Women

I find it interesting that in "Luxurious Hearses" the women are portrayed in such a different way, at least by Jubril. In all of the other stories we have read, women are more sexualized. They are something to fantasize about, whereas in this story it seems to be the complete opposite. I believe this is mainly because of the religious and cultural differences. To Jubril it was so strange to see all these women on this mode of transportation. In his Muslim culture in Khamfi it was "not even permissible for a man to give his wife, daughter, or sister a ride on his bicycle," (194). Yet something so simple he was having a hard time dealing with it. In the Muslim culture it seems that the women didn't have many rights and that to sexualize them was a bad thing, they were treated more like slaves. Yet at some point I feel you could say this about the women in the other stories, I feel like its different because of the fact that this was a religion and way of life. Whereas in the other stories, it was a choice that the men made to sexualize the women. I just find it interesting to compare the way women were looked at and treated in the stories we've read so far. I also felt like I didn't know much about the Nigerian culture so I looked up information about it and learned not only about the roles that the women had but also about different cultural differences between the groups that lived in Nigeria. This brought me to a better understanding of why Jubril felt the way he did on the bus and it much more sense.

http://www.everyculture.com/Ma-Ni/Nigeria.html

Perspective

Before whenever we read "A Private Experience" by Chimamanda Adichie, we contemplated whether she contradicted herself from the her speech about the danger of one story. In that story, she only went in depth about the Igbo Christian perspective, which is her own religion. What I found interesting in "Say You're One of Them" Uwem Akpan is actually a Jesuit priest, and not a Hausa Muslim at all. However, one must ask if Akpan's own religion influenced his depiction of Jubril.

It is general knowledge that Muslims are conservative and Jubril makes many conservative statements such as his comments on the Christians tight jeans and short skirts, and his disbelief of Monica standing up to the male policemen. However, not all Muslims practice such a constricted, cut-off lifestyle as Jubril does. Additionally, even though Jubril does not exhibit violent behavior, his Muslim friends do. Again, my knowledge of religions in Nigeria or limited, but I just find it interesting that Akpan would depict Muslims in a violent nature, even though not all of them are. But Christians are not so innocent themselves. On the bus the Christians want to see their fellow Christians destroy the Muslims in the north.

Overall, it is difficult to say whether or not Uwem Akpan's religion skewed the image of Muslims he embodied in Jubril. However, I feel as if Akpan did a much better job than Adichie in trying to tell the story of others.

http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/Author-Uwem-Akpans-Biography

All Men Are Created Equal

As a young teen growing up in the city of Khamfi, all Jubril knew was the attachable comforts of his own city. While reading the exploited differences concerning religion, origin, and people living in Khamfi, what really caught my attention was Jubril’s discomfort with women. The seemingly brief conversation and observations he concluded of these women stood out for a couple reasons. In my opinion, it seems as if Jubril doesn’t really see a purpose in women and occasionally found humor in what they wore or how they did things. Akpan even addressed in writing what Jubril thought which was saying that “as long as they are women, he just put them in one category—it was easier that way”. In addition, he also said, “Only three days before, this would not have been possible. He would have preferred to trek a thousand miles on foot than to sit in the same vehicle of a woman”. Personally it seems as though he viewed women in a disgusting way, something you rather not be close to, something truly low and purposeless. In other words, he was only impressed with a single individual, one that reminded him of his mother.

As viewed through Jubril’s eyes, men are somewhat at a higher level than women. Men have so much pride and hold more status in which women are not to necessarily stand up to men “in public” as he would say. Inequalities between men and women have existed tremendously throughout our history and still somewhat today although the issue is continuously fought.

The link below shows the struggles women have gone through in terms of equality, especially through the times of war.
http://sfr-21.org/women.html

The Sorrow of Life

In class, many people expressed that they did not feel bad for Kien and some said that they didn't even like him as a character. Later I thought that maybe this impression is purposeful by the writer. The novel is based on a manuscript that is found by an unknown narrator and the story is written after the fact by Kien himself. Kein is a veteran that has had many long years to think about his life and see all of the mistakes he has made. His writing is overcome with guilt and regret. The story has a focus on war and in the end war is what tore Kien and Phuong apart but it was with the mistakes that Kien made as well. He has been traumatized by war and his guilt has been amplified by his experience. The reader hates Kien because Kien hates himself because of all the opportunities he sees that he lost. Kien drinks, smokes, and does other self-destructive behavior. The narrator at the end describes,

"However, the sorrows of war had been much heavier for this author than they had been for me. His sorrows prevented him from relaxing by continually enticing him back into his past."

