Sudan - the remains

Ok, as it seems I'm just not made for consitency I decided I just publish the rest of my report in one go and then maybe start commenting on the normal live again.

Sudan weekly Standard week 3

Ladies and gentlemen – welcome to the rain. I never knew how much water can fall from the sky. And apparently, that isn’t even much – that’s what I was told. The weather here likes extremes! I have seen star-skies, sun-sets and rises, clouds and lightning and sun-skies that excel anything I ever only remotely have seen at home. The rain turns the streets into lakes – driving through which is better than any roller-coaster could ever be – you happily plough your way through the floods and suddenly your bonnet disappears in front of you. This is when adrenalin starts working! It also explains why all our cars have snorkels. The sun at the other end of the scale can proof that light-photons are actually also material! You go out of the shade and get hit like a waterfall. Literally you can feel the light as weight. At least with a bit of imagination, I can! Oh and I came up with the hypothesis that the moodiness of the human body is directly correlated to the temperature. Alternatively the rationality is indirectly correlated. The hotter the temperature is, the less rational is the human body (at least mine). Ok, so far my scientific analysis about the weather.

Another interesting feature is, that you get used to pretty much everything – no matter how horrible it might seem. Situations in which 2 weeks ago I felt really bad – now I begin joking about them. I know it’s not right, but what shall I do? I can’t change them. And to a certain extend you learn that trying to be nice and helpful – might not be helpful at all. I know this is the really evil neo-con attack on the social system and I hate this argument, but as a matter of fact, only if you refuse to help in certain ways, these people will learn how to take care for themselves. Help!!!! – what am I (me of all people) saying? But for instance our IDP camp. We pay them to build their own houses with material we provide and on land we organised – and still they want more!! What kind of conclusion should you draw out of this? This hole country is only surviving on western aid and you don’t get the feeling that the people have any interest in changing this situation – at least only very few of them. Instead they call on Europe to come back and colonise them again. Quote: ‘Come here and help us show us how to govern us – we have oil and land and the land will feed both of us. You can build yourself nice houses, like you used to. We are sheep, can sheep govern themselves?’ What on earth am I supposed to do with this? How should I reply? Tell them that if we did this we would soon exploit them again – because we aren’t any better than either the Arabs or their own corrupt politicians. Tell them that we couldn’t afford empire-building anymore because we have to take care of our own people. Tell them we couldn’t even persuade enough people at home to come here, because they are happy where they are. Or tell them that this is none of our business and that they should take themselves together and build up their country – all the while being in competition to our companies that will undercut any local produce as soon they’ve done what we tell them right now – fixed their roads. Talking about which, certain things especially materials can be incredibly expensive here. We were offering 400 US Dollar for a truckload of straw yesterday – only the straw, not the truck – and they refused because they can get more on the market. For a sack of charcoal you can get the equivalent of 5 Euro – and they just use the trees standing around next to the road. Bolds and screws, if you could find any would go at enormous prices – but you won’t find them. A cow, that won’t give any milk and neither gets slaughtered, because cows are the symbol of wealth – a bit like a Ferrari or a Porsche at home (useless but you are very proud to have one) – goes for around 150 Dollar – but with cows I have no idea how much you would have to pay at home. And for 100 to 150 cows you can get a wife – once again an object of wealth that is collectable.

This reminds me of the following. Things that are unusual about me: I am 24 years young (sometimes I have to insist on the young bit) but already have a beard and finished secondary school – not to mention a university degree – but I am not married. This usually gets me about a handful of offers for sisters and the like, all of which I have to refuse, not because I’m not interested (which would be true but not polite) but for the practical reason that I don’t own any cows! This is about the moment when people start wondering, how on earth I managed to come here. Furthermore I belief in monogamy and that homosexuals should not be executed. I get very annoyed just because some 13/14 girl, to whom I have no relation at all, which has a horribly decease – the skin on her head gets eaten off by some bacteria – is prevented, by her relatives, from going to Nairobi to get some operation that might cure her, but I have absolutely no problem with not getting anything (practically cows) out of my sister’s wedding. Now you see, I am a truly strange guy. A stranger! And for the first time in my life I truly understand what this word means.

Have a good day!

