Book Review: The Translator by Daoud Hari (2008)
March 18th, 2008 8:42 pm by Kelly GarbatoI received a copy of The Translator: A Tribesman’s Memoir of Darfur, by Daoud Hari through Library Thing’s Early Reviewer program a few months ago. Given the huge lag between the release date and when I reviewed it, I figured I’d hold on to the review until the book is actually available in stores. Which would be…today!
Although…I almost sat on it a bit longer, at least until the international Darfur Awareness Week. According to a recent email I received from Oxfam, the commemoration is “approaching,” but I’ll be damned if I couldn’t find an actual, firm date for it this year (FAIL!). Anyone? *Shrug*
The only point I’d like to add to my (earlier) review is that, to this atheist, all the god-praise got really frustrating, really fast. In the face of such horrors, the god that Daoud exalts is, at best, either cruelly indifferent to all the violence and suffering “his” creations are perpetrating on one another, or he does care but is powerless to stop it (which would call into question that whole omnipotent thing). Or he’s a sick sadistic bastard. None of these options really merit unquestioning obedience and the subservience of one’s entire worldview now, do they?
But if you can get around the blind faith, it’s a good read. (If not, there’s always Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infidel, which is an even better read.)
Daoud Hari was born to the Zaghawa tribe in Darfur, the westernmost region of Sudan. At the age of 13, Daoud’s father sent him to live in the city of El Fasher, located in North Darfur, to further his education – and distance his youngest son from the Sudanese military raids that were just beginning to foment the genocide in Darfur. Upon completion of his studies, Daoud traveled to Libya in search of work, and then on to Egypt and Israel. Daoud was apprehended while trying to cross the Gaza Strip in to Israel, and because he was deemed an “illegal immigrant” (his visa only allowed him to enter Libya), he was sent back to Egypt. There he was imprisoned as he awaited deportation back to his native country of Sudan – where he would surely be executed for his supposed “defection.” Incredibly, a kind Egyptian jailer contacted Daoud’s friends in Cairo, who in turn reached out to the United Nations and Human Rights Watch. Daoud was eventually freed and allowed to “sneak back” into Sudan through Chad.
This is only the beginning of Daoud’s amazing and inspiring story, however. During his time spent “seeing the world,” the conflict in Darfur erupted in government-sponsored genocide. Daoud’s homecoming quickly turned into a rescue mission: as soon as he reached his village, he and his family were forced to evacuate as the Sudanese military and the government-backed militia groups called the Janjaweed tore through Darfur, bombing villages, battling rebel groups, raping and kidnapping women and children, and massacring members of the Fur, Zaghawa, and Massaleit ethnic groups. Luckily, Daoud did not become one of the estimated 200,000 to 400,000 to die at the hands of the Sudanese Army, but he does represent the more than 2.5 million persons displaced by the conflict.
After finding safