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Saving South Sudan The documentary “Saving South Sudan”, filmed by VICE, captures the new territory of South Sudan and its constant struggle of civil war today and over the past 60 years. Shot in early 2014 by photojournalist Tim Freccia, the documentary follows journalist Robert Young Pelton in his attempts to clarify why South Sudan has recently engaged in an increasingly devolving civil war between, the Gelwang, the White army, and the current dictatorship in the fight for oil. The documentary begins by describing a peace agreement that was created in 2005 to cease fighting and more effectively take advantage of the oil situation, but this quickly was revoked and fighting continued as the current president Salva Kiir Mayardit became obsessed with power. The journalists travel to several small decrepit towns in South Sudan along the Nile River just before the rain season, in an attempt to find out what is being done to stop the fighting. Conditions in the regions are extremely poor, especially living conditions where there is much lack of food, water, and save living environment. Many rebels who have left their families to join the war are struggling to find food and recoup after their injuries in these small towns. The journalist first meets with a group of Nuer soldiers who drive them to Akobo. At this town, they speak to Dr. Riek Machar who leads the Gelwang resistance against the president. He claims that they are fighting to establish democracy and to overthrow the dictatorship. My reaction to the film is of great surprise. I have found that this and many other nations in the region are in similar predicaments, with constant civil unrest and no clear solution or dominant group to take charge in a just manner. Many of these soldiers who are fighting in the White Army are not even paid, and are only permitted to keep their weapon if they luckily make it out of a battle alive. There are several towns that have been burned to the ground, and countless injured soldiers just wanting to return to their families. It is clear that there is no true cause for organization in the rebel army, other than that they want to retake the northern cities where oil is being mined still. Along with the journalist and filmmaker, former lost boy Machot Lat Thiep accompanied them on their journey in an effort to save the southern Sudanese people. He was originally a refugee and was sent to America where he manages a Costco store. With his education he has returned to Sudan in an attempt to save his people, but the film does not cover how he attempts to do this whatsoever. I think this was an empty part of the documentary and was essentially a waste of time as it strayed away from covering the actual events of the civil war. The topics brought up in the documentary relate to those discussed in class as they are similar to the genocides in Russia, although on a smaller scale. Thousands of South Sudanese rebels are being killed, as a message to ward off any further resistance against the dictatorship. These are innocent people forced into war due to the President refusing to resign, and the Sudanese people have felt that fighting is the only way to come to a solution. After watching the documentary, I have learned just how corrupt some parts of the world have become, and the sheer hardships that these people face in their everyday lives. I am still not sure if “never again” can become a reality, because the fighting in Africa and in the Middle East continues and has probably gotten increasingly worse in the last two decades in certain areas. As an individual, I am sure that I could make an impact by educating myself more about the subject, and telling my friends and family who could possibly be willing to donate or send food over to these people. I am not sure however if I could make a direct impact as I would most likely have to travel to Sudan in order to do so at such an unsafe time.
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Restrepo Tumblr Post 6
The time period the movie Restrepo takes place in is the early 2000s, shortly after the United States had engaged in war with Afghanistan following the 9/11 suicide bombing. The war in Afghanistan can be divided into three main phases, and these are the upheaval of the Taliban from 2001 to roughly 2008, to rebuilding core institutions of the Afghan state, and later the increase of troops in Afghanistan by President Obama to protect the population from the Taliban and to support efforts to reintroduce insurgents into Afghan society. The film follows the 2nd Platoon of Battle Company on a fifteen month deployment in the Korengal Valley of northeast Afghanistan. The film follows the company from the time of their deployment to the time they return home. This Valley was at the time considered one of the deadliest places on the planet, and the goal of these soldiers was to clear the area of the Taliban while gaining the trust of the locals. Shortly after deployment, two Private First Class Soldiers are killed, and the remaining part of the company tries desperately to develop connections with the locals and establish another outpost further into the valley known as OP Restrepo. There are many firefights throughout the film, and many soldiers and civilians are killed. A very dangerous mission known as “Operation Rock Avalanche” is carried out later in the film, which was a six day mission in which the U.S. attempted to hunt down Taliban fighters, at the cost of many troops. US Army Paratrooper Salvatore Giunta would be rewarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during combat and for establishing relations with the local people. The filmmakers depict the U.S. soldiers as extremely resilient and determined, and the Taliban as a far less organized and effective group. Some of the fights are very fast paced and chaotic, and it is difficult to capture all aspects of battle in these moments. The subjects brought up in the film show similar areas of battle and the harsh climates of the middle east that were fought in during World War I with the deteriorating Ottoman empire, as well as the advancement of tactics and weaponry that began to arise during the first world war. I learned that freedom truly has a harsh price in certain parts of the world, and that countless civilians were brutally murdered by their own people during this time. I would like to learn the extent of U.S. armed force involvement in the Middle East today, and how this is affecting relations with other countries. I believe that in order to maintain relations with the Afghani people, as well as send a message to other terrorist organizations in the Middle East, the U.S. was justified in involving itself in these missions. I am not sure if there could have been alternative solutions as I am not very educated in foreign affairs, but I believe that there could not have been much negotiation with the Taliban troops by the state of the film.
