- Email: [email protected]
The currency of conflict
Perspectives
Film The currency of conflict Ironically, mass murderer Joseph Stalin made an acutely insightful observation about death: “One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.” So rather than tell you that worldwide 2000 people are killed by guns every day, or that about one billion people are currently affected in some way by conflict, or even that more civilians are killed by explosive weapons such as landmines than military personnel, imagine this. You are fleeing from the village you have lived in for all of your life not daring to look back at your family home which is now engulfed in flames. You are lucky: you have only lost your home and all of your possessions. Your neighbour’s husband has just been shot right in front of her. Your friend, Mima, has just had her youngest baby torn from her arms and thrown into the flames of her burning home. She lies on the ground overcome with grief. Her cries can be heard for miles, but you can’t leave her there. You know the awful things that happen to women who have no protection in your ravaged community. You have witnessed these horrors yourself—the piercing screams of your sister as she was raped by four men still haunts you every waking moment. So you pull Mima up from the ground and are now running and half carrying her as she weeps, while looking out for her five young children who are running beside you. You look at the terror etched on their faces and wonder how they can survive the horror of witnessing their baby sister being burnt alive. How will they cope? But you have no time to think about that. You are running, running, running, fleeing for your life. Eventually, you come to a camp in the desert. Tents stretch out as far as you can see and the stench of human waste makes you want to throw up. But you have no option other than to set up camp. So you help get Mima and her children settled and sit in www.thelancet.com Vol 375 January 23, 2010
a tent under the sweltering heat of the day and accept anything that the foreign aid workers can give you. As the weeks go by, you become more used to the degrading conditions of the camp but your mind is now active. You repeatedly replay the horrors of that day in your mind as you try to help Mima who lies in the tent all day—still grieving. Every day, your
“Disturbingly educational, but also strangely entertaining, Lord of War is to my mind the best anti-war film ever made.” main goal is just to survive. How can you expect any more? The years go by and the tent you once hated is now your permanent home. Jojo and Ada, Mima’s two youngest children have died, their little bodies wasted and no longer able to cope with the diarrhoeal illnesses that had been their constant companion since their arrival at the camp. You fear for the remaining three children. You can’t remember the last time they laughed, or even smiled. Mima has retreated into a shell. She is able to function but you know that she is not really there, her mind trapped somewhere in the horrors of the past. You once asked a friendly foreign aid worker what was happening outside of the camp: “Do people out there know about what has happened to us, and are they going to help us?” The foreigner nodded her head enthusiastically and talked about the UN and the African Union. “So are we going to go home soon?” you had asked hopefully. But the foreigner had shaken her head, patted your arm, and said that you should not give up hope. You did try to be hopeful. But as the months went by whatever was supposed to be happening “out there” made absolutely no difference to your life inside the camp. Then suddenly
without warning, all of the aid workers left. Some of the foreigners were crying. The friendly foreigner hugged you and said that she had no option but to go. She said something about the government, that is, the very same government that had tried to kill you and your neighbours, and how it had suddenly decided to kick all of the foreign aid agencies and workers out of the country. She promised that she would be back but you could see the doubt in her face. So now, you lie in the tent all day and night. Boredom is no longer an issue as you feel too weak with hunger to move or even think. You are glad you can’t think. You hate that you are not in control of your own survival and you are now beyond caring about what has happened to all of the help that was supposed to be coming. So as the flies buzz round your head and your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth, you wait to die. As you have probably figured out, this story describes a version of events in Darfur. But the depressingly overwhelming fact is that similar human tragedies are multiplied elsewhere in situations such as southern Sudan, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Pakistan, Colombia…the list goes on. Even the most ardent anti-war campaigner would probably agree that in 2010, the probability of world peace is more fantastical than ever. So instead of aiming to stop wars, the international community is now content to “manage” them. The important work towards a small arms treaty is continuing and despite the Obama administration refusing to sign up, 158 countries have already signed up to a treaty banning landmines. These faint glimmers of hope may bring some order to the chaos of conflict and help stem the loss of innocent