Kien was unable to escape his past and his loss from the war. He probably wrote for catharsis since his manuscript was "burned", "moth-eaten", and pages "withheld by the author" along with the fact that the had been no effort by Kien to keep any kind of chronological order. This story may have been Kien's dying wish, his purpose given to himself. He may have just wanted to relive something or see where he went wrong just to rid himself of his guilt. Near the end of the book, after Kien gets the letter from a fellow soldier, he writes,

"There would be a miracle, he had written. A miracle that would allow people to emerge unchanged by the war... His Phuong would remain young forever."

This is all Kien really wants. But as he writes, he realizes that he can't achieve this "miracle" and degenerates into self-hatred. That's where the reader doesn't like Kien. Guilt makes him write about himself in such a self-deprecating fashion. He feels guilty about surviving the war, not sacrificing himself to save others, and most of all he feels guilty that he couldn't save Phuong time and time again.

This article details guilt and it's genesis. Kien can easily be diagnosed with PTSD and his guilt can be seen to have roots in the trauma he experienced.

Martyrs--A Worthy Sacrifice?

I noticed something interesting as I was reading "The Sorrow of War" on pages 192 and 193. On page 192, after the story of Hoa's sacrifice and subsequent rape, the author begins to discuss the concept of martyrs. Ninh writes, "But for Hoa and countless other loved comrades, nameless ordinary soldiers, those who sacrificed for others and for their Vietnam, raising the name of Vietnam high and proud, creating a spiritual beauty in the horrors of conflict, the war would have been another brutal, sadistic experience." This statement seems incredibly off-putting, especially since the reader has just been presented the story of a woman who allowed herself to be raped in an isolated patch of jungle so that her fellow wounded soldiers would not be discovered; ironically, none of the soldiers even bother asking Kien about her fate. This random burst of patriotism seems to belie the horror of what has just happened--is rape not "brutal and sadistic" in and of itself? Or can it be seen in the "larger scheme of things" as a brave and noble sacrifice, since after all, Hoa's sacrifice ensured the safety of a cluster of wounded men?

On the very next page, however, Ninh writes, "To win, martyrs have sacrificed their lives, in order that others might survive. Not a new phenomenon, true. But for those still living to know that the kindest, most worthy people have all fallen away...then this beautiful landscape of calm and peace is an appalling paradox. Justice may have won, but cruelty, death, and inhuman violence have also won." Through this perspective, Hoa's sacrifice is seen not as a glory-inducing act of heroism but becomes an almost resentful act-- something that will serve as an eternal reminder of the human cost of freedom. This passage acknowledges that martyrdom is a "brutal and sadistic" act in and of itself because far from giving the war a sense of "spiritual beauty," martyrdom only highlights the moral horror that for every survivor of the war, countless others were killed.

This must be part of the reason why Kien has such strong survivors' guilt. The sense of loneliness one must have after surviving multiple imminently dangerous situations has to be intense and psychologically overwhelming. Here is a link that attests to the fact that today's military is little different; soldiers' problems have not changed much from WWI to Vietnam to Iraq.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/04/18/survivors-guilt-haunting-military/

War Defeats Love

The ability of a person to love extends from joy and happiness. In order to reach it's full extent, love has to develop and grow between two people. For Kien, his teenage years with Phuong were just the beginning of love and the war stunted its growth. After being in the war for ten years, he expected to return and start where he and Phuong left off. However, the war had its terrible effects on him and he no longer had the ability to love because of the of the prolonged horrors and long-lasting traumatic memories he obtained. This happened not only with Phuong, but with Hanh and the girl who was one his friend's sister. They wanted to love him, but he couldn't reciprocate because he can't let go of the war, he can't let go of the horrors that would allow him to love again.

Although love may not be fully defeated by war for all, Kien definitely is an example of the terrible effects war has on love. Love is happiness, war is not. Love is kind, war is not. Everything love is, war isn't and being involved in such an opposite state for so long took a toll on Kien.