Sudan weekly Standard – week 4

Good afternoon, hope you are all doing fine, enjoying life – because that’s what it is there for, if you ask me. OK, what to start with? Let me go further into cows. Cows are, after all, the meaning of life, if you ask the Dinkas and as I am currently working with them every day, I should learn to accept this fact. What is special about a cow? It gives you access to the one item, that is even more important, wives! In both cases there is a simple rule, the more of them the better. What is a cow not existing for? A cow has no apparent value economically. It under almost no circumstances used to sustain yourself. Just because you are starving does not mean that you could slaughter your cows – this is no joke, no exaggeration but the bitter reality. Only in enormously exceptional cases will you slaughter a bull. These are, a wedding and as a gift to the gods – even if you go to church every Sunday. If a cow has not calved after 5 years or provided it becomes obvious, that a cow or a bull is so old that they will die soon (a question of days) then you may slaughter it and sell the meat, however you would not eat it yourself, even though you can buy the meat of other families. Also, as a cow has no economic value, its condition is pretty irrelevant. 10 starving staggering cows are better than 5 well fed ones that might provide a lot more milk than the 10 ones. Milk, is the one item of a cow (on average it will give a small cup a day) that can be used for daily use. By the way, for women similar rules apply. The more the better and irrelevant of their condition. You have no obligation to care for either your cows or your wives or your children – indeed you might not even know how many of them you have, as they frequently die and don’t increase you status. You own your women and cows, you use them for a particular purpose (milk and getting women in the one case, sex in the other) and you live together with them. If you loose either a cow or a wife the shame is unbearable. A Commander that wants the cow of some other bloke gets the response that he has to kill the person first, which he will then put in reality. If you are young, there are limited ways of getting cows. Either you have a rich father, who will give you cows to marry – but will refuse to give you a tiny fraction of these cows to be sold, to afterwards set up your own business (which is what your teacher, who happened to have lived in different country during the war and lost a lot of his meaning of life) told you to do. Alternatively you will get some cows if your sister (or another female relative) gets married as a pride price or the third option is to raid the cows of another Clan. This Cattle raids are common culture, just that thanks to the massive influx in Kalashnikovs they became rather bloody in the recent history and once one group lost, it has almost no means of recapturing their cows, making them IDPs.

For food you search the bush, you have some goats or you go hunting. Farming has become an increased phenomenon, but is still eyed as a rather suspicious activity as it involves work. Work on the other hand is a word introduced by the Kawajas (white people) which is again only very slowly trickling down into the culture of the Dinkas. Why on earth do you have to work to get food? If it is around you eat it, if it isn’t, well then you don’t eat it. And if it comes in bags saying US aid out of compounds saying UN, where exactly is the difference to a coconut falling of a coconut tree? If you have food you share it, even with the Kawaja who brought it. If you don’t have it, then you can’t share it. Once your cattle has graced of the grass, then you move to another piece of land and if you find another tribe already using it, well then you fight – after all you have to do something during the day, and fighting is a rather acceptable activity.

This is the real world around here. The houses in Rumbek are only family storage – primarily you live with your cows in cattle camps, so my initial identification of the medieval ages was wrong. In fact I landed somewhere in the late stone age. The people are still very nice, once you swallowed this bug, it becomes a lot better to comprehend what exactly is going on.

The exception to all this being those who left the country during the war and are now coming back with all kind of weird ideas. Such as government, census, community integration, milking the UN and the west (as good as it gets, they are in a way just like a cow) secondary education for some (but all fund have to go to their school, so someone trying to build one somewhere else might find that they will refuse – after all this is not where their children are going to, is it?) and even a University for Rumbek (Why not, we have no books, but a University would be rather nice). Oh and of course they would never agree on one thing. Dr. Mayo (partial initiator of the comprehensive peace agreement and somewhere in the SPLM (Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, the political arm of the army) hierarchy – don’t ask me where exactly) studied in the US, supporter of Mr. Bush (and still a very interesting person for a conversation, he seems to be very direct, I would even say honest, despite the fact that his arguments might occasionally contradict themselves) will say that the ultimate authority over the land should remain with the community chiefs – Mrs Rose, official of the SCRC (no clue what exactly this abbreviation stands for, but it somehow part of what considers itself to be the government), will tell you that this is up to the land administration office (somehow part of the SCRC) to decide for which use a particular piece of land may or may not be used. It is important for them, who decides what. Very important, they just haven’t decided on these issues, yet (And it is a very different question whether they will at some point find an agreement on these issues. It identifies authority. This is what matters to the returnees, the intellectuals, the future government of New Sudan.

Finally you have the UN officials (even though I know it is incorrect, here, this includes all the NGOs ect.) who meet to discuss up to which point people are still children, and whether their form should include a category of youth or not. But it is important to unify the proceedings in order to make sure that the statistics about South Sudan are at least halfway close to reality – they are right for international law as well as for the response in New York this is important. The response that decides to send out food. The food I’m using every day as ‘food for work’ to build our settlement. It is very important for many reasons – to make sure that in any case there has to be one category break at the age of 18, because children are entitled to more aid than adults and they ought to be protected from abuse. To do this you need to know how many of them there are. These forms and reports, they are important in my world – and I am not kidding, it does have its reasons even if it seems weird here (and I’m not quite sure why exactly things like this are discussed in Rumbek rather than New York, but that is a different matter). Age identifies people, it is what matters in the modern world.

If I ask the children out in my IDP settlement how old they are, they will just look at me with big eyes and ask whether I have some food. They have no idea about their age, but they can tell me the names of their ancestors up to 12 generations ago, because this identifies them. It says the member of which family and Clan they are and consequently, whom they may and whom they mustn’t marry. This is important, in their world, age isn’t. This is what matters in the stone age.

