss.” On the other hand, Cole’s daughter Mamakay shares with her British lover Adrian why she and her friend slipped on jeans when they rebels broached the city: ‘Have you ever tried to get a pair of tight jeans off in a hurry? It was the only thing we could think of to do. To stop them raping us. Well, to make it harder.’

This painful history of sexual violence plays a prominent role as British tourist-psychologist Adrian tries to unpack a the mystery of one wondering, perhaps-possessed patient, a budding friendship with Kai, and the story of a dying man named Elias Cole. In this journey Forna examines what it means to love and to survive in Sierra Leone. And the author does not give in to easy storylines about the courage of the war’s survivors as Mamakay notes: “Courage is not what it took to survive. Quite the opposite! You had to be a coward to survive. To make sure you never raised your head above the parapet, never questioned, never said anything that might get you into trouble.” So how does a society, how does a nation go on with this twisted corporate history of incestuous betrayal and violence? How do a people wake up each day? It is Kai who reveals Forna’s central thesis: “And when he wakes from dreaming of her, is it not the same for him? The hollowness in his chest, the tense yearning, the loneliness he braces against every morning until he can immerse himself in work and forget. Not love. Something else, something with a power that endures. Not love, but a memory of love.” It is the memory of Sierra Leone’s before, that is what gives people their strength to slowly put their lives together again. Ultimately, Forna rejects any pitying outsider’s assessment of her nation: “People think war is the worst this country has ever seen: they have no idea what peace is like. The courage it takes simply to endure.”

*One of my Reading Around the Continent books--the full list is here.
See our 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014 Reading Lists.

Key Quotes:

• People are wrong when they talk of love at first sight. It is neither love nor lust. No. As she walks away from you, what you feel is loss. A premonition of loss. (27)
• And when he wakes from dreaming of her, is it not the same for him? The hollowness in his chest, the tense yearning, the loneliness he braces against every morning until he can immerse himself in work and forget. Not love. Something else, something with a power that endures. Not love, but a memory of love. (3023)
• There was nowhere in the world where doctors weren’t cherished. 1550
• There was the Forty Day ceremony. Do you know the forty days mark the end of a wife’s period of mourning? Among her own people Saffia would be considered ready for remarriage. Life here is too short to mourn for very long. 4345
• Mamakay turns to look at him. ‘Have you ever tried to get a pair of tight jeans off in a hurry? It was the only thing we could think of to do. To stop them raping us. Well, to make it harder.’ 4563
• People think war is the worst this country has ever seen: they have no idea what peace is like. The courage it takes simply to endure.4613
• Sometimes I think this country is like a garden. Only it is a garden where somebody has pulled out all the flowers and trees and the birds and insects have all left, everything of beauty. Instead the weeds and poisonous plants have taken over.’ Adrian is silent for a moment. 5,699
• She loved like she was going to war, but she was also not the kind of woman to wait for a man. Valiant in battle, noble in defeat. She walked away and never looked back. 6,196

Key Takeaways:

• On silence in Sierra Leone: If Adrian falls silent, so too do they, waiting patiently and without embarrassment. Here the silences have a different quality, are entirely devoid of expectation. 
• On conversation: Conversation here can be challenging, language is a blunter instrument, each word a heavy black strike with a single meaning. To say exactly what you mean, to ask precisely the right question, this is what has to be done. For the bluntness of the language doesn’t mean people speak their minds. Rather, they use the spaces to escape into. (778)
• How the Civil War marked the life of everyone, indeed life itself: ‘I was doorman here,’ he adds. ‘Before.’ He says it as others do, in a way that conveys a sense of timelessness. Before. There was before. And there is now. And in between a dreamless void. 1854
• On the brutality of the war: ‘It was rage. It wasn’t a war, what happened here, in the end. It was fury. Having nothing left to lose.’
• On the "thin men": Afterwards the thin men were unleashed upon the town. This was the advance party. Now the war is over she knows their name. G5. Some called it the Sensitisation Unit...Adecali had belonged to the rebel Sensitisation Unit. The Unit’s task was to enter a town marked for invasion ahead of the fighting contingent of the rebel army and by their methods to ensure the villagers’ future capitulation. As a strategy it worked. It saved on casualties – among the rebel forces, that is. It saved on ammunition. The Unit’s planning was meticulous, the process merciless, the outcome effective. Adecali’s job, his particular job, was to burn families alive in their houses.
• On life after war: The conclusion they reached was that ninety-nine per cent of the population was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.’ 5192 Attila and waves a hand at the view. ‘You call it a disorder, my friend. We call it life.’ 5199
• On survival: And Kai has never once treated a would-be suicide. War had the effect of encouraging people to try to stay alive. Poverty, too. Survival was simply too hard-won to be given up lightly. 5542
• More on survival: Courage is not what it took to survive. Quite the opposite! You had to be a coward to survive. To make sure you never raised your head above the parapet, never questioned, never said anything that might get you into trouble.’ 5,691 You’ve never lived in a place like this. Here enemies are a luxury only the poor can afford. 6,614
• On Rape as a Weapon of Trauma:  October 1999. So many children born in a single month. In Kai’s view Mary’s capacity to forgive seems, quite simply, immeasurable. Mary’s parents had taken her son away to raise in the village. Who knows how many children born in the same month in the same year are being raised all over the country like that? Children like Mary’s son who have one thing in common. They were all born nine months after the rebel army invaded the city. 5,953
• On Love and Death: For death takes everything, leaves behind no possibilities, save one – which is to remember. Adrian cannot believe with what intensity one can continue to love a person who is dead. Only fools, he believes, think that love is for the living alone. 7,116

Key References (For Further Study):
The Sad Truth About the Fight Against Blood Diamonds
Rebellion and Agrarian Tensions in Sierra Leone (July 2011)
Guardian Review of "Memory of Love" (2010)
http://www.aminattaforna.com/
NYT Book Review (2011)
Colonial Sierra Leone: The agonizing experience of a West African state under British colonial domination
Diane Rehm Interview with Forna

The melody stayed with me for years. This is how it is when you glimpse a woman for the first time, a woman you know you could love. People are wrong when they talk of love at first sight. It is neither love nor lust. No. As she walks away from you, what you feel is loss. A premonition of loss. (27)

He thinks how quiet affluence is: people living in private spaces, arguments in the shape of silences and closed doors. Compares it to the rowdy unselfconsciousness of poverty. The swooping laughter of children, though, is the same anywhere in the world. (319)

He has yet to become used to it, the silences between people. In Britain people came, or were sent, to see him. He learned to examine their silence, to see if it was tinted with shame, or pain, or guilt, coloured with reluctance or tainted with anger. He himself used silence as a lure, pitting his own silence against theirs, until they were compelled to fill the void. Here those tricks have no place, even with those whom he calls his patients. If Adrian falls silent, so too do they, waiting patiently and without embarrassment. Here the silences have a different quality, are entirely devoid of expectation. (482)

Is that where it began? In the garden before the splendour of the Harmattan lilies? Or afterwards, as I watched the two of them dance together? Or weeks before at the faculty wives’ dinner? It’s difficult to say. Beginnings are so hard to trace. Perhaps we three would each put the beginning in a different place, like blindfolded players trying to pin the tail on a donkey. Three different beginnings. Three different endings, one for each of us. (644)

Conversation here can be challenging, language is a blunter instrument, each word a heavy black strike with a single meaning. To say exactly what you mean, to ask precisely the right question, this is what has to be done. For the bluntness of the language doesn’t mean people speak their minds. Rather, they use the spaces to escape into. 778

He had an appetite for history and frequently borrowed books. One or two he returned with phrases underscored and comments pencilled into the margin. Not for my benefit, or the benefit of any future reader, but as a record of his own thoughts. 892

‘Their gift didn’t lie in superior fighting skills. Those they subjugated were mostly farmers, not warriors. Their gift, their trick,’ and here his voice grew louder until he shouted out, ‘their brilliance, was to leave an administrator in every town and village they passed through. Somebody to keep the local rulers in check, and to make sure the right taxes were paid at the right time. All without the benefit of a filing system. 1184