This link is to an article that clearly shows the emotional void that comes from war. Like All Quiet on the Western Front, both Paul and Kien must emotionally detach themselves from love, happiness, and the real world in order to do their duty as a soldier. This article explains the stress and effects war has on a soldier's emotions and ability to love after war.

http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/11261/1/The-Emotional-Effects-of-War-on-Soldiers.html

Defense Mechanisms

It's interesting when having read both All Quiet on the Western Front and The Sorrow of War to see how two soldiers have different reactions and trauma from the war. For instance, Paul desperately repressed most thoughts of his past and how things used to be before the war, and even towards the end of the war he doesn't even talk about his future. Additionally, he and his comrades use humor and games to deal with the horrific nature of war that they're constantly surrounded by. On the other hand, Kien constantly tries to relive his past whether it's through his writing and commemoration of battles scenes and the people who lost their lives, or his passionate, loving memories of Phuong before the war. Furthermore, Kien drinks away his sorrows whereas Paul didn't have a problem with alcoholism.

Although both Paul and Kien's reactions to the war were quite different, they both exhibit examples of defense mechanisms. Paul mostly exhibits repression and sublimation in order to cope. Several times in All Quiet, Paul mentions how the jokes he and his friends make may be cruel but they wouldn't be able to handle the war otherwise. As for Kien, he displays attributes of denial in some parts and rationalization. Throughout The Sorrow of War, Kien writes about some of the events he experienced in the war and he will say directly after something along the lines of, "it was so long ago, it seems like it didn't happen at all." Moreover, Kien tries to rationalize why he is still alive and others who he fought with aren't by thinking that he was meant to write about his generation, the 'lost generation'.

Despite Paul and Kien's reactions to war, there is absolutely no doubt that war is a horrific thing with terrible, traumatic consequences physically and mentally.

http://psychcentral.com/lib/2007/15-common-defense-mechanisms/all/1/

Purpose of Flashbacks

Throughout the novel, "The Sorrow of War", flashbacks are utilized by Kien quite often. I believe he uses flashbacks as a way to illustrate his disconnection from the war. Although he is physically in the war, he is never fully, mentally present. By constantly referring back to past experiences and memories, Kien emphasizes just how often he thinks of better times before the war- and often he thinks of worse times before the war. Very rarely is Kien describing his experiences or emotions in the present time. And I think this is a useful technique in illustrating his lack of emotional connectivity to his actions in the war.

Moreover, it might be more difficult for the reader to follow along with the chronological order of events in the novel but that could possibly be the author's reason for including these flashbacks. By constantly switching from present tense to past tense, the instability of Kien's emotions during the war is illustrated. Kien is constantly referring back to memories and then back to present time, then back to the past once again. Kien is rarely fully present and this is emphasized by his tendency to reminisce on past experiences rather than focus on the present.

Personally, I don't like the use of flashbacks throughout the book because it makes the novel very hard to follow. Although, I suppose that is the author's reasoning for such a technique. During the war, it was frustrating for Kien to constantly reminisce rather than live in the moment. As it is frustrating for the reader to constantly have to read in different tenses. The reader feels Kien's confusion and frustration in the war through their frustration and confusion with the novel's structure.

The Sorrow of War

"The Sorrow of War" clearly depicts the result of the Vietnam War. The war was fought in Vietnam, therefore impacting Vietnamese people even more than just the loss of countless lives. Culture, landscape, society, and traditions were all devastated by the war. Kien has lived through the war as a solider and as a veteran. Even though the war was over memories and flashbacks continued to haunt Kien. Even though he physically survived the war he was mentally lost. His relationship with Phoung had been forever changed, not only because the course of time but because of war. The war affected Kien, he continuously narrators his stories but in the middle of his story he jumps to a flashback. I think that Kien wants to go back to his childhood, with Phuong, before his mother and his father died. He doesn't want the burden being one of the only men out of his platoon's comrades to survived the war. Kien writes, "What remained was sorrow, the immense sorrow, the sorrow of having survived. The sorrow of war" (Ninh, 193). Kien displays in this passage that no one is a survivor of war and if one survives, it is a burden they have to live with for the rest of their lives. Here is a link explaining the after effects of the Vietnam war. That even after 25 years, the war continues to impact many Vietnamese people.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/041700-106.htm

Writing Is All He Has

"He had the burden of his generation, a debt to repay before dying. It would be tragic and unjust in the extreme if he were to pass away, to be buried deep in the wet earth, carrying with him the history of his generation. If only he could shed all other need of everyday living and concentrate all his energies into writing his task would be over sooner."