And if you visit some of the camps that supposedly contain up to 2000 people (pictures of what I am talking about when I am back) – if you come during the day, they will slowly appear, in rags starved (just like the people in the German concentration camps, it is not fake) miserable and tell you that they are displace by tribal war – at night these camps are completely empty. No one, not one single soul can be found at half 12 at night. Where these people are? Where they come from during the day, who they are – OCHA (Organisation for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid) where asking exactly the same questions, when I asked them. And they are the ones that are most likely to have any idea about what exactly is going on where in Southern Sudan.

So now I told You some facts. What exactly the mean? What the meaning of life really is?

It’s up to you. But I’m beginning to really enjoy this experience. It is very, very interesting.

Oh and for all those of you in Oxford, I’m coming back on the eve of Sept. 14^th.

Das heist für alle in Deutschland das ich genau 10 Tage habe um das was ich hier nur sehr kurz in Worte fassen kann etwas ausführlicher zu beschreiben.

Have a good day

Weekly Standard Sudan – intermission

Ladies and gentleman, as some of you may or may not have heard (BBC world radio was broadcasting it), John Garang, the leader of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and supreme commander of the SPLA (ditto just with army in the end) is dead. As a matter of fact he died on Saturday in a helicopter crash but the news was only made public early this morning. Around 4 o’clock via megaphone-car. Minutes later 2 huge UN planes left Rumbek (women and children first I guess) and since, the airport together with all other NGO and UN activity ceased to exist, while the remaining International staff locked itself into Afex (the ‘hotel’ compound where they all live in). In Khartoum riots broke out, but here, so far the situation is quiet, though we had some shootings on freedom square early this morning when we were trying to get to our IDP settlement. It’s surprising how quickly I can turn around a car! But for the last 4, 5 hours everything has been quiet and when I just drove through town to get one of our colleges back to his compound things seemed pretty normal. There was some SPLA presence around freedom square, but not more than usual. People here seem to have settled with the idea of their leader – who just spoke here about ten days ago – being gone and decided to mourn.

Mourning is a good activity! It keeps the emotions low and the guns silent. Hopefully we will also get some heavy rain this evening (even though I actually gave up trying to predict the weather here – as it usually beets me) to further quiet things down. I, as well as my divine colleges – who have a lot more experience in that matter than I do – came to the conclusion that until there rise some major tensions within the remaining SPLM leadership while they try to find a successor it will remain calm. You can never really predict these things but it is something you sense more than you evaluate rationally. And the people I have just seen in town, don’t look like they want to fight. They were just very, very sad. And in a way, even if I don’t like big leaders, I can understand them. He was their hero. The one who brought them freedom and peace – even if he put the country into pieces in the process – and now he is gone. But gone – at least as it stands at the moment – by accident, without anyone interfering.

Yet conspiracy theories are likely to rise once the mourning has finished and emotions rise again, so the coming days promise to be interesting. Anyway, for the time being this is about as much reporting as I can give you, but if I get something new, I will obviously keep you updated.

Oh and don’t worry – I’m fine and as soon I hear guns I make my way in the opposite direction. I have no intention of getting hurt just because of some African leader I never even heard of before I came here.

Hope you are all fine as well – and now I just have to find some occupation while I’m forced to sit back in our house. I guess reading would suggest itself.

Have a good time

Sudan weekly standard – week 6

Chibak everyone, Jnapual? Ok, I admit it wasn’t entirely fair first to send the intermission and then not to write anything again for a whole week! Mea Culpa – and it is inexcusable. But it happened. OK, so first things first, I’m fine, doing well and the situation is calm and quiet. Nothing really happened since last week. We spend a week of mourning in which the hole town – did I say town, well according to the locals city – was pretty much closed. On Thursday everyone went to the Airport to say good bye to his coffin and on Saturday they buried him in Juba – the new capital of Southern Sudan, since the second phase of the comprehensive peace agreement went into action 3 weeks ago. One of the better news is that I am online on an fairly unlimited scale again – I (we the mission, my fraters) only pay a flat-rate – but as a result the speed, or whether there is any speed at all, depends on the time of the day. I guess as we share a satellite with the UN and others now, I ought to get used to get online in the morning, because in the evening the hole thing gets very, very time-consuming. Anyhow, one of the nicer outcomes of this was that I had the pleasure of talking directly (if you can call ICQ directly) to someone at home and that gave me the rather surprising acknowledgement, that I might be down here for long enough to assume some knowledge to be common background when it is not. Therefore I decided to provide you with some basic facts about the place I’m in. And as I am a thorough person I really start with the basics, so don’t feel offended, I know at least some of this stuff is know to you already.

Ok, Rumbek is located in Sudan; Africa. Sudan is the biggest country in Africa and comprises around 7 times the size of Germany. It is populated by a hole variety of different tribes – and tribes matter a lot in Africa, even if this might be dubious from a European PC-perspective. Your ethnicity is fundamentally more important than you nationality. The biggest group (even though not the overall majority, as there are at least around 26 other tribes) in the hole of Sudan are the Dinkas – who happen to be mostly located in the Southern region, but can also be found as refugees in Khartoum. A cute little tribe of cow-mad stubborn people for most of which the live consists of getting born, trying to find food somewhere and somehow, getting married, getting lots of children and finally dying. This is no arrogant exaggeration on my part but a rather emotionless observation. Their meaning of live is, as I told you earlier, cows. They make a man a man, and who doesn’t own cows cannot really be considered to be a man. Surviving is a hard challenge around here, but still one that can be managed by just searching the bush for food – and maybe some additional but limited farming. The climate is brutal, although I’m lucky to be here in the rainy season, because in winter (as in October to March) I would have been boiled by temperatures up to 50 degrees Celsius. Right now I only have to cope with a fairly high humidity – still this country, at least in the parts I have seen, is by no means a desert.