The boy, feverishly beautiful with cheekbones cut across his face and huge, heavy-lidded eyes, stares into the middle distance, dreamy and preoccupied. He looks otherworldly. It strikes Kai how death, so often ugly, can sometimes arrive in the guise of such beauty. 1501

There was nowhere in the world where doctors weren’t cherished. 1550

I’d whispered the words, idly, to certain women. Always in the moments before the act of love itself. But I knew, if I had not known before, that the affection I had felt for those creatures was like comparing the pleasure of a summer’s day to the terror of a storm. 1594

I sat still, gazing at the surface of my desk. I felt a flicker of something burning in my bowels. Not dislike, it was impossible to dislike a man like Julius. Not dislike, then. A small flicker of hate. 1640

The man nods. To Adrian’s relief he speaks English. ‘I was doorman here,’ he adds. ‘Before.’ He says it as others do, in a way that conveys a sense of timelessness. Before. There was before. And there is now. And in between a dreamless void. 1854

Fugue, they call it in his profession, a condition in which the body and the disturbed spirit are joined in shadowy wanderings. 1891

The war was medieval neither in concept nor in tactics, whatever the view from elsewhere, only in the hardware. From the outset the patients came in two classes. There were the soldiers and foreign peacekeepers, victims mostly of gunshot wounds, sometimes grenade and mortar wounds. In the second class were the peasants, the ones who somehow made it from their villages and were admitted with a C scrawled heavily on their charts. Unarmed and poor, the waste of a bullet wasn’t so much resented as simply unnecessary. They were the victims of attacks using machetes and cutlasses. C. The doctor’s own shorthand adapted to the circumstances. C. Cleaved. 1976 Later a team of surgeons including Kai practised the Krukenberg intervention, unused since the First World War, fashioning out of the muscles and two bones of the wrist a pair of blunted pincers: a hand. 1984

A spate of fugues followed the publication of Les Aliens Voyageurs, Adrian reads. Most accounts related to missing servicemen between the First and Second World Wars. The men eventually turned up hundreds of miles from home. All claimed to suffer memory loss, not to know who they were, or how they had ended up in the place in which they were found. Some were using other names and pursuing new occupations. All appeared to inhabit a state of obscured consciousness from which they eventually emerged with no memory of the weeks, months or even years they had spent away. These were not isolated incidents in the lives of these men, but a constant, a pattern of behaviour, of journey, of wanderings, of compulsive travelling. The suspicion, on the part of the psychiatrists treating the servicemen, was of malingering. The men were shot as deserters. The European fuguers one hundred years ago were all men. Here they are women. 2109

was a trick of the mind, the Scotsman explained to Kai: the nerves continued to transmit signals between the brain and the ghost limb. The pain is real, yes, but it is a memory of pain. 3022

And when he wakes from dreaming of her, is it not the same for him? The hollowness in his chest, the tense yearning, the loneliness he braces against every morning until he can immerse himself in work and forget. Not love. Something else, something with a power that endures. Not love, but a memory of love. 3023

‘This urge to order memories arrives with the age. A final sifting and sorting and cataloguing. To leave things in order before we go.’ 4016

‘What would you say it was?’ asks Adrian carefully. ‘It was rage. It wasn’t a war, what happened here, in the end. It was fury. Having nothing left to lose.’ She leans back and looks around the room. 4138

Through Mamakay the landscape of the city has altered for Adrian. For the first time since he arrived, the city bears a past, exists in another dimension other than the present. 4164

A year passed. For me, a year of waiting. There was the Forty Day ceremony. Do you know the forty days mark the end of a wife’s period of mourning? Among her own people Saffia would be considered ready for remarriage. Life here is too short to mourn for very long. 4345

One word. Yet so much more. She had said yes. Agreed her life was not over. I looked at her. I was consumed by a feeling of inexpressible joy. Only later did I recognise it for what it was. Hope. For in that instant the beauty and pain of the past, the unbearable present and the possible future all ran together. 4401

‘No.’ She shakes her head. ‘He was all right before. He will be again. A lot of people here believe in dreams. So do you, don’t you? Psychologists?’ 4548