This quote from the book is very important in showing that Kein had lost all belief that he served any purpose on this earth other than to tell his story. Kein had no family left, the one girl he loved had been getting with other men the entire time he was gone, and he can't seem to find a sense of who is he is at all anymore. An explanation for all this is a topic we have brought up in class a few times now that deals with this idea of having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I believe that this disorder which is said to be the result of a terribly frightening, life-threating, or otherwise highly unsafe experiences is a very reasonable explanation for why Kein acts the way he does. The war changes people and we can see that it has changed Kein. He feels as though he serves no purposed on this Earth other than to tell his story and after he completes that there will be no reason for him to live any longer.

The following website goes into greater detail on this Post Trumatic Stress Disorder and will help the reader better understand the things that Kein is going thorough throughout The Sarrow of War.

http://www.medicinenet.com/posttraumatic_stress_disorder/article.htm

The other day in class, we talked about the roll of women in the book "The Sorrow of War". At the time, I thought it was a very important aspect of the book so far, but I wasn't sure how much of a roll these theme would continue playing throughout the book. The more I read, however, the more I realize that it is a HUGE theme of the book. There continues to be more and more women introduced and Kien talks more and more about Phoung (his "one true love"). I've began to wonder what this theme will attach to overall.

Kien seems to treat women with a huge amount of "respect", which is now almost translating into fear of women. I wondered if maybe that was a cultural aspect of vietnam so I tried to research it more through the internet, it was hard to find much of anything and the rest of the characters in the book seem to not have the same problem as Kien with being intimate with lovers. When I looked into how relationships are affected by PTSD, there seemed to be loads of information. It appears, so far, that Kien's problems with being intimate could have to do with his constant flashbacks. The war consumes his life and leaves little to no room for romantic attachments. This website gives some good information on how PTSD victims form (many similarities to Kien) relationships.

http://www.ptsd.va.gov/public/pages/ptsd-and-relationships.asp

Respect for the Dead

Death and dying are important themes in "The Sorrow of War". In Vietnamese culture, ancestral respect is an important part of life. Respect for the dead, for parents, and for authority are all extremely important to the Vietnamese people. In the novel, we see Kien losing these highly important cultural values. He shows little respect for his father in life and in death. He only lightly respects the dead that we see throughout the novel, and most of them are not properly cared for or buried, either because of apathy on the soldiers' part, or the inability to bury them due to the manner in which they died (i.e. explosion, fire, etc.) Remembering the dead is also very important to them, and when some of the soldiers speak of Crazy Tung, Kien doesn't even remember him, though they worked together for a long time. I think Kien doesn't have great respect for the dead because he often times seems to envy them. He often wishes he were dead, or places himself intentionally in the midst of danger because he no longer respects his own life, let alone the life or death of those around him.

http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=6925

Adjusting to Postwar Life

Kien, a Vietnam veteran, struggles to readjust to life after the war. Kien experiences alcohol dependence, depression, and shows signs of antisocial personality disorder. According to the National Vietnam Veterans’ Readjustment Study, these disorders are among the most common of Vietnam veterans. It is not surprising to note that the study acknowledged war-zone exposure as a leading cause of postwar disorders. In other words, soldiers that had frontline and battlefield experience were much more likely to develop postwar disorders than civilians with no war-zone exposure. This theory is easily recognizable in Kien, the protagonist of The Sorrow of War. Despite the great amount of luck that helped Kien survive the war, he had a lot of struggles after the war was over. Kien had many flashbacks to events before and during the war. For him, drinking became a coping method for dealing with these constant flashbacks. As the study suggests, this was a common coping method among war veterans.

One question the study analyzed was whether or not it was possible for veterans to successfully readjust to postwar life. Although many of the study’s participants were successful, not everyone was as fortunate. Kien is a good example of the inability to successfully adjust to postwar life. Despite Kien’s alcohol problems and depression, he also become quite antisocial and was considered a ghost to his neighbors. Flashbacks to events before and during the war become a major part of Kien’s life. Kien began writing down these events, hoping it would let him cope with the war, but it was not as successful as Kien had hoped. For many Vietnam veterans, Kien’s postwar disorders are very common. Sometimes, as in Kien’s case, it is not possible to overcome these disorders, which can be very difficult for the surviving soldiers.

http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/pages/vietnam-vets-study.asp

Who are the lucky ones?