The North of Sudan – the deserts around Khartoum, but also the deserts of Dafur in the west of the country – is primarily inhabited by Arab tribes. These areas happen to be also the only remotely developed parts of the country. Here the fundamental clashes happen. Though even the south of Sudan is by no means inhabited by one unified group (there are also Nuers, Schilluck and many other smaller tribes) the most important differentiation is whether someone is an Arab or not. This is a question of Ethnicity though. Religion in itself is not the fundamental differentiation, though it adds fuel into the fire. One of the core Assumptions is that the ‘brown’ (its not me, I’m just quoting the people around here) Arabs regard the ‘black’ Non-arabs as inferior – but more importantly would love to use their land for their own purposes.

After the British left in 1956, they left the central government in Khartoum in the hands of the Arabs and they consequently tried to marginalise the other people out of power and out of the country as good as they could. Especially in the South this has taken drastic measures and since the ‘marginalised people of Sudan’ formed themselves into the SPLM – a movement founded by Dr (agricultural economics – somewhere in the USA) Garang – and decided that it might be a wise idea to fight. Whether or not, there would have been a possibility to negotiate is not determinable if you are in Rumbek, because here everyone hates Arabs (and as a consequence loves Bush – maybe because he has the same name as the local environment….).

This war in the South of Sudan has lasted for 30 years and was done primarily by the SPLA holding the jungle and the GOS (government of Sudan) using Arab militias and heavy bombardment to clear the south of as many people as possible. Ultimately the idea was to get rid of all the Non-Arabs, whereas the other side fought to achieve independence. As it eventually dawned on both sides that they are not going anywhere, they decided to sign a comprehensive peace agreement, that will lead to a referendum about independence in 6 years time. And from all I can see, then there will be 2 states and Sudan will cease to exist in its current boarders. Anyhow – this is the start of a new country. And it starts by 0 – because beyond people there isn’t really anything here, except one thing. And this is where the west get into the hole thing. Under this Bush, with its hunting and gathering people, whose language does not feature the word thanks and who happen to believe that if you help them once or twice they have a right that you have to continue this help (but more about this at another time) lie some of the worldwide larger untapped oil-fields. Maybe this explains why the name Bush is quite common here….

In any case, this has to last for the moment as I need to carry on with my project (because otherwise my Dinkas might claim that I didn’t follow my duty to help them) So more about this next time.

Have a good afternoon

Sudan weekly standard - somewhen at the end of my time down here

Chibak everyone,

Ok, I have been repeatedly been asked to give a description of how I spend my days, so I will see what I can do – now that is not that easy, as my days down here don’t quite follow the European ideal of planning. To start with the easy part, I get up in the morning… supposedly before 7am to see the rising sun because it is always nice to start the day with something so amazingly beautiful (and as there is no-one here to replace the sunrise, I have to take the second best option) to then continue at 7:15 with the morning service (and to state this directly, when I get home I’ll have had enough church services for at least a year, but as my papers say I’m a missionary I at least occasionally have to follow the good old catholic rules of engagement). Now this is the plan, in reality I tend to oversleep. Some things never change, so I get up at around 8 to get breakfast. At around nine I leave the mission to go to work – this part is a fairly regular occurrence, but beyond this everyday is a new adventure. My work is to build around 220 tukuls (the local mudtype hut) for allegedly internally displaced people (refugees, for non-IR students). Francis, one of my fellow Jesuits and Ben an Ugandan layperson are the core management team to put this plan into reality. How do we do this? Well, the core part of our work is to get the building materials (bamboo, grass and wood – plus food to pay for the hole thing), somehow and somewhere into our two villages (Pulchum – 70 huts and Abarko – 150 huts). This sounds fairly easy – but it isn’t exactly if you have to hunt down every salesperson by car and by waiting, drive up to 50km out of Rumnek to find anything at all and get arrested for not buying the grass of one of the churches own watchman – no joke, we didn’t want to buy it because it was too bloody expensive, so he went to the police, ie some local commander who then under a tree told us in a big court session that we legally have to buy his grass; he didn’t explain why though.

