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The PEN American Center will be hosting a fantastic FREE event featuring a number of luminaries — including Salman Rushdie — in memory of the Russian journalist Natalia Estemirova.
The event will be held on Thursday, October 29 at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York.
–Deji Olukotun
Anil’s Ghost
by
Michael Ondaatje
Picador, 1999, 311 pages.
The Sri Lankan Minister for Disaster Management and Human Rights Mahinda Samarasinghe has announced the formation of an independent human rights committee. The Sri Lankan conflict has quieted for the moment, but over 2,000 civilians were reported to have been killed in the final military ‘push’ in the Varni region in January 2009, according to a Human Rights Watch report.
Such a human rights commission has occurred before — in fiction. Nearly a decade old, Michael Ondaatje’s 1999 novel Anil’s Ghost remains relevant and shines for its clear depiction of human rights issues. The disjointed writing is the only impediment that prevents the novel from being required reading for any serious human rights advocate.
–Deji Olukotun
I posted this story a few weeks ago. In light of Sunday’s bombing in Baghdad, Iraq, I’m posting it again.
Sometimes human rights issues can feel very far away. That’s why one of the aims of this site is to make them relevant in our daily lives.
Esy Casey’s Monday boldly bridges the global and the local. Originally written as a short (and tiny) graphic narrative, the story follows a day in the life of a girl in San Francisco and a woman in Baghdad. The two figures are separated by time zones but connected by something else entirely.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE WHOLE STORY.
–D.O.
Esy Casey © 2009
The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat
by Ryszard Kapuscinski
Translated by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand
Penguin Classics, 192 pages. 1983, reprinted 2006.
At one point Ryszard Kapuscinski was the only Polish journalist reporting in the entire continent of Africa. He wrote during a time of significant upheaval, when peoples were shaking loose their colonial shackles with grand visions in the 1960s and 70s — often to succumb to sinister dictatorships. His news articles arrived in Poland through phone calls, spotty telegraph connections, and all manner of inventive communication. These pieces were informative, but Kapuscinski’s lasting legacy may be found in his insightful reportages, which he nicknamed ‘journalism by foot’. These pieces allowed him to share more personal observations that were not fit for the daily news.
Colossal Stature
Kapuscinski is at his best with The Emperor, his 1974 reportage about the 44 year rule of the Ethiopian monarch Haile Selassie. Selassie was a diminutive ruler of colossal stature. His army defeated the Italians under Mussolini. He kept lions at his palace, feeding them scraps of meat, and maintained a dozen opulent palaces throughout the country. He modernized Ethiopia’s infrastructure and drew his country into global politics, traveling the world with his elaborate retinue.
But the Emperor’s closest confidants suggest that he was a brutal ruler of exceptional cunning. He encouraged a culture of corruption and kept secrets, striving to maintain his power at all costs. When Ethiopia was wracked by famine, he refused to even criticize the noblemen who had horded foodstuffs, preferring loyalty over justice. Such shortcomings eventually led to the downfall of Haile Selassie’s regime by a coup d’état in 1974. He spent his final days in power in an office stuffed with hard cash and a few hundred million dollars collecting interest in overseas bank accounts.
Struggling for human rights doesn’t just mean protesting on the streets. It can take many forms and reach audiences in a variety of ways.
The non-profit Breakthrough released the ICED video game to help end the arbitrary deportation of immigrants by the U.S. government. Immigrants enmeshed in the detention system may be deprived of access to a lawyer, basic medicine, food, and dignity.
ICED (or “I Can End Deportation”) features a 3-D gaming environment in which players control one of several immigrant characters in an attempt to win legal residency. But the odds are stacked against you: if one of the immigration officers catches you as you navigate the mean city streets, you will be hauled off to a detention facility. The choices are even more stark once you’re inside.
The game was designed on open source software through focus groups with immigrant children. It is accompanied by a full complementary course curriculum for educators.
While not flawless — it is very difficult to “win” the game and receive legal residency, and you can’t apply solutions to deportation within the gameplay — this is a fascinating foray into the world of gaming that teaches while it entertains.
And it’s not just for kids. Research suggests that many of the tens of thousands of downloads reached audiences into their 30s and above.
Visit the site and download the game here.
–Deji Olukotun