“Dying and surviving were separated by a thin line; they were killed one at a time, or all together; they were killed instantly, or were wounded and bled to death in agony; they could live but suffer the nightmares of white blasts which destroyed their souls and stripped their personalities bare.” (Ninh, 89)

During times of war, a soldier knows that any day he or she could lose their life; every day is a constant game of survival. As we all know, many people die or are fatally wounded during the course of battle. Some would say that those who make it out alive are the lucky ones, but is that really true? Survivors will often suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder in which they can experience troubles with a number of things. Even attempts at being social are very difficult for some veterans, and in some cases, hallucinations occur. They find themselves avoiding anything that has to do with war or violence and they often abuse substances like alcohol.
There seems to be a theme of “haunting” in The Sorrow of War. I think it would be safe to say that survivors of war are haunted with memories of their experiences and will be dealing with post-war difficulties for the rest of their lives. We see Kien’s daily struggles after he returns from 10 years of fighting. He is not the same; he never got the chance to live because war was his life. Some survivors may wonder why we would call them “lucky”. I can see how survival and death would be “separated by a thin line” as Ninh writes. Either way, suffering is guaranteed and happiness seems hardly attainable. Is it really better to live after experiencing such horrors, then? It really is hard to say, but from reading this book and All Quiet on the Western Front, I hope that we can all get a better grasp of the true impacts that war can make on a soldier’s life. While saying this, I also realize that we will never be able to understand unless we have endured the agony ourselves.



This website gives a brief description of emotional effects of war on soldiers:

http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/11261/1/The-Emotional-Effects-of-War-on-Soldiers.html

The Road to Rwanda

On the Holocaust, Ian Kershaw famously said that, "the road to Auschwitz was built by hate, but paved with indifference." The genocide in Rwanda was perpetrated without shame and done using mass communications. There was no doubt to the world that ethnic cleansing was happening. However, the worst part was that those that could have easily intervened did not. The UN had peacekeeping troops deployed in Rwanda as were troops from multiple countries. They left when the conflict started however, leaving the genocide to occur without interference from foreign powers. The UN even avoided using the term "genocide" for the period of killing, one of which had the rate unrivaled in modern history. It was the inter-tribal hatred that started the killing but it was the blind eye of the world that allowed it to continue."Never Again" seems like a sick joke in this modern era. From the Balkans to Kashmir and South Asia to the Sudan, genocide has been committed and could have been prevented by the most powerful nations in the world. These mass killing can't be truly prevented but they can be halted before they reach the disgusting levels of carnage seen in Rwanda. You don't get to be a superpower and then claim you don't have it's responsibilities. Peoples in other nations can pressure action by their governments. It's a democratic responsibility as a citizen. That's what I took away from this reading. There will always be heinous crimes in the world but maybe there can be less of them.

This BBC article has most of the details I used in my post.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/3577575.stm

Fascinated

I am disturbingly fascinated by atrocities like the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. Fascinated because of the horrors that went on for so long, and the brutality that innocent people faced because of ethnicity and politics. Fascinated because the world sat around and did nothing.

It's hard to believe, sitting on my comfortable couch in the study lounge of Jones, that something as catastrophic as the Rwandan genocide could happen in my lifetime. Reading books such as "We Wish to Inform You..." and "Left to Tell" provide mere glimpses into the horrors that people faced, the scarring images that will forever haunt them. I complain about so many unnecessary inconveniences in my life, when some survivors of the genocide lost their entire families. And not only lost them, but have to have recurring nightmares of them being slaughtered and hacked to death. Of their bodies being tossed into a heap of nameless, faceless corpses that disappear forever. Even thinking about something like that happening to my siblings is inconceivable. I will never understand how we can live in a world where monsters can kill children, mothers, and fathers so mercilessly and live with themselves. Or how survivors of this disaster have the courage to move on with their lives.

This fascinates me, in a terrifying and shuddering way, that some people had to go through hell and now live with that nightmare, while I can sit here in Jones and probably, hopefully, not ever have to witness a massacre of my loved ones.

This link is about the importance of remembering Rwanda. The pictures, although disturbing, need to be engraved in our minds so we can prevent something like this from ever happening ever again.

http://www.visiontv.ca/old/RememberRwanda/main_pf.htm

The Pygmy Theory

The Pygmy in the bar proposed to Phillip the idea that in order for there to be peace mankind must conquer nature even though humanity is part of it. The theory seems paradoxical at first but it contains a great deal of truth. Throughout history one population has sought to have power over or remove another group of people. Whether this is accomplished through mass murder (Rwandan Genocide, Holocaust), or social organization (slavery, share cropping, segregation) the intention is to control others. The desire to conquer parts of nature such as animals and resources is a result of necessity and at times greed. However, subjugating people is a product of searching for differences and separating ourselves from others. When the division becomes vast enough we begin the unfortunate process of dehumanization. At this point empathy, a vital ability that separates us from the rest of nature, is proudly lost. When the Hutus called the Tutsis cockroaches, the militiamen raped and killed women, or when the mayors betrayed their communities they did it with a sense of duty. The fanatic Hutus’ assaults were carried out with same monotony as full-time labor with the thought that Tutsi extermination would create peace. If the Pygmy’s theory is true then endless amity would be unsustainable because there will always be an another power struggle. Do you agree?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBdfcR-8hEY
This video is an hour long lecture on the morality of murder and the influences.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51Dpcq2fZmc
This video isn't directly related with the Rwandan Genocide but it does deal separation due to ideological differences.