Most of the time practically gets wasted by waiting for someone or something somewhere. And I tell you waiting is one of the most annoying businesses you can find – but a very common practice. In addition we occasionally go to UN meetings, try to organise some food for the non-working people in our villages (most of them) or just entertaining guests of the diocese. Eventually we go out into the villages and try to organise the work there. Now as I stated sometime earlier, work is a fairly new idea to most Dinkas. And they don’t do anything until they get well paid. As a matter of fact the old rule that the third world is cheap does not apply in Rumbek – presumably because everyone would somehow get along without work by just searching the Bush for food or drinking milk of one of the thousands of cows around. They aren’t actually as poor as they look. For instance if you get a lorry-load of food as aid (instead of food for work as we usually operate) into the villages, to unload the bags you will have to pay the people. Otherwise the food would just remain on the lorry – once again I am not joking, this is bloody stupid Dinka reality. Thing are most definitely upside down here and don’t make any sense at all. But I do what I can – actually not really to help them anymore (I don’t think they really seriously need help), but because I have to do something and if everything is completely absurd in any case, why not also doing something completely absurd to fit into the local culture. And in any case I have to spend my time somehow as I don’t fancy sitting under a tree talking all day – which would be the other local tradition. Oh and once we get to our villages we might find the chief (also our main supervisor of the work in the village) of one village as a refugee in the other, because he has been thrown out by his fellow people and been threatened with death. Got a letter just as little children write it at home. This and that person have founded a gang and their aim is to shoot him. But unlike little children at home you know these children do actually posses real guns and you never quite know how serious the whole thing is. After a speedy drive into the other village (always prepared to turn around if anything doggy might happen) you may then find that it wasn’t anything really and after you told them that you need this man because he has all the lists of the workers ect. he is allowed to come back.

OK, now after a good day of such highly regular work, you come back to Rumbek and either go to the mission to eat and write a bit (or occasionally watch a movie) or you go to the bar for a couple of drinks and to philosophize about the world the Dinkas or what ever else just crosses ones mind. Finally – and this is the second easy part of my day description – you go to bed and hope that you can sleep in the heat. Unless of course you are luck, as I am today and had a nice strong thunderstorm with lots of rain, because then the temperature is actually quite convenient, which is why I will now finish and go to bed. Oh and as I want the remaining 30 tukuls to be finished next week, I am not so sure whether I will manage another weekly standard here in Rumbek, but I will surely write again if I am in Nairobi.

Sudan weekly Standard - 2

Welcome to Sudan,
welcome to the most beautiful nature,
welcome to more stars than you ever imagined,
welcome to trees bigger than a church,
welcome to malnutrition,
welcome to Leper,
welcome to the most absurd place on this planet!



Welcome to the Dinkas,
they let you know:
"Brother I'm very much suffering -
Bring food!"

Ok, first of all, sorry to all those of you to whom I haven’t answered – yet. I know it is not entirely fair, first to call on you to write and than not answering. But … well, there is no but – I could say something about being busy or that we only have a satellite-modem, but that would be excuses and I’m beginning to hate excuses - , except my usual laziness and maybe that I couldn’t always think of what to say. Which in a way is not cause by not having something to say, but simply by the amount - I don’t know where and with what to start. I could tell you something about being busy, because I’m working as a teacher in the local secondary school now for three days a week. Today I wrote an exam for them for next week – interesting experience. Writing an exam for some students I hardly know, and whose level of knowledge I have most definitely no clue about. It’s either going to be a 100% exam for all (which would surprise me) or a 0% for all (which would horrify me – but I followed along the guidelines I got). To be honest what these guys are doing in school is a bit of a surprise to me. They don’t have any books. I as a teacher am the only one who got one and as I figured out by now am supposed to write every single chapter word for word to the blackboard (that seems to have been the method they used so far) and then, I assume, they are supposed to learn it by hart. Now having said that, the stuff in the book is pretty absurd! They are learning more details about glaciers than I ever heard of – and I actually had the advantage of having seen a couple of them in my lifetime – having seen Ice, they haven’t. What-for they should learn the exact definition of: Bergschrund crevasse, Roche mountanee, Erratics, Drumlines or Eskers – to name just a few of them – is beyond my comprehension. Just as it is beyond their comprehension what they are learning. School here means learning details by hart – no understanding, nor transfer, no application required! If you do cut deeper you find that this is to them like for me learning the Koran in Arabic without translation – pointless. And I still think these guys (including the one female student) could be among the best students any teacher could ever have, despite having a constant fluctuation of them coming and going throughout the lesson and other lacks of discipline – that is what the teachers here complain about ‘no discipline’ – such as spitting in class, not turning up regularly (I still don’t know how many students my classes actually have) ect. But what do you expect of a 27 year old who spent most of his childhood as soldier in a bloody war? However if you gave them the chance – they really wanted to know something! Well, in any case they have exam next week and then the holidays start – for how long? Who knows – time is a very relative phrase in Africa!

The remaining days I either work in some IDP camps, drive out 30km – 4 wheel driving on these roads is incredible fun - to a Leper station to screw together some benches for their school – actually I’m supervising the work of our local employees and fixing the drilling machine if it stops working (now I finally know how one looks from the inside and that it actually contains graphite-contacts that can be finished – and that you can temporarily fix them with a bit of wire) – which have been donated and dropped of there a couple of month ago. Since they were lying around there happily rotting in the rain! Reading and writing. I never knew how much I enjoy writing – if my former teachers knew that! Writing about all kinds of things – time makes creative!