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“How we got Gay” The documentary film “How we got Gay” details the history of America from a time of being utterly outcast and hidden within society to the more modern times of drastically increased freedom and equal rights. The film begins in the 1950s, when society was unaccepting of gays and same sex marriage. Many gays are interviewed, and in these interviews they share their experiences of the times back then, how being gay hindered the quality of life and kept gays “in the closet.” Many gays were forced to have girl friends to mask their homosexuality, and in general had to lead very private sexual lives or they would be stripped of their job, friends, and individuality. Protests began, and the main focus at first was to show that gays were the same as any other individual in most aspects of life, they cared for one another, they watched television, etc. These protests began to help gays gain public freedoms, and express the right to homosexuality on a much larger scale. Beginning in Canada by the late 1960s, gays were officially aloud to conduct private acts within the household, as there was no government justification prohibiting this. By the late 1970s, gays experience profound levels of freedom and public acceptance, as everyone was free to do what they wanted sexually. This is largely because of the invention of birth control and antibiotics, as well as religion taking a downturn. However, there soon arose the largest problem for gays in history, AIDS. This began in 1981, as 41 cases of AIDS were found in gays. Because gay liberation was synonymous to sexual liberation, the notion that gays would have to give up sex to prevent the spread of the disease was very troubling for them. At first, society seemed to neglect gays and this massive uprising of deaths within the community, and this is what truly started the shift from gay unacceptance in society to gradual acceptance. Large protests on the white house and in large cities across the country, some of them angry and violent, as well as the deaths of many thousands of people forced government to recognize this problem, and to begin developing drugs to act against this disease. The gay AIDS movement was the driving force in gay freedom in modern times, and now with the increasing popularity of same-sex marriage, gay freedom continues to rise. I was very interested in watching the film, because I was not educated about many of the topics discussed in the film, for example the degree of effect that AIDS had on the gay population in the early 1980s. I think that this film is necessary because it educates what I would think to be a large percent of Americans as to what struggles gays went through, in a perspective that I had not known of before. The filmmakers do show a certain bias towards gays in the film, showing many sexually exaggerated acts and occasionally straying from the fact that they were fighting for equal rights, but this is not to take away from many of the real struggles that gays faced throughout the last century and still today. The filmmakers could have covered more in depth of how protests and meetings were organized to show the collected efforts of the community, instead of simply showing video of these protests. An additional question I would have for the filmmakers is “What impact do you hope for this video to have on its audience?” Personally I have not experienced most of the topics discussed in the film, but in high school I witnessed a man become prom queen, and I thought this was strange at the time but I am realizing that it signals an uprising of public freedoms of gays in society, and I hope this will continue as I feel gays should not be denied rights just because of how they feel towards the same sex.
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Religious Liberty in Modern Times My opinion on religious liberty versus religious freedom is that religious lliberty is more of a toleration, were it is law to allow religions to practice certain activities but not necessarily promote them, where religious freedom is completely unbinding, allowing much more room for reliigons to carry out practice under government law. In the upcoming election, this has become a huge topic of discussion, sometimes taking sides between liberal and conservative arguments. Conflicts of homosexuality, same sex marriage and contraception are regularly arising. In the videos I viewed, there were several different viewpoints, with various biases. In the first video, Christian business owners and and air force officer were faced with the loss of their job due to their religious beliefs on homosexuality. There was government interference, and in some cases all of the businesses assets were seized.These people argued that the government has no right to strip them of their rights because of some irrelevent religious belief not pertaining to their career. In the second video, it is detailed that same sex marriage and abortion religious beliefs from prodominantly Christians have become a problem in society more than ever before. As society grows more accepting of gays in general, many Christians believe that they must do something to protect their religious belief against homosexuality. Christian company Hobby Lobby won a difficult court case allowing them to not be forced to sell contraceptives in their store. They argued that there is growing religious ignorance in our nation and that we need to remind ourselves what the bible has done for the country and the constitution. Video 3 showed that many religious arguments that government interference is stripping their rights are simply untrue. Many reublicans such as Bill O'Reilly have made quite ridiculous statements like “Its open season for religious white men in America.” The video also reminded us that 70% of the American population is Christian and that it is not a problem of media exposure against religion rights either. The last video described the effects of Bill Clinton’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which heavily limited government interference on religious practices, especially on smaller, minority religious groups. This law has since then been a topic of discussion because it has been sought after at a state level by some states, including Indiana. This law effectively has put pressure on same-sex marriage, because it allows business owners to refuse customers on certain occassions that are homosexual. My opinion on the topic, after watching the videos, is that religion should not warrant the denial of a product or service to homoesxuals, because a business should be seperated from private practice of the church. There is a difference between someone holding a belief, and denying someone of a right completely, and therefore I would say that there should be an increase in religious tolerance.