Universality and White Women

I found it interesting that in “We Would Like to Inform You”, in the prologue how the pygmy talks to the narrator about this idea of universality and his ‘theory’ of Homo sapiens. Ironically though, he says that he must marry a white woman. What I find interesting about this is that in order to unify he discriminates against Africans and he even says, “Africans are sick”. I feel as if this story parallels the genocide in Rwanda where all of the Hutu feel the need to kill the Tutsi in order to unify Rwanda.

Along the universality, I thought it was interesting that the pygmy had to marry a white woman specifically. Throughout literature it can be observed that white or pale women represent a kind of purity and peaceful nature countering the animalistic nature portrayed by their counter parts. I think that the pygmy specifies a white woman because being surrounded by constant slaughter and chaos he wants to see something beautiful and gentle. Perhaps this also parallels with the genocide in Rwanda now only in that they’re trying to achieve some sort of universality by dividing people, but they are doing so in order to achieve something beautiful.

http://www.whitedressesforwomen.org/a-symbol-of-beauty-and-purity/

Genocide in Rwanda

The Rwandan Genocide lasted only 100 days, but an estimated 800,000 people were killed during that short amount of time. The Hutu had grown tired of Tutsi rule and overthrew them from power. The Hutu then decided that to exterminate the Tutsi people all together was the best thing to do for society. Identity then plays an important role for people like the pygmy, who are glad to say that they want nothing to do with the Civil War in Rwanda. It leads people to believe that not only they but their race is inferior and effects the mindset and attitudes of generations to come. The following video shows pictures of the terrors of war and genocide that occurred in Rwanda. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC6LAUu33DI

Forgiving the Hutus

After reading “We Wish to Inform You”, I found myself completely horrified at what the Hutus had done to the Tutsis. Not only were these people from the same country, but they were their neighbors, their co-workers, their fellow students, and in some cases, their friends and family. I couldn’t even imagine the amount of hurt the Tutsis would have felt not only from their losses but from the betrayal that they became victims of. How exactly can the Tutsis forgive and forget? It seems that forgetting would not even be an option. These happenings are probably so engraved in the Tutsis' minds that they cannot forget what happened. What about forgiving though? I wonder how it would even be possible to forgive anyone for such actions. Some Tutsis of Rwanda, however, are doing just that.
Romain Kabahizi, a survivor, said, “As long as I live it will be impossible to forget. I can forgive, but I can't forget. I can forgive because that's the way to heal myself, to get over the anger, but even if I forgive it doesn't mean I want to see them walking the streets free as they are doing now.”
It is absolutely unimaginable for me to think that after suffering so much pain of loss and tragedy, these survivors still live among those who had caused their strife. This is where, I believe, the Rwandans realized that if they weren’t the ones to end the anger then who would? If they didn’t stop to forgive these people then wouldn’t the struggle within the country continue? Survivors are trying their best to end this battle by simply forgiving, and perhaps this is a lesson we should take from the happenings in Rwanda: retaliation will solve nothing, but forgiveness can produce a very valuable concept -- peace.

"The most important thing everyone asks for is peace – even if you have only a little to eat, to be able to eat it in peace. Even though I’m old, I ask for peace and I have it now. I am sad, but I have peace." -Tharcisse Mukama



http://rwandansurvivors.blogspot.com/

Muhammad Atta's Struggle Through the Day

The author, Matin Amis, puts lot of events into Muhammad's day that should make Muhammad stop this plan. I almost get the sense that I dislike Muhammad even more due to the fact that he pushed through all his fears, the sickening voise in his head, and all the things that went wrong.

He starts with a bad morning where he is in this run-down inn, he slips and hits his head, he cuts himself shaving, and he does not like the way he looks (or who he is: think about that). Also, he does not want to be caught in a plane crash eternally in Hell so he tries to make himself feel better by asking for holy water. He is upset with the airline security procedures. He is upset with killing the stewartists. He is not even doing this for religious purposes; the narrator even says that he is a fundamentalist if you look at his real beliefs.

