The struggle in Darfur: Darfur Diaries

Ok, so last time I was talking abou the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia and the genocide that happend there. 

This week I've began reading a new book called Darfur Diaries Stories of Surv

ival by Jen Marlowe with Aisha Bain and Adam Shapiro. It's a documentary of the accounts in Darfur a region of Western Sudan as indicated on the map to the above. The state of Darfur has been fighting a deadly civil war since 1983. Many countries await agreements between the North and the South Darfur states because of the Oil reserves that lie in the country of Sudan.  To no avail the war still wages on and it seems like nothing can interfere with this conflict not even the stranded refugees on the Chadian border in the Sahara desert.

In this book it describes the horrible accounts of raping, killing and pillaging of the Darfurian tribes houses. Some of the horrible conflicts involve Arab militias called, the Janjaweed. They would roam the states burning harmless citizen's houses to the ground and killing and raping unsuspecting refugees. Even though this is only the surface the torure that this tribe administered to their prisoners was unbelievable. The Jajanweed would heat up stones until they were unbelievable hot and insert them into their prisoners genitals be it man or woman, which is unbelivable. There is no way to explain how horrible it is on paper. Words cannot describe what happens in Darfur. 

The refugees struggle just to make it in Darfur let alone do other things like edcuate their children and have a normal life. The UNCHR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) try to assist the refugees, but the number of refugees are only growing and there are too many of them now. Other NGO's (Non-Governmental Organization) also send aid through food and other necessities they may need which helps, but the weather is harsh since they are in the Sahara desert or very close to it. Darfur Diaries is unbelievable descriptive primary source of the tragic events that have and will continue to happen in Darfur. The crooked government in Sudan only contributes to the violence and until they overthrow

n it will continue.

Sources Cited:

Darfur Diaries Stories of Survival. Marlowe, Jen

History of Iran

Ok so this week I read in time magazine that Mohammed Khatemi claimed that he was planning to run for president again in Iran against incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Khatemi claims that drastic political changes are needed to prevent further harm to Iran's economy and international image. 

First off, starting back in January 16, 1979 Mohammed Reza left Iran for the U.S. at the time the U.S. had a very good standing with Iran. Not 3 weeks later Ayatollah Khomeini returned to office. Khomeini feared that the Shah, Mohammed Reza's, attempt to westernize Iran would lead to a loss of religion. The Shah had banned turbans, beards, and veils. In between this time the U.S. embassy had been captured

 and 60 U.S. hostages were kept for a year and a half during the extradition of the Shah.

Ayatollah after coming back began many senseless

 battles where he would send children out to fight armies with deadly weapons, he would send these child

ren out with only sticks and after all the sensesless battles 100,000 were dead and Iran was bankrupt. While in office Khomeini exceeded power by Iranian president and installed law by religious rule. On April 7,1979 Iran became a Theocracy.

 10 years later summing up a lot of history that happend in between. 

The Ayatollah died in 1989. Mohammed Khatemi was elected as president and quickly wanted to establish a nuclear arsenal, which is why I do not understand why they would want to

 elect him as president again. Isn't that why the U.S. started all this conflict in Iraq for. It was just to "check" for nuclear weapons. Iran's history is truly interesting and has A LOT more to it than what I summed up in a few paragraphs.

Survival in the Killing Fields

Ok so I know not everybody is as interested in history as I am, but I'm currently reading a book for my history 198 class called Survival in the Killing Fields by Haing Ngor. It is the story of this man's true account in Cambodia during the revolution that resulted in the Khmer Rouge-Pol Pot Regime.

Naturally, Cambodians are very gentle they almost have a lazy sort of attitude, Haing Ngor describes his regular life until the Khmer Rouge and the Lon Nol with U.S. backing are at civil war near the South Vietnam/Cambodia border. Most of them think that if the Khmer Rouge win then life will simply go back to the way it was. Then their old leader Sihanouk will come back to power and everything will be fine. It doesn't happen this way the U.S. describe the spread of communism by the "domino effect" and that is exactly what is happening. When the deadly civil war ends the Khmer began evacuating the major cities and forcing the "new" people or the city people to harsh work and punishment. Horrible racial discrimination against the Chinese, Chams (Hindu worshippers, typically farmers), and Vietnamese are among the groups that were almost certain that if their origin was found out that they would be executed.

I'll stop explaining the story, but this book is very interesting in that these people had their culture stripped away, and that was everything to them. The Khmer persectued so many in this horrible holocaust. Over 1,000,000 died during this period for no reason but racial discrimination.

I'm not by any means trying to force feed this to anyone, but I just found it interesting the stories that this man recollected over these years and the horrible torture that these human beings went through.

Google Earth?!

Ok so I don't exactly know a whole lot about what exactly you can do with this program Google is providing now, but I think I have a general idea.

In the past week i've heard and seen many students/adults/etc all messing around with Google Earth. I don't know why so many people are so fantisized by the fact that you can examine cities, states, and countries that have been there for many years. Don't get me wrong, the close view of the cities such as seeing what is there as far as properties and such is definitely a revolution in technology, but has our society gotten so lazy that we don't even bother to use maps, globes or other geographical tools. Instead we use the internet to virtually spy on other cities.

I find it funny that as I sat and wrote this in Bracken library a student sitting next to me was using Google Earth for who knows what. Will the next step be adding moving people live stream of what is actually happening in that city at this very moment. Who knows maybe it already has happend.

Even so much as my mom was asking me about this last night, which is what gave me my inspiration to write about this. Is a Big Brother operation in the near future?