Daniel Aaron Lazar » World Civ-Dilemmas in Modern Africa

4 Part Series: Sudan Cracks Up

Dan Lazar — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 04:02:00 +0000

If you want a vivid image of the under-reported facets of Sudanese culture in the wake of South Sudan’s secession, check out this four-part Slate series.

South Sudan’s future: Now for the hard part

Dan Lazar — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 08:06:37 +0000

The new country, which is likely to be called South Sudan, faces many hurdles. The biggest is a shocking lack of public services. At the moment southerners are loyal mostly to belligerent tribal chiefs, not the nascent government that led the fight for independence. That government will win the trust of its citizens, and with it permanent peace, only when it starts visibly caring for them. That will not be easy.

South Sudan occupies one of the least developed and most remote parts of Africa. Many of its 8m-14m inhabitants—nobody knows the exact number—live in unmapped lands. The whole region has perhaps 100km (62 miles) of paved roads, half in the capital, Juba, and the other half on Chinese-run oilfields. The few existing dirt roads between settlements are littered with potholes, some so big that cars disappear into them. Large parts of South Sudan can be reached only by helicopter—or on foot. As one official wonders, “How to administer a territory you cannot visit?”

The Tragedy of Sudan

Dan Lazar — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 06:42:22 +0000

Here is Time magazine’s treatment of the Sudan crisis from 2004. We’ll see what crisis January 2011 brings…

Out of Africa?: Foreign aid is part of the problem, but so is corrupt politics

Dan Lazar — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:09:59 +0000

Between 2002 and 2008, sub-Saharan Africa started growing again, buoyed like much of the rest of the world by the global commodity boom and Chinese investment. Thus ended one of the most dismaying periods in the continent’s recent history, a generationlong stretch during which most countries in the region saw per capita incomes fall, sometimes to levels not experienced since the end of colonialism.

read on from Francis Fukayama’s contribution to Slate

Rwandan Genocide

Dan Lazar — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 12:13:43 +0000

Chapter 8 of Gourevitch’s, “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families”

Interview with Phillip Gourevitch

Responses to Gourevitch Interview

Ebert Review of Hotel Rwanda

Questions for Hotel Rwanda

Genocide in Sudan?

Dan Lazar — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 09:54:32 +0000

Nelson Kasfir tires to respond to his research question:

“In causing civilian atrocities on such a massive scale, has the Sudanese government adopted a policy of cultural annihilation, or has it decided to crush a rebellion to protect its dominance?”

Sudan’s Darfur: Is It Genocide?

Response Sheet