All of these events are almost like signs saying do not do this. He has little passion for it. He was not jumping out of his seat to volunteer, he did not like the consequences, and he had a guilty feeling when he thought about killing the stewartists.

These are not events to make the audience feel like they should sympathize with Muhammad. His bad day does not compare with what he did to the victims of 9/11. If the author wanted the audience to do that, I think he would have talked more about Muhammad's past and he would not have put in the part where Muhammad calls the other men on the mission to gloat about his holy water and to insult the living they have created. In the end, the author puts in a description of how long and painful Muhammad's dying moments were. Then Muhammad regrets this suicidal mission (he should have read the signs).

Website: This website just tells about guilt and how guilty people behave. I really liked the part towards the end that says someone does not feel guilt not only from not knowing right from wrong but not thinking it is important. How important did Muhammad think this mission was to him? He did not foresee how much he thought his life was important and he did not care about the punishment because he would be dead.
http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/guilt_shame/

The Opposite of Boredom

The terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 is an event that many Americans experienced and will never forget. No one, however, will ever be able to imagine the attack through the eyes of the terrorists themselves. Despite this losing battle to find true understanding, Martin Amis does a unique job portraying the event through Muhammad Atta’s perspective as one of the suicide pilots to fly into the World Trade Center. Although we will never know what these few men thought in the time leading up to the attacks, Amis adds a new perspective to 9/11.

I thought it was particularly interesting when Amis wrote, “It was appropriate, perhaps, and not paradoxical, that terror should also sharply promote its most obvious opposite. Boredom.” I do not fully understand what Amis means by this, but I think most people would agree that 9/11 promoted boredom. If anything, it set in a motion a world of skepticism and harsh criticism. This includes culture, race, government, politics, and more. Regardless of what Atta and the other terrorists intended to prove, I do not believe boredom was a result.

People will continue to write and speculate about the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I don’t know if we’ll ever be satisfied with a certain view of the events leading up to and following September 11 but many people provide interesting perspectives about that historical day.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/books/review/06filkins.html?pagewanted=1&ref=mohamedatta

Trying to Understand

"The Last Days of Muhammad Atta" is extraordinarily speculative. While some details can be confirmed like what Atta's will stated and his information from al-Qaeda because they were recovered in his lost bag at Logan.

(http://web.archive.org/web/20080526011027/http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-uslugg274705186apr17,0,6096142.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-print)

This makes the aspects of the story that are taken with artistic liberty more convincingly realistic. Thoughts and sensations experienced are obviously fabricated but this does something very important. They create a person that can be examined and an attempt to understand can be made by people in modern Western society. Readers can see the world that made these men monsters through the eyes of Atta. On the advice of Adichie, one can't start with the story of the Middle East with the 19 hijackers and 9/11 but instead consider how it got this way. The story paints a picture of a religious extremist that isn't religious but feels a need for something. A sort of desperation is seen in Atta and can be seen in many young terrorists. Does a person's environment and upbringing excuse these people? No. But hopefully we can see what it is that brought them to do it.

"Muhammad Atta was not religious; he was not even especially political. He had allied himself with the militants because jihad was, by many magnitudes, the most charismatic idea of his generation. To unite ferocity and rectitude in a single word: nothing could compete with that." Amis pg 3

The era of jihad is coming to a close in the midst of the Arab Spring but while some problems may be solved in this transition, other problems will definitely arise. Atta's story can be taken a cautionary tale that detail the recipe to create a generation of militants.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/opinion/04friedman.html?ref=thomaslfriedman)

The constant theme of "Last Days" is looking into the mind of someone that the world hates. Atta destroyed the North Tower on 9/11, killing thousands of people. His story is an important one to tell because it affects so many people, directly and indirectly. It also examines the creation of a monster and what can really drive people commit the worst atrocities.

Two sided story for 9/11

I find it appropriate to read the story of Muhammad Atta, this week. With the ten year anniversary of September 11, just among us this last Sunday, this story gives us a chance to see the opposing side of what happened on September 11, 2001. Many have to read, to what may have caused such events. At the beginning of the story Muhammad may have seemed like a normal man going along with his business on a normal day, but sure enough this was not a normal day for millions. The man that was in charge of the hijacking of Flight 11, the first plane to hit the World Trade Center.