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On Belonging: Photographs of Indians of African Descent
One of India’s leading contemporary photographers, Ketaki Sheth has a long-standing interest in questions of identity and representation. In her most recent project, shown here, she features the Sidi, a people of African descent living in India. With origins in historic trade routes, they have called India home since the seventeenth century, adopting many of the conventions of dress, food, and ceremony characteristic of the subcontinent. At the same time, they maintain a distinct identity and culture.
There are currently about 70,000 Sidi living in India. Descended from sailors, traders, and slaves, some continue to think of Africa as an ancestral homeland, but nearly all consider themselves Indian in every other way. Most live in the western state of Gujarat and the southern state of Karnataka.
Sheth’s photographs are true portraits—insightful pictures of personalities living in Sidi communities. At the same time, her project explores the complexity of national and cultural identity and how this might shift over time, questions that relate closely to the Collection in National Portrait Gallery. With a group such as the Sidi, how does one begin to separate issues of nationality, ethnicity, and culture? And how much of personal identity is shaped by tradition and context? As touching as Sheth’s photographs are, they also remind us how complicated portraits can be.
PUBLICATION
An illustrated book titled A Certain Grace: The Sidi, Indians of African Descent, which includes an introduction by Mahmood Mamdani, is available from the National Portrait Gallery Shop or HERE,
http://www.npg.org.uk/shop/shop-list.php?sText=A%20Certain%20Grace:%20The%20Sidi,%20Indians%20of%20African%20Descent&x=7&y=16&_ga=GA1.3.161497709.1426583942&showProductDetails=7917
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Review of History Film Post #2
I watched the film American Red and Black: Stories of Afro-Native Identity. In this short film, a few people of African-Native and African-Native-Irish descent are interviewed about growing up in a modern day environment and how they have coped with various pressures from the community such as prejudices and cultural influence. The film follows the people throughout their journey’s to become more culturally educated as well. The first woman interviewed is Vella, a Cherokee and African American descent. As a child, her grandmother did not talk extensively about being Indian, but when she passed away it become more relevant in her life. The next woman, Minty, struggled with the challenge of deciding which of her grandmothers was unworthy of her, and as she learned more, she realized that neither could be considered unworthy, and that she should acknowledge both equally and embrace them as a part of who she was. For some of the people in the film, the Indian side of their family does not look so fondly of the African portion, stating that they are not of pure blood, or that they cannot be considered Indian because they also have African descent, and this has made it more difficult for those to become fully acclimated into the Indian culture without showing consistent effort to do so. For the others, the Indian tribes believe that because they are Indian at all that they must be accepted as Indian, and that it makes no difference that they are mixed descent. From an early age, many outside people have just referred to them as black, because of the difference in hair style and the color of skin, but the native culture is able to distinguish the difference in examples of curly hair versus the long, straight hair style of the Indians. My response to the film is that I was simply not aware of some of the challenges and discriminations faced by these people, and one example where a man who is being interviewed talking about how it is unfair to label a man as mulatto or colored instead of Indian. I did not know that this was such a prominent discrimination, and that these terms were basically just a broad labelling for anyone who was black and of mixed descent. It is not common to refer to a euro-Indian as that so why would it be that way for an African Indian. The filmmakers may show slight exaggerations in events or discriminations that have taken place by the African Indians in modern times, but do an excellent job of depicting how the generations before them were constantly forced to overcome hardships due to their descent. They also accurately show how resilient and strong many of these people have remained in educating and staying involved with their respective cultures despite these hardships. The filmmakers could have given more insight as to the specific differences in discriminations against the different tribes that are shown in the film, instead of broadly encompassing all African Indians as relatively the same.
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