Lord of War Directed by Andrew Niccol. DVD US$7·98 or digital download US$9·98 from Lionsgate at http://www. lionsgateshop.com. See http:// www.lordofwarthemovie.com See Editorial page 253
271
Perspectives
lives. But as arms dealer Yori Orlov, so cleverly played by Nicholas Cage in the film Lord of War, says: “You know who’s going to inherit the earth? Arms dealers. Because everyone else is too busy killing each other.” In order to understand why conflicts continue to happen, especially in poorer countries, you simply must watch this film. Disturbingly educational, but also strangely entertaining, Lord of War is to my mind the best anti-war film ever
made. Ingeniously it puts the viewer in the position of seeing the world from an arms dealer’s point of view. The result is simply unforgettable, but also incredibly useful. Seeing the world in this way should add a dose of realism to all initiatives to ban arms and weapons; campaigns can be put in context and advocacy can become more targeted. Another classic Yori Orlov quote is “They say, ‘Evil prevails when good men fail to act.’ What they ought to
say is, ‘Evil prevails’.” We cannot allow evil to prevail. In addition to treaties banning weapons, the international community must address the illegal arms trade that is allowed to flourish for various vested reasons. Otherwise, individual tragedies and horror stories, the result of human nature at its darkest, will continue to escalate.
Rhona MacDonald [email protected]
In brief Film Children in conflict Beyond the frontlines of war, beyond the bloody conflict, and the guns, uniforms, and tanks, are the thousands of civilians who get wounded despite never having been engaged in combat. Of these casualties, an estimated one in three are children. Back Home Tomorrow offers a glimpse into the lives of these children, who, one way or another, have been scarred by conflict. The film centres on two children living in different continents and circumstances, but both suffering the consequences of war. Little Murtaza lies in a Kabul hospital with children who found landmines gleaming invitingly in the dirt around their houses, and naively brought them
Back Home Tomorrow Directed by Fabrizio Lazzaretti and Paolo Santolini. Magnolia Films, 2009. For information about Emergency see http://www.emergency.it See Editorial page 253
inside as playthings. The teenage Yagoub, meanwhile, is in a Sudanese refugee camp, having fled from atrocities in Darfur. His escape proves temporary though after his body reveals a nasty surprise—a serious heart defect that his family cannot afford to have fixed. His heart condition makes breathing difficult and lying in bed, gulping in shallow sips of air, he watches, with a mixture of sorrow and resignation, as life passes him by. Sometimes, intrusive footage of war and illness can feel exploitative. But not in Back Home Tomorrow, where the camera quite rightly forces us to confront images from these young people’s daily lives that we might prefer to flinch away from, such as the pulverised remnants
Magnolia
The printed journal includes an image merely for illustration
272
of landmine-stricken limbs being bandaged. The film lingers often on intense close-ups of faces, documenting the tears, despair, and heartache that come with trying to make a life from the debris of war. But Fabrizio Lazzaretti and Paolo Santolini don’t want us to just see the protagonists as victims to be pitied. We see Murtaza engaged in hilarious, and often slapstick-funny, wheelchair races with the other kids in his ward. Yagoub is buoyed up by visits from his friends, with whom he discusses girls and what they’ll be when they grow up. Salvation for both Yagoub and Murtaza comes in the form of the Italian aid agency Emergency, which funds hospitals and healthcare workers to help the civilian casualties of war. Through the agency, Yagoub gets the operation he needs. As difficult as open-heart surgery must be for a teenager, his mother knows that in his short life he and thousands like him have been through far worse. She reassures him that he will be fine after the operation. “We have known suffering. No-one ever imagined we would survive”, she says. “God has decided you must see war and come out of it alive.”
