Lending a Voice to the Voiceless: The Quest for Justice in Umutesi's Narrative

2005 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 103-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aloys Habimana
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Great Lakes Region ◽  
Mass Violence ◽  
African Great Lakes ◽  
The Core ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
The World ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
The Many ◽  
Simple Narrative

Surviving the Slaughter is a powerful narrative that takes us into one of the many tragedies of the African Great Lakes region that affected tens of thousands of helpless Rwandan civilians in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide inside Rwanda. Through the eyes of an ordinary, but also remarkable, woman, we learn the horrifying details of the ordeals that Rwandan refugees in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) went through after their camps were destroyed manu militari. The value of this book goes beyond that of a simple narrative. As we read it, we are absorbed by an account of a breathtaking and excruciating journey of tens of thousands of people as they are hunted down in the dense rainforests of the Congo. At the core of this account is one woman's protest against the absurdity of mass violence and the inhuman brutality of military regimes.At first glance, the book stands out as a strong stand against the corrosive tradition of silence that often accompanies gross violations of human rights, especially those unfolding beyond the scrutiny of the major world media. In a simple but engaging style, Umutesi strips off the usual veneer of reserve that characterizes Rwandans in general and Rwandan women in particular. Rwandans don't usually talk about their experiences, let alone write about them. And writing about the plight of people whom the world has often considered pariahs since the 1994 genocide requires a strong personality.

Studying National Commemoration and Political Celebrations in Africa: The Online Archive African Independence Days

2020 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. vii-xxviii
Author(s):  
Marie-Christin Gabriel ◽  
Carola Lentz
Keyword(s):  
Burkina Faso ◽  
Comparative Research ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Online Archive ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many

AbstractThe Department of Anthropology and African Studies (ifeas) at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz hosts a comprehensive archive on African Independence Day celebrations. Created in 2010, the archive is one of the outcomes of a large comparative research project on African national days directed by Carola Lentz. It offers unique insights into practices of as well as debates on national commemoration and political celebrations in Africa. The archive holds more than 28,000 images, including photographs, newspaper articles, documents, and objects from twelve African countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Madagascar, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, and Tanzania. It primarily consists of an online photo and newspaper archive (https://bildarchiv.uni-mainz.de/AUJ/; https://www.blogs.uni-mainz.de/fb07-ifeas-eng/departmental-archives/online-archive-african-independence-days/); some of the material is also stored in the physical archive on African Independence Days at ifeas as well as in the department's ethnographic collection (https://www.blogs.uni-mainz.de/fb07-ifeas-eng/ethnographic-collection/). Most of the material concerns recent celebrations, but the collection has been complemented by some documentation of earlier festivities. Archives hold many stories while they also have a story to tell in their own right. This article discusses both aspects. It first traces the history of the Online Archive African Independence Days at ifeas. It then provides an overview of the different categories of material stored in the archive and tells a few of the many stories that the photos, texts and objects contain. We hope to demonstrate that the archive holds a wealth of sources that can be mined for studies on national commemoration and political celebrations in Africa, and, more generally, on practices and processes of nation-building and state-making.

Implications of the 2012 U.S. Election for U.S. Policy in Africa’s Great Lakes Region

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-191
Author(s):  
Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Lakes Region ◽  
Security Sector ◽  
White House ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
The U.S

Abstract:While Africans are generally satisfied that a person of African descent was reelected to the White House following a campaign in which vicious and racist attacks were made against him, the U.S. Africa policy under President Barack Obama will continue to be guided by the strategic interests of the United States, which are not necessarily compatible with the popular aspirations for democracy, peace, and prosperity in Africa. Obama’s policy in the Great Lakes region provides an excellent illustration of this point. Since Rwanda and Uganda are Washington’s allies in the “war against terror” in Darfur and Somalia, respectively, the Obama administration has done little to stop Kigali and Kampala from destabilizing the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and looting its natural resources, either directly or through proxies. Rwanda and Uganda have even been included in an international oversight mechanism that is supposed to guide governance and security sector reforms in the DRC, but whose real objective is to facilitate Western access to the enormous natural wealth of the Congo and the Great Lakes region.

scholarly journals Emergent threats: lessons learnt from Ebola

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 334-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Piot ◽  
Moses J Soka ◽  
Julia Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Health Economic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
West African ◽  
Political Crises ◽  
Lessons Learnt ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
Rate Of Emergence ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Many