Mamakay turns to look at him. ‘Have you ever tried to get a pair of tight jeans off in a hurry? It was the only thing we could think of to do. To stop them raping us. Well, to make it harder.’ 4563

And Kai recognises the expression of the mothers. It is submission, submission in the face of the inevitable. People think war is the worst this country has ever seen: they have no idea what peace is like. The courage it takes simply to endure.4613

Kai thinks of the day and the journey he now has before him. He does not lack the courage for it. No. Rather it was the courage to stay that had failed him. 4695

Imagine then, how it feels to find yourself in a love triangle with a ghost. Your rival, complacent in death, can never misstep or disappoint. Julius had left Saffia, yet in dying he had at the same time atoned for all his sins, 4730

So, as many women do, she swallowed the bitterness of her regret and submitted. The stillness was what was left. 4809

Perhaps even to talk of an infant’s love is a foolishness, for doesn’t a child love selfishly, like a puppy, whoever will take care of them? But for once in my life I never had to ask what somebody saw in me, or question why she might wish to spend her time with me, wonder at her motives. She was my daughter. I, her father. The first love I had ever been able to take for granted. 4813

Agnes’s husband’s death was the first of many. Afterwards the thin men were unleashed upon the town. This was the advance party. Now the war is over she knows their name. G5. Some called it the Sensitisation Unit. 5060

‘What did you see?’ asks Kai, speaking for the first time. She swallows and her voice drops almost to a whisper. ‘I saw JaJa.’ 5106

translating for him a phrase he’d heard and not understood. ‘It means, “I fall down, I get up again.” When somebody asks how you are, perhaps you can’t honestly answer that you are fine. That’s what it is saying.’ 5146

The conclusion they reached was that ninety-nine per cent of the population was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.’ 5192

Attila and waves a hand at the view. ‘You call it a disorder, my friend. We call it life.’ 5199

Attila’s warning to Adrian. I fall down, I get up. Westerners Adrian has met despise the fatalism. But perhaps it is the way people have found to survive. 5209

their reluctance to talk about anything that had happened to them. He put it down to trauma. Since then he has grown to understand it was also part of a way of being that existed here. He had realised it gradually, perhaps fully only at this moment. It was almost as though they were afraid of becoming implicated in the circumstance of their own lives. 5,239 they elect muteness, the only way of complying and resisting at the same time. 5,235

Fugue. Characterised by sudden, unexpected travel away from home. Irresistible wandering, often coupled with subsequent amnesia. A rarely diagnosed dissociative condition in which the mind creates an alternative state. This state may be considered a place of safety, a refuge. 5,301

And afterwards, if you had asked any of the survivors how they had managed it, they would not have been able to tell you. It was as if those days in the forest, the escape to the city, had passed in a trance. The mind creates an alternative state. 5,309

An injury on such a scale would be hard to self-inflict. And Kai has never once treated a would-be suicide. War had the effect of encouraging people to try to stay alive. Poverty, too. Survival was simply too hard-won to be given up lightly. 5,542

He’d imagined his life differently, both of them had, he and Tejani. War had frustrated all his hopes, shut out the light. Everything had ceased. The foreigners fled, the embassies shut down, no flights landed or took off from the airport for years. The country was a plague ship set adrift. 5,552

They all lie to protect themselves, to shield their egos from the raw pain of truth. And one thing Adrian’s two decades of study and practice have taught him is to discover the purpose served by the lie. 5,627

It’s official. But you see, that’s where you’re wrong, Adrian. Courage is not what it took to survive. Quite the opposite! You had to be a coward to survive. To make sure you never raised your head above the parapet, never questioned, never said anything that might get you into trouble.’ 5,691 Mamakay continues. ‘Sometimes I think this country is like a garden. Only it is a garden where somebody has pulled out all the flowers and trees and the birds and insects have all left, everything of beauty. Instead the weeds and poisonous plants have taken over.’ Adrian is silent for a moment. 5,699

does Kai realise exactly what Abass had said. ‘Going away, too’, without even knowing it. Abass had said ‘going away, too’. 5,812