"Purify your heart and cleanse it of stains. Forget and be oblivious to the thing which is call World. Muhammad Atta was not religious; he was not even especially political. He had allied himself with the militants because jihad was, by man magnitudes, the most charismatic idea of his generation. To unite ferocity and rectitude in a single word: nothing could compete with that. [...] If you took away all the rubbish about faith, then fundamentalism suited his character, and with an almost sinister precision." (Amis, 3)

The world may never know this man's specific intentions and reasoning. This just goes to show that even a highly educated man can be influenced to fabricate evil.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=757

Yes, we as Americans are very patriotic to our country, but we can not be subjected and caught in the single story. There is always two sides to any story; some informative and some emotional. In conclusion, I do have to say Sept. 11th will be a date that Americas continue to remember for centuries.

Human

Every individual is ultimately biologically and emotionally human, differing only in ethnicity, religion, or background. Adichie ensures the emphasis of this theme throughout her short story, “A Private Experience”. The author chooses to describe a scene in which two women are forced to seek shelter together from a religious riot between their respective religions. Interestingly enough, in her story about two women of differing cultures and religions, Adichie utilizes numerous moments to highlight the vast similarities between them. Adichie decides to prove this theme on both a biological and emotional level. Throughout the short story the narrator, Chika, and the unnamed women aid each other through a number of physical discomforts. Chika aids the women through breastfeeding pains and the women lends her cloth to Chika during Chika’s menstruation. These two scenes play a significant role in showing the parallels between the women. Even though they arise from separate backgrounds, they are both still human. Each woman knew how to help the other despite the unfamiliarity between the two. Adichie uses these scenes in order to acknowledge the equality of all people through a biological perspective. Further linking comparisons between the women, Adichie shows that both women share emotional similarities as the display their capacity for concern. Chika has her missing sister while the woman has her missing daughter. As both console each other, it becomes evident that there the differences between the two women on an emotional level are not vast. In fact, the differences between the two women occur from things relating to culture and background. Chika is unfamiliar with the clothes that the woman wears, the praying style, and the obvious language barrier. This becomes especially evident in the charred corpse scene. When the corpse is burned and stripped of its clothes and outlier appearance, Chika cannot tell what religion it used to be. Adichie uses this scene to further prove that in the end, everyone is still human.

This is an article that furthers the discussion that race doesn’t exist per se and everyone is the same biologically:

https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/gjay/www/Whiteness/realityofrace.htm

Stopping and Realizing Everyone Has Their Own Story

"The Danger of a Single Story" by Chimamanda Adichie was a very touching and eye opening video for me to watch. It came to a conclusion that so often we judge different people by only one stereotype or only one story we have heard. If everyone would take a moment to actually listen and get to know other peoples stories they would realize just exactly every person is going through and maybe realize that the person sitting right next to you no matter, how tall, what color, how old, may be more like you than you think. Just as Adichie said, "Sterotypes are incomplete stories..." Not everyone only has a "Single Story" they have many stories that develop who they are today so no one has the right to judge.

The following is a YouTube video of a movie trailer for a movie called Freedom Writers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT0L1U-Rdj4 I believe that this movie does a very good job of showing how some students only see each other through one stereotype and gradually learn from the help of their new teacher Mrs. Gruwell that they are all going through some of the same situations and can learn from one another if they give it a chance just as Adichie describes in her speech.

Not Just a Single Story

Adichie does a wonderful job depicting several perspectives to the same event in her short story “A Private Experience.” As Adichie explains in her talk about “the danger of a single story,” there is never one way to view anything. Whether it’s a person, culture, or event, there is always a different way to look at it. In the short story, two very different women are forced together when a riot breaks out. Despite their different languages and religions, each one is able to find comfort in the other. It would have been easy for Adichie to portray only one women’s account of the experience. However, this would have encouraged readers to favor one character over the other. Had Adichie only described Chika’s experience, readers would not have understood that the riot impacted both her and the other women. Had Adichie only told the woman’s side of the story, readers would be left questioning Chika’s significance in the story. By highlighting the differences between the characters while still showing their connections to each other, readers experience multiple sides of the story. This is something that can be quite challenging but very rewarding for the author and readers. “A Private Experience” has incredible depth despite being a short story. By the end of the story the characters learn they have found solace in each other while readers conclude with a multidimensional perspective of the characters and the riot that brought them together.

http://paperbackreader2.blogspot.com/2009/07/chimamanda-ngozi-adichie.html