Well, and every now and then, when I find a new camp of people who live under some leaves, finding food in the jungle, I try to mention them to the government – yes I met the governor for southern-Sudan and pretty much the whole cabinet so far. Around twenty people, who do bugger all! But that with a relaxedness that is amazing! Apart from these 20 people there is nothing remotely resembling the workings of a state around here. Apparently we are in a bad enough situation that we will get – they should already be here – some Blue-helmets in the nearer future.

Chapter 7 mission – allowed using force, if they find a crime! That’s at least what the Canadian liaison officer said in the last UN security meeting. And I guess they will also implement the 40mph speed-limit the UN introduced, hehe.

In any case, I’m still a bit lost about what to think of all this here – maybe the next time I will be a bit less sarcastic – but for the moment that is all I can do. Laugh! Laugh - to avoid facing the full absurdity that is constantly around me.

Oh and while the people here laugh more than at home – they hardly ever seem to smile!

Have a good day!

OK here we are again – new year new try! Hopefully this time I will be a bit more consistent in my comments. Consistency belongs to the things that if they were sold in a supermarket, I would buy the lot! Any suggestions out there how to acquire consistency otherwise? Because I need some!!!!
Anyway, I do have a good starting story this year though, which will keep me bloging for at least some time as I spend my summer in Rumbek – temporary capital of southern (New) Sudan. A country that formally doesn’t even exist. While others spend their holidays on a beach trying to get as much sun as possible, I spend them in the fourth world trying to improve the situation (or at least pretending to try – not that I seriously think I could change something) and avoiding the sun as much as possible.
And as the entertainment industry of Southern Sudan isn’t particularly well developed I decided to entertain myself by writing a little weekly newspaper which you will have now the honour of reading. OK I admit, its slightly delayed by 2 month but to keep a blog updated was simply to expensive via satellite modem. However to make up for this rather time-delayed publishing I will also add some commented photos of my journey after each weeks article.
But enough of an introduction, lets start our virtual journey into a world that for most people in the west simply doesn’t exist.

Flight over the Kenyan/Sudanese border. Until recently this border was
virtually impassable because of the civil war in Sudan. For about 20 odd
years the people of Southern Sudan have been practically cut of the rest of
the world. It is a journey into the unknown - for me as the traveller just as much
as for the people there.

Weekly Standard Sudan – week one

Ok, Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Rumbek! How are you? I hope fine.
For a start I will try to give you some kind of description about the place, or to be precise, about the two places you will find in Rumbek. The 21st century world of the NGOs as well as the church, and the medieval world of the people around. My place, the Jesuit ‘Peter Claver Mission’, belongs to the 21st century world. This means I’m accommodated in a newly build brick house – secure atrium architecture – with almost everything you could expect. Electricity generated by a solar panel, capable of powering lights (German low energy bulbs – the ones you cannot find in the UK), a plug for each room, the water pump (filling the water tank above so we have running water in each room + shower ect.), a television complete with video and DVD recorder. In short just like a good holiday camp. Indeed the food I am getting here is probably healthier, tastier and offers more variety than my usual diet in Oxford – that’s what you go to Africa for, isn’t it?). The only problem is that I came totally ill-equipped. In my ‘I’m off to the jungle paranoia’ I took cloth for a month-long expedition – which is completely unnecessary, as I get my things cleaned each day by our ‘three women’ – when I should have brought some technical equipment, such as my notebook. Because this would have been the one item, which could really boost my productivity. But then, I got one from the mission now, so even this isn’t really a problem. And as I came here to learn, my first lesson was that all this fear about Africa is completely exaggerated – presumably to increase the salaries of UN workers here, but more about this next week.
Well, let’s shift to the second world of Rumbek – the one much harder to describe. Just try to forget about everything you know about your (our) world. Imagine a huge, flat junk of half jungle (humid Savannas to be precise) – beautiful mahogany and palm trees, a variety of bushes I don’t know the names of, a fascinating whether – at the time of this writing a massive tropical thunderstorm pores down - with flashlights that could supply the hole country with more electricity than they ever could use – a night sky with more stars than I have ever seen. Can you picture this? Then imagine some huts build out of a meter high mud-wall (circular with a radius of about 1.5 meters) and a roof out of dry grass. Scatter some of these huts (a few hundreds, maybe a thousand) over an area of approximately 25 square-miles, put some tracks – along the lines you would find in a off-road training area – in between, add about two, three dozen bombed out stone ruins (some of which are being rebuild right now) and some shapeless agricultural plots – far too small to be able to ever feed anyone – primarily for sweet corn. Finally place around 20 NGO compounds, just like our house – all of course fenced and guarded, with all sorts of communicational parabolas and antennas – an airport, consisting out of a mud runway, but frequented very highly (at least 20 flights a day – mostly UN Hercules planes), a lot of UN jeeps, that always drive around, but never seem to do anything. If you can imagine this, and to be honest I couldn’t if I hadn’t seen it, then you have an Idea about where I am. And in this chaos, without any sanitary installations, electricity, no architecture there are hundreds, thousands of people. Some dressed reasonably smart in western clothes, others in rags, children usually mud-covered and half naked (mostly children by the way) some carrying their Kalaschnikovs, some trying to sell food rations, cigarettes or Chinese bikes – that is the luxury item that is affordable to at least a decent number of people around here.
And still, all these people in their misery seem to laugh a lot more than the people at home!
Have a good day!