October 1999. So many children born in a single month. In Kai’s view Mary’s capacity to forgive seems, quite simply, immeasurable. Mary’s parents had taken her son away to raise in the village. Who knows how many children born in the same month in the same year are being raised all over the country like that? Children like Mary’s son who have one thing in common. They were all born nine months after the rebel army invaded the city. 5,953

The thing to remember, he tells himself, the thing to hold on to is this: that since he decided to leave he has been sleeping at night. 5,975

Adecali had belonged to the rebel Sensitisation Unit. The Unit’s task was to enter a town marked for invasion ahead of the fighting contingent of the rebel army and by their methods to ensure the villagers’ future capitulation. As a strategy it worked. It saved on casualties – among the rebel forces, that is. It saved on ammunition. The Unit’s planning was meticulous, the process merciless, the outcome effective. Adecali’s job, his particular job, was to burn families alive in their houses. 6,048

She loved like she was going to war, but she was also not the kind of woman to wait for a man. Valiant in battle, noble in defeat. She walked away and never looked back. 6,196

You’ve never lived in a place like this. Here enemies are a luxury only the poor can afford. 6,614

A life, a history, whole patterns of existence altered, simply by doing nothing. The silent lie. The act of omission. 6,699

The fragmentation of the conscience. Adecali, tortured by those acts he had committed. Elias Cole unperturbed by the many he had not. Adecali was made to feel shame, was held culpable. Cole was venerated. Yet where does the greater evil lie, if evil is what you call it? Somewhere in the place he calls a soul, Elias Cole knows. Adrian has been his last attempt at absolution, his last attempt to convince himself of his own cleanliness. 6,705

‘She survived everything else, survived the war. She was never afraid, you know. I never saw her afraid in all that time. There were times I was afraid, Jesus, yes – but not her. Even when they brought her here tonight. Fear equals defeat in her vocabulary. Fear of what, it doesn’t matter. The trick is – you didn’t give in.’ He changes tense as he speaks of Mamakay, from present to past, to present. ‘Like death was a big dog or something. You should never show it you are afraid. I told her that once. She liked it. Death the dog. Or perhaps it was fate. Yes, fate – you must never show fate you’re afraid.’ 6,865

‘We all were happy here once.’ 6,916

What people want is hope and last night Adrian learned what it is like to lose it. 6,931

Unlike those earlier occasions – mourning a lost affection of his youth – this time there is to be no imagining her altered features, her new occupations, no unknown rival or replacement upon whom to project a wild jealousy. For death takes everything, leaves behind no possibilities, save one – which is to remember. Adrian cannot believe with what intensity one can continue to love a person who is dead. Only fools, he believes, think that love is for the living alone. 7,116

Adrian’s reference to ‘the fragmentation of conscience’ is drawn from the work of M. Scott Peck, People of the Lie. ‘The plain fact of the matter is that any group will remain potentially conscienceless and evil until such a time as each and every individual holds himself or herself directly responsible for the behaviour of the whole group – the organism – of which he or she is part. We have not yet begun to arrive at that point.’ 7,234

New Kickstarter of the Month: Dream Traveler: Africa

New Kickstarter of the Month

Every month or so I feature a new Africa-ish Kickstarter project on FUUO.  This month I am supporting a children's book being written called Dream Traveler: Africa.  As a new father to a beautiful baby girl (with another baby on the way this October!) I thought it appropriate to support this cool project since it's something I can read to my daughter.  

If you aren't familiar with Kickstarter you should get familiar--it's a crowd-based charity/fundraising website.  If a project doesn't meet its stated financial goal in the allotted time you aren't charged anything.  Depending on the amount you donate you receive different incentives (like a signed copy of the book in this case)!  

But beware, it's addictive.  

Past FUUO Supported Kickstarter projects (so far they've all been funding successes):
Lessons of Basketball and War: A documentary project 

Smallsmall Thing: A Documentary Project

Save Blue Like Jazz The Movie Project

Finally, please check out the charity below.  They aren't a kickstarter project but are an excellent organization.
The Butterfly Tree 
http://www.thebutterflytree.org.uk/
http://fuuo.blogspot.com/2010/08/website-of-week-butterfly-tree-charity.html