Abstract Recent disease outbreaks have demonstrated the severe health, economic and political crises that epidemics can trigger. The rate of emergence of infectious diseases is accelerating and, with deepening globalisation, pathogens are increasingly mobile. Yet the 2014–2015 West African Ebola epidemic exposed major gaps in the world’s capacity to prevent and respond to epidemics. In the midst of the world’s second largest ever recorded Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we reflect on six of the many lessons learnt from the epidemic in West Africa, focusing on progress made and the challenges ahead in preparing for future threats. While Ebola and other emerging epidemics will remain a challenge in the years to come, by working in partnership with affected communities and across sectors, and by investing in robust health systems, it is within our power to be better prepared when they strike.

scholarly journals Letter from the Editor

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 6-7
Author(s):  
Dustin Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Graduate School ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
International Crisis ◽  
The North ◽  
Safer Schools ◽  
The World ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
Catch Up

For this volume of Allons-y we asked young authors to write about how armed conflict impacts children in the countries on International Crisis Group’s ten conflicts to watch in 2018 list. Much has changed in these conflicts since then, but all continue to do grave harm to children, which we struggle to address in the aftermath. The militarization and abuse of children are often used by autocratic regimes and armed groups to further their aims, and the trauma can have a lasting impact on the children and their societies. The four papers and their accompanying commentary in this volume illustrate these challenges and collectively highlight the importance of prevention.The authors, all young scholars who are in or have recently completed graduate school, wrote about the ways in which children are ripped from their communities in order to be used for military and political ends in armed conflict, and the difficulties of repairing these harms afterwards, whether in countries affected by armed conflict like the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) or when people flee as refugees to new lands. The first two papers explore how children are weaponized: Peter Steele writes about the North Korean Songbun system that militarizes children from birth, and Airianna Murdoch-Fyke writes about the systematic use of rape as a weapon of war targeted at girls in the DRC. Both methods are designed to disrupt a child’s connection to their family and community. The last two papers explore the difficulties of addressing the resulting trauma: Arpita Mitra writes about the failures of the demobilization, disarmament, and reintegration process in the DRC, and Emily Pelley writes about the difficulties of aiding young refugees exposed to wartime violence when they come to Northern countries such as Canada. Collectively, these papers highlight the need to invest more in prevention of wartime abuses, rather than scrambling to catch-up and repair the damage already done.While it may be cliché to say that young people are the future, it is also the truth, and it is important for them to have platforms to discuss and present their ideas and contribute to the most pressing challenges facing our world. Whether it is young politicians challenging our complacency on climate change, students fighting for safer schools, young activists towards peace in their countries and around the world, or young scholars such as the authors of this volume, we must turn to and support the younger generations who are invested in making a better world for themselves and all of humanity. In this spirit, Allons-y seeks to pair the academic and practical work of young people with the commentary of those who are more experienced in their field to demonstrate how young people can contribute to and create a brighter tomorrow.

scholarly journals The spread of cholera in western Democratic Republic of the Congo is not unidirectional from East–West: a spatiotemporal analysis, 1973–2018

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry César Ntumba Kayembe ◽  
Catherine Linard ◽  
Didier Bompangue ◽  
Jérémie Muwonga ◽  
Michel Moutschen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Great Lakes ◽  
Disease Surveillance ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Spatiotemporal Analysis ◽  
Space Time ◽  
Congo Basin ◽  
Great Lakes Region ◽  
Spatial Spread ◽  
Congo River ◽  
Republic Of The Congo

Abstract Background Cholera outbreaks in western Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are thought to be primarily the result of westward spread of cases from the Great Lakes Region. However, other patterns of spatial spread in this part of the country should not be excluded. The aim of this study was to explore alternative routes of spatial spread in western DRC. Methods A literature review was conducted to reconstruct major outbreak expansions of cholera in western DRC since its introduction in 1973. We also collected data on cholera cases reported at the health zone (HZ) scale by the national surveillance system during 2000–2018. Based on data from routine disease surveillance, we identified two subperiods (week 45, 2012–week 42, 2013 and week 40, 2017–week 52, 2018) for which the retrospective space–time permutation scan statistic was implemented to detect spatiotemporal clusters of cholera cases and then to infer the spread patterns in western DRC other than that described in the literature. Results Beyond westward and cross-border spread in the West Congo Basin from the Great Lakes Region, other dynamics of cholera epidemic propagation were observed from neighboring countries, such as Angola, to non-endemic provinces of southwestern DRC. Space–time clustering analyses sequentially detected clusters of cholera cases from southwestern DRC to the northern provinces, demonstrating a downstream-to-upstream spread along the Congo River. Conclusions The spread of cholera in western DRC is not one-sided. There are other patterns of spatial spread, including a propagation from downstream to upstream areas along the Congo River, to be considered as preferential trajectories of cholera in western DRC.