Priya Shetty [email protected]
www.thelancet.com Vol 375 January 23, 2010
Film The currency of conflict Ironically, mass murderer Joseph Stalin made an acutely insightful observation about death: “One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.” So rather than tell you that worldwide 2000 people are killed by guns every day, or that about one billion people are currently affected in some way by conflict, or even that more civilians are killed by explosive weapons such as landmines than military personnel, imagine this. You are fleeing from the village you have lived in for all of your life not daring to look back at your family home which is now engulfed in flames. You are lucky: you have only lost your home and all of your possessions. Your neighbour’s husband has just been shot right in front of her. Your friend, Mima, has just had her youngest baby torn from her arms and thrown into the flames of her burning home. She lies on the ground overcome with grief. Her cries can be heard for miles, but you can’t leave her there. You know the awful things that happen to women who have no protection in your ravaged community. You have witnessed these horrors yourself—the piercing screams of your sister as she was raped by four men still haunts you every waking moment. So you pull Mima up from the ground and are now running and half carrying her as she weeps, while looking out for her five young children who are running beside you. You look at the terror etched on their faces and wonder how they can survive the horror of witnessing their baby sister being burnt alive. How will they cope? But you have no time to think about that. You are running, running, running, fleeing for your life. Eventually, you come to a camp in the desert. Tents stretch out as far as you can see and the stench of human waste makes you want to throw up. But you have no option other than to set up camp. So you help get Mima and her children settled and sit in www.thelancet.com Vol 375 January 23, 2010
a tent under the sweltering heat of the day and accept anything that the foreign aid workers can give you. As the weeks go by, you become more used to the degrading conditions of the camp but your mind is now active. You repeatedly replay the horrors of that day in your mind as you try to help Mima who lies in the tent all day—still grieving. Every day, your
“Disturbingly educational, but also strangely entertaining, Lord of War is to my mind the best anti-war film ever made.” main goal is just to survive. How can you expect any more? The years go by and the tent you once hated is now your permanent home. Jojo and Ada, Mima’s two youngest children have died, their little bodies wasted and no longer able to cope with the diarrhoeal illnesses that had been their constant companion since their arrival at the camp. You fear for the remaining three children. You can’t remember the last time they laughed, or even smiled. Mima has retreated into a shell. She is able to function but you know that she is not really there, her mind trapped somewhere in the horrors of the past. You once asked a friendly foreign aid worker what was happening outside of the camp: “Do people out there know about what has happened to us, and are they going to help us?” The foreigner nodded her head enthusiastically and talked about the UN and the African Union. “So are we going to go home soon?” you had asked hopefully. But the foreigner had shaken her head, patted your arm, and said that you should not give up hope. You did try to be hopeful. But as the months went by whatever was supposed to be happening “out there” made absolutely no difference to your life inside the camp. Then suddenly
without warning, all of the aid workers left. Some of the foreigners were crying. The friendly foreigner hugged you and said that she had no option but to go. She said something about the government, that is, the very same government that had tried to kill you and your neighbours, and how it had suddenly decided to kick all of the foreign aid agencies and workers out of the country. She promised that she would be back but you could see the doubt in her face. So now, you lie in the tent all day and night. Boredom is no longer an issue as you feel too weak with hunger to move or even think. You are glad you can’t think. You hate that you are not in control of your own survival and you are now beyond caring about what has happened to all of the help that was supposed to be coming. So as the flies buzz round your head and your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth, you wait to die. As you have probably figured out, this story describes a version of events in Darfur. But the depressingly overwhelming fact is that similar human tragedies are multiplied elsewhere in situations such as southern Sudan, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Pakistan, Colombia…the list goes on. Even the most ardent anti-war campaigner would probably agree that in 2010, the probability of world peace is more fantastical than ever. So instead of aiming to stop wars, the international community is now content to “manage” them. The important work towards a small arms treaty is continuing and despite the Obama administration refusing to sign up, 158 countries have already signed up to a treaty banning landmines. These faint glimmers of hope may bring some order to the chaos of conflict and help stem the loss of innocent
