WILD PLACES

"I have no history.
I have no memory.
I am a fool."
—Don Cheadle as Paul Rusesabagina in Hotel Rwanda

"My anger was more intense than it had ever been toward the murahaleen. It was born of the realization that there were castes within the displaced. And we occupied the lowest rung on the ladder. We were utterly dispensable to all—to the government, to the murahaleen, to the rebels, to the better-situated refugees." (205)
—Valentino Achak Deng in What is the What by Dave Eggers

Sudan: Baggara Arab horsemen slaughter Dinka and Nuer. Dinka and Nuer eventually feud and kill each other, before once again collectively turning their attention against the Muslim-led northern government. Rwanda: Hutus kill Tutsis. The only way they can be told apart is by their identity cards, identities created during the time of colonization by Belgium. Yugoslavia: Croats murder Serbs; Serbs murder Croats; both murder Muslims. The nation fractures into individual states. Civil war: neighbor kills neighbor; friend murders friend; father turns against son and daughter, daughter turns against mother and mother-in-law.

What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng by Dave Eggers has become the seminal, defining voice of a conflict for me, in this case the civil war of Sudan. In the same way that William T. Vollmann did for the Soviet-Afghanistan conflict in An Afghanistan Picture Show; Or How I Saved the World; Misha Glenny did for the Yugoslavia civil war in The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War; and Philip Gourevitch did for the Rwandan genocide in We Wish To Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families; Dave Eggers, channeling the voice of Achak Deng in What is the What, has now forced me to confront savagery that has taken place in my own lifetime. This is not distant history that has no overt connection to me. This is not the First World War or the Second World War, or even Vietnam. This civil war in Sudan is a conflict that continues to rage. This civil war in Sudan is a conflict that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, displaced millions, and should have spoken deep into my soul well before now and motivated me into action. This civil war in Sudan is complicated further by the presence of multinational oil companies in the region that want to ensure that they can take their oil at whatever human cost in order that they can reap billions in profits.

Therefore, I am having to educate myself further, in order that I can speak to some of the truth that has been kept from me. (Or, more importantly, the truth that I have kept from myself. The Buddha is telling the truth when he states that, "Ignorance is bliss." We "keep" things from ourselves, on purpose, all the time.) This means having to continue with What is the What until I am finished and then moving deeper into the history of the Sudanese civil war and genocide, through research and other works.

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The wife and I viewed Hotel Rwanda last night. This is another piece of art that is cutting deep into me at the moment. The world stood by while 800,000 to one million people were slaughtered in 100 days, the most people killed in the shortest amount of time in world history. Paul Rusesabagina saved 1200, all the while risking his own life and those of his family members. I am sick. I am ashamed at my culpability. I wish I was more courageous, more bold. I wish that I could speak against these atrocities with fervor and faithfulness to who I believe that I am, rather than just hiding in the safety of my home, my middle-class American life.

I am pretty sure that I am no prophet, however. There is a reason that people like Paul Rusesbagina and Valentino Achak Deng need to speak, to continue to tell their stories. I believe they truly are called to "fulfill a mission."

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Paul Rusesbagina and Valentino Achak Deng and hundreds of thousands of others have been to wild places that I will never know. They have been taken into the wilderness and tempted by the Devil in ways that I cannot even begin to imagine. They have stared into the mouths of the dogs of war, and won small victories in their own ways: they are still alive and still speak. Their presence is a testament to human will and persistence, in the face of the evil and sin that resides deep within us as a people.