A Long Walk Home
Aug. 23rd, 2006 11:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ziasudraI took the time to watch A Long Walk Home tonight. It's a documentary produced and filmed by a group of students who went to Cairo during the summer of 2005. There, they got to know and videotaped Sudanese refugees who were living near the garbage collection community of the town. The documentary was edited to show entirely of the Sudaneses' voices, their words, and their art and dances.
A little background: the Sudan civil war had been going on for a long time before the international community took notice. Roughly speaking, it was a war between the North and the South, between the Muslims and the Christians, and also between who is considered an "Arab" and who is an "African." Reality is never as clear-cut as the stereotypically imposed dichotomies, of course, so the civil war was not simply a North-South, Muslim-Christian-Arab-African conflict.
Many refugees fled to neighboring countries, Egypt among them. There's a sizeable community of Southern Sudanese living in Cairo, and some of them became the focus of A Long Walk Home film.
I highly recommend everyone to visit the Web site, if not to buy a copy of the documentary. I interviewed several filmmakers for my thesis (still going...) and all of them said something to the extent of "When we asked the Sudanese what we could do, they all asked us to take their stories back to America and share them with everyone." Spreading their stories and giving the Silenced a voice. This is the Sudanese refugees' desire, and this is what A Long Walk Home spreads to its viewers.
Another factoid: Sudanese refugees aren't technically considered refugees anymore, because the civil war technically ended and those who are displaced no longer have refugee status. As a result, people such as those who've fled and now live in Cairo are stuck in a no-win predicament: UNHCR does not recognize most of them for resettlement, some government and NGO officials are encouraging repatriation, but the condition in Sudan hasn't gotten better (think Dafur). The Sudanese "refugees" are truly trapped -- everyone has a story, but few have stopped to listen to them.
So please, please hop on over to read more about the Sudanese refugees. Request a copy of the DVD, let the Sudanese's voices be heard.
"[The Egyptians told us] You have no right in Egypt, so I am silent."
"The message is in your hands to show it to the world." ~ Sudanese refugees interviewed for the film
A little background: the Sudan civil war had been going on for a long time before the international community took notice. Roughly speaking, it was a war between the North and the South, between the Muslims and the Christians, and also between who is considered an "Arab" and who is an "African." Reality is never as clear-cut as the stereotypically imposed dichotomies, of course, so the civil war was not simply a North-South, Muslim-Christian-Arab-African conflict.
Many refugees fled to neighboring countries, Egypt among them. There's a sizeable community of Southern Sudanese living in Cairo, and some of them became the focus of A Long Walk Home film.
I highly recommend everyone to visit the Web site, if not to buy a copy of the documentary. I interviewed several filmmakers for my thesis (still going...) and all of them said something to the extent of "When we asked the Sudanese what we could do, they all asked us to take their stories back to America and share them with everyone." Spreading their stories and giving the Silenced a voice. This is the Sudanese refugees' desire, and this is what A Long Walk Home spreads to its viewers.
Another factoid: Sudanese refugees aren't technically considered refugees anymore, because the civil war technically ended and those who are displaced no longer have refugee status. As a result, people such as those who've fled and now live in Cairo are stuck in a no-win predicament: UNHCR does not recognize most of them for resettlement, some government and NGO officials are encouraging repatriation, but the condition in Sudan hasn't gotten better (think Dafur). The Sudanese "refugees" are truly trapped -- everyone has a story, but few have stopped to listen to them.
So please, please hop on over to read more about the Sudanese refugees. Request a copy of the DVD, let the Sudanese's voices be heard.
"[The Egyptians told us] You have no right in Egypt, so I am silent."
"The message is in your hands to show it to the world." ~ Sudanese refugees interviewed for the film