Film Subtitling: A New Research Genre in Africa

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kajingulu Somwe Mubenga
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Language Transfer ◽  
Audio Description ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
African Context ◽  
New Research

Subtitling is one of the modalities or modes of language transfer like dubbing, voice-over and audio-description which are used in the area of screen translation or audiovisual translation (AVT). It has a fairly long history and is an ever-growing specialisation across the globe. It is firmly established in such European countries as Belgium, Denmark, Portugal, the Netherlands, Finland, Norway and Sweden, in Israel, in Australia, and in a few countries of Asia such as Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan and of South America such as Argentina, Bolivia and Peru. In Africa, subtitling is an emerging university discipline in the field of Translation Studies (TS). It is gaining ground in such countries as Cameroun, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Egypt, Zambia, and South Africa.While research in subtitling is far advanced in Europe and other parts of the world, Africa is lagging so far behind that it is always under-represented at international AVT conferences. It is against this background that the present paper deals with the status of subtitling as a new research genre in Africa. The purpose of this paper is thus to sensitise the students and other researchers in translation to the potentialities that subtitling offers in the African context. The hypothesis underlying the paper is that subtitling is both a burgeoning and captivating area of study and that it opens new avenues in AVT research.

World Health Organization

1962 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 237-241 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World Health Organization ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
World Health ◽  
New Delhi ◽  
The World ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Many ◽  
Health Organization

The fourteenth session of the Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) was held in New Delhi from February 7 through 24, 1961. In his address the President of the Assembly, Dr. Arcot Lakshmanaswami Mudaliar, stated that among the many international organizations set up by the UN, WHO occupied a foremost place in its efforts to improve the conditions of millions of people in all parts of the globe. Dr. Mudaliar pointed to the contributions of the WHO regional offices in bringing the work of the organization more directly into contact with the countries concerned. WHO had achieved its most spectacular successes in programs designed not merely to control but to eradicate diseases of which the causative organisms were well known and with respect to which effective steps could be taken—in this regard Dr. Mudaliar mentioned the malaria eradication campaign. Other diseases of a communicable nature—smallpox, cholera, several of the water-borne diseases, and many others carried by insects—could hopefully lend themselves to similar eradication programs. Dr. Mudaliar also referred to the work of WHO in areas of the world stricken by natural or man-made disaster, and in particular to the organization's emergency work in the Republic of the Congo (Leopoldville). As for the future tasks of WHO, the President of the Assembly observed that although tuberculosis had been one of the four diseases that had been given priority by the first WHO Assembly, much still remained to be done to control it; the results of domiciliary treatment carried out in the city of Madras, India, he continued, gave some promise of success in the control and treatment of the disease. Dr. Mudaliar also singled out leprosy as a disease the organization should try to eradicate, and mentioned the problems of mental illness stemming from the stress and strain of modern society as being worthy of attention.

The Economy of Sudan: A Potential Breadbasket of the Arab World?

1980 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack G. Kaikati
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Political Control ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
Declaration Of Independence ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
Head Of State ◽  
The World ◽  
North And South

The Democratic Republic of the Sudan was among the first of nonsovereign territories in Africa to obtain its independence from European political control. Formerly under the joint sovereignty of Britain and Egypt it became independent on January 1, 1956. Since its declaration of independence, Sudan has experienced three major self-proclaimed revolutions, and the format of government has twice changed between parliamentary democracy and military regimes. As of this writing, the current government under General Jaʻafar el-Numayri has been in power longer than any of its predecessors. General Numayri's success in ending the sixteen-year-old civil war between north and south has bolstered his position as head of state. Consequently, this success and at least three other factors have induced the world to pay considerable attention to Sudan.

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