Lord of War Directed by Andrew Niccol. DVD US$7·98 or digital download US$9·98 from Lionsgate at http://www. lionsgateshop.com. See http:// www.lordofwarthemovie.com See Editorial page 253
271
Perspectives
lives. But as arms dealer Yori Orlov, so cleverly played by Nicholas Cage in the film Lord of War, says: “You know who’s going to inherit the earth? Arms dealers. Because everyone else is too busy killing each other.” In order to understand why conflicts continue to happen, especially in poorer countries, you simply must watch this film. Disturbingly educational, but also strangely entertaining, Lord of War is to my mind the best anti-war film ever
made. Ingeniously it puts the viewer in the position of seeing the world from an arms dealer’s point of view. The result is simply unforgettable, but also incredibly useful. Seeing the world in this way should add a dose of realism to all initiatives to ban arms and weapons; campaigns can be put in context and advocacy can become more targeted. Another classic Yori Orlov quote is “They say, ‘Evil prevails when good men fail to act.’ What they ought to
say is, ‘Evil prevails’.” We cannot allow evil to prevail. In addition to treaties banning weapons, the international community must address the illegal arms trade that is allowed to flourish for various vested reasons. Otherwise, individual tragedies and horror stories, the result of human nature at its darkest, will continue to escalate.
Rhona MacDonald [email protected]
In brief Film Children in conflict Beyond the frontlines of war, beyond the bloody conflict, and the guns, uniforms, and tanks, are the thousands of civilians who get wounded despite never having been engaged in combat. Of these casualties, an estimated one in three are children. Back Home Tomorrow offers a glimpse into the lives of these children, who, one way or another, have been scarred by conflict. The film centres on two children living in different continents and circumstances, but both suffering the consequences of war. Little Murtaza lies in a Kabul hospital with children who found landmines gleaming invitingly in the dirt around their houses, and naively brought them
Back Home Tomorrow Directed by Fabrizio Lazzaretti and Paolo Santolini. Magnolia Films, 2009. For information about Emergency see http://www.emergency.it See Editorial page 253
inside as playthings. The teenage Yagoub, meanwhile, is in a Sudanese refugee camp, having fled from atrocities in Darfur. His escape proves temporary though after his body reveals a nasty surprise—a serious heart defect that his family cannot afford to have fixed. His heart condition makes breathing difficult and lying in bed, gulping in shallow sips of air, he watches, with a mixture of sorrow and resignation, as life passes him by. Sometimes, intrusive footage of war and illness can feel exploitative. But not in Back Home Tomorrow, where the camera quite rightly forces us to confront images from these young people’s daily lives that we might prefer to flinch away from, such as the pulverised remnants
Magnolia
The printed journal includes an image merely for illustration
272
of landmine-stricken limbs being bandaged. The film lingers often on intense close-ups of faces, documenting the tears, despair, and heartache that come with trying to make a life from the debris of war. But Fabrizio Lazzaretti and Paolo Santolini don’t want us to just see the protagonists as victims to be pitied. We see Murtaza engaged in hilarious, and often slapstick-funny, wheelchair races with the other kids in his ward. Yagoub is buoyed up by visits from his friends, with whom he discusses girls and what they’ll be when they grow up. Salvation for both Yagoub and Murtaza comes in the form of the Italian aid agency Emergency, which funds hospitals and healthcare workers to help the civilian casualties of war. Through the agency, Yagoub gets the operation he needs. As difficult as open-heart surgery must be for a teenager, his mother knows that in his short life he and thousands like him have been through far worse. She reassures him that he will be fine after the operation. “We have known suffering. No-one ever imagined we would survive”, she says. “God has decided you must see war and come out of it alive.”
Priya Shetty [email protected]
www.thelancet.com Vol 375 January 23, 2010