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5 Stories You Might Have Missed This Week

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5 Stories You Might Have Missed This Week

Posted by Laura Heaton on October 8, 2010

5 Stories You Might Have Missed This Week

Here at Enough, we often swap emails with interesting articles and feature stories that we come across in our favorite publications and on our favorite websites. We wanted to share some of these stories with you as part of our effort to keep you up to date on what you need to know in the world of anti-genocide and crimes against humanity work.

This week’s issue of the New Yorker includes this thought-provoking piece Malcolm Gladwell on social activism in the era of Facebook and Twitter. In Gladwell’s view, the crux of the problem is that “social networks are effective at increasing participation—by lessening the level of motivation that participation requires.” As a result, Gladwell doubts how effective “revolutions” can be when devotees don’t personally have much on the line. (Save Darfur gets a mention.)

The blogosphere and Facebook – no wonder – were abuzz with reactions and criticisms to Gladwell’s piece. Here’s a good round-up of reactions, compiled by TheAtlantic.com editor and tech writer Alexis Madrigal.

Writing for the Associated Press, Maggie Fick investigates what exactly the “Juba surge” announced by the U.S. government looks like on the ground in Sudan. The Obama administration has touted its increased attention to Sudan in the final months of preparation before the southern referendum, but so far it looks more like “a trickle,” Fick writes, and the diplomats who have arrived are cloistered away due to security concerns.

Stories from Sudan tend to focus on the South and Darfur, rarely offering a glimpse into life in the North under the regime of President Bashir. Writing for The New Republic, Rebecca Hamilton tells the story of a 10-year-old girl married off to a man three times her age. As Hamilton describes, “Amira’s” attempt to make a case against her abusive husband basically came to a halt in 2009 when the Sudanese government expelled CARE International, which was supporting a local organization addressing domestic violence:

[I]n the aftermath of the expulsions of groups like CARE, international attention turned mostly to the impact the events had on people in war-torn Darfur. The consequences for people like Amira, victims of “everyday” violence, poverty, and fear in other parts of the country, went largely unreported.

Foreign Policy’s Turtle Bay blogger Colum Lynch offers a before-and-after look at the controversial report on the U.N.’s mapping exercise in Congo.