Hilfe China überrennt die Welt!

An Interesting article in the Sueddeutsche, about the new confrontation between the Eu and the US about the EU planning to export high-tech weapons to China. Unfortunately as the article was in German so is my reaction - I don't know but my brain simply argues in the language of the opponent, so sorry for all who can't read it!! Lern a foreign language, its good for the soul!
Warum sollten wir wissen auf welcher Seite wir auf dem Schachbrett stehen? Weil China Kommunisten sind? Mit einem kapitalistischeren system als selbst die USA?
Weil es eine Diktatur ist? Ich weiß es ist momentan mode anderen Ländern vorzuschreiben wie sie sich regieren sollen, aber hat nicht die Sowjetunion gezeigt das, wenn eine Bevölkerung es will das System geändert werden kann, ohne das man Westliche Interventionen benötigt - und anschließen jahrelang Bürgerkrieg hat. Besonders wenn, wie im Falle Chinas nicht wirklich eine politisch anspruchsvolle Opposition existiert. Oder ist dem Westen eine Rückkehr zu Kaiser und Feudalsystem wirklich lieber?
Weil es die Menschenrechte mit Füssen tritt? Das wäre noch das plausibelste Argument der China- Paranoiker. Aber dann sollten wir uns entgültig aus der Weltpolitik zurückziehen, da diese inzwischen auch im Westen mit Füssen getreten werden. Die USA sperrt Leute – in ihrem fall nicht mal die eigene, sondern die anderer Staaten – unbegrenzt in Lager und reicht sie nach Gutdünken zur Folter an Drittstaaten weiter, in einem Umfang der auf die pro Kopf Bevölkerung nicht besser ist als China, und Deutschland liefert auch noch aus? Oder etwas näher, in England – die EU also unser eigenes Haus – herrscht offiziell seit 3 Jahren der Ausnahme- zustand und die Europäische Menschenrechts Charter ist völlig legal außer Kraft gesetzt. Wir nehmen Menschenrechte also überaus ernst und daher können wir nach China, wo die Situation in den letzten 10 Jahren besser (nicht gut aber davor war’s schlimmer) geworden ist keine Waffen liefern sondern verkaufen die besser an die USA wo die Situation schlechter wurde. Auch eine Logik!
Weil es nicht friedlich ist? Once again, soweit ich mich erinnern kann war China in den letzten Jahren an keiner militärischen Aggression beteiligt - ok, die gelegentlichen Schaukämpfe über Taiwan aber dabei ist es dann immer geblieben. Das China hierüber einen Nuklearkrieg mit den USA antreten würde ist äußerst unwahrscheinlich in anbetracht seines Verhaltens in der näheren Vergangenheit – und das sollte doch das Kriterium sein an dem man ein Land mißt nicht ideologische Propaganda? Bei den USA selber bin ich mir da schon nicht mehr so sicher, aber selbst hier zieht wenn’s Kopf auf Kopf geht normalerweise die Vernunft ein.
Also was ist das Problem? Das China auch militärisch langsam in die Gewichtsklasse kommt in der wirtschaftlich schon ist? Oder das die USA plötzlich auf die Meinung von jemand anderem hören müßten, nachdem sie sich in den letzen zehn Jahren zusehends mit ihrer Funktion als modernes Gegenstück zu Römischen Reich angefreundet haben?
Warum China aufrüsten will? Gute Frage. Vermutlich wirklich primär um einen Gegenpol zum momentanen Hegemon der Welt zu bilden. Kann es aber eine Konfrontation wirklich suchen? Nein. Hier gelten die selben Regeln die im Kalten Krieg galten – MAD (mutually assured destruction) – und daher ist eine Aufrüstung eigentlich sinnlos, außer vielleicht fürs psychologische profil und um einen Amerikanischen Militärschlag auf Iran zu verhindern. China wird nicht versuchen die Welt zu erobern, weil es das schlicht und ergreifend nicht kann, auch wenn es noch so viele Europäische Waffen kauft.
Wenn die zwei ‚Realismus (nur militärische stärke zählt in einer Welt, die ausschließlich durch Staaten geprägt ist)’ Hähne auf der Weltbühne also Wettrüsten spielen wollen, warum sollten wir sie nicht lassen? Es verschlingt einen guten Prozentsatz ihres BSPs, macht Europa wettbewerbsfähiger - und das ist doch momentan jedermanns größte Sorge in Dt - , wir können daran verdienen und solange die zwei mit sich selbst beschäftigt sind können wir uns um andere Teile der Welt kümmern - oder im Zweifel uns selbst, das ist nach wie vor Europas Lieblingsbeschäftigung, und seit wir das nicht mehr mit Waffen machen vermutlich auch die beste für alle Beteiligten.

hey we are back again

Listening to the news this morning strongly reminds me of about 3 years ago. Once again the US admin is telling the world about 'firm evidence' that link a regieme they don't like to terrorism. Wonder when Syria officially is trying to build a nuke within 6 month or so and a military intervention is "not inevitable - meaning imminent"?
Mark my words within the next 2-3 years either the US alternatively Israel will liberate the Syrian people.

