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.
Hirsh Sawhney’s New York Times review of Crossbones, a novel by Somalia-born author Nuruddin Farah, is of particular interest as famine continues to ravage East Africa. From Sawhney’s description, the work of fiction provides insights relevant to the backstory leading to today’s crisis, namely, “how war profiteers make lucrative careers out of chaos” in Somalia.
WITNESS blogger Matisse Bustos Hawkes compiled a #Video4change digest highlighting the organization’s new report “Cameras Everywhere” and some notable human rights videos circulating this week.
David Remnick of the New Yorker reflected on President Obama’s emerging foreign policy doctrine, summed up – but unfortunately phrased – by an advisor as “leading from behind.” (“A more apt description, admittedly, would have been “leading from behind the scenes,” Remnick pointed out.) Opponents seized upon the implication of the president as a timid leader, but in Remnick’s words:
The trouble with so much of the conservative critique of Obama’s foreign policy is that it cares less about outcomes than about the assertion of America’s power and the affirmation of its glory.
Accompanying its report with Amnesty International on Southern Kordofan, Human Rights Watch published a collection of photos and video footage narrated by HRW’s Gerry Simpson about survival tactics civilians are using to try to avoid the government’s ongoing aerial bombing campaign.
There seems to be little that’s positive to say about Congo’s preparations for presidential elections, now just two months away. Commenting on a recent report by International Crisis Group, Congo expert Jason Stearns highlighted one alarming, fundamental problem: “Congo's voter registration numbers don't add up.”