Long live the Climate Convention:)

So today were are all - except our polluting American friends - 'celebrating' the entry into force of the Kyoto-protocol, aren't we. Proudly we can now pronounce we are living up to our 'environmental responsibility' to at least try to limit the growth of emissions, while all the same continuing our way to exceed our targets.
Not that these targets really would have meant much anyway. Even if the targeted limits of the emissions for all – incl. the US for my hypotheses here - the industrialised countries would have been hit, the growth in the newly industrialising countries would have led to an overall rise in any case.
Well, this hypothesis was highly optimistic anyway, in reality we are heading towards a fairly big increase and realistically there is little we can do. Ideas of significantly cutting emissions are not realisable, because a) we are far to much occupied to blame each other, and b) we don’t really have a practicable idea of how to do it, while all the same constantly trying to get richer. Let’s face it the Kyoto-protocol was designed to account emissions away strait from the beginning. To reduce European emissions by ‘forest management’, the convenient drop in the Eastern European countries through to the collapse of communism and projects in the developing countries is not really reducing our emissions. We simply lack a plausible solution to produce enough energy for our lifestyle, and we are not really prepared to change our lifestyle.
So as it is, we are going to scientifically discover the real effects of the greenhouse effect by experiment. OK, we can’t try it again afterwards with different conditions to really understand the different elements, but sooner or later we will learn how the planet adopts to a change in the atmospheric composition. That it will adopt it is not really a question – the planet has experienced it before, ice-ages, extreme hot periods and the changes in-between – what is more interesting, is how such a change actually takes place? Will the Climate slowly change or will it get into chaos first? Or does a overall minor change in the chemical composition not really have any effect after all, which admittedly isn’t very likely but possible, given the complexity of the planet?
As a scientist I would embrace the times ahead. I mean when do you ever get the opportunity to experiment with a planet? There is a lot of potential knowledge out there, maybe we can gather enough information on the way, so that we can some-when intentionally control the climate. You never know!
As a human being however, I’m not so sure about it. You see, I can’t help feeling that the idea of taking a complex, very finely tuned system, with lots of interwoven factors which somehow all interact with each other, and shaking it, isn’t a very good idea. I don’t know, but I can’t ignore the idea that fiddling with one factor will cause reactions in other parts of the system. If the temperature changes, changes in areas such as global vegetation, seasons and winds, appear to me as fairly likely. And somehow I also can’t ignore the idea that such changes will have some consequences on our species as well. Not that I seriously fear we could be extinguished – weed doesn’t die – but maybe our lifestyle could be significantly be effected.
And overall the fundamental question of how to satisfy our ever growing demand for energy without undertaking significant changes in the way we live is still open. And research-funding in this area was reduced in the last years by the different governments all over the world. OK in the private sector an increase has simultaneously occurred, but if our problem is energy why are we investing so much in increased efficiency of existing methods – which even if done by 100% energy-efficiency still generate CO2 – instead of in new methods? The quest for a reliable source of energy that is available in sufficient amounts to satisfy human demands and expandable to reach all areas on the globe, while at the same time not having waste products that threaten the global stability, is still open. In its current form renewable energy sources are quantitative simply not capable of delivering this.
If the Kyoto-protocol had established a global, collectively financed institution for research in this area, rather than a compliance committee to supervise politically accounted figures, that no one meets anyway, more progress to solve the problem could have been achieved, and eventually we might come into the position to at least stop our little planetary experiment, in case it gets a bit inconvenient. As it is we are financing politicians and accountants instead of scientist. But then it was never one of the human strengths to think collectively and act in order to solve a problem at hand. Better to talk than to think – or business as usual!

where is the logic?

Can please someone come to my rescue, and explain something to me!!!

Ok - we had the famous free democratic elections in Iraq now, and after tow weeks we also know the results fairly definitely.
Sustanis bunch won, but I would say luckily he can't completely dominate the scene thanks to the Kurds.
OK so far everything seems halfway reasonable, but why is Georgy calling on Iran now to take their freedom? I mean, sorry, given the fact that even in Iraq the Theheranian Mullahs and their local puppets won a democratic election - what the hell do you expect would be the outcome in Iran?
Suddenly a Pro-American westernly oriented and secular government (the one that was promised to the world to take place in Iraq)?
When does little georgy actually understand that just as he was elected by a bunch of religious fanatic idiots, the same idiots - just of a different religion - unfortunately support the same kind of idiot as leader in other countries.
Democracy is a very vulnerable system, that does depend on a number of societal preconditions. Untill you reach such a state democracy is leading to the same intolerant repressive governments that were there in the first place.
But then I#m sure America is proud to have given the Iraqis the freedom to choose their own 'Islamic Republic'. Long live the sharia (refering to the islamic code of law)!!!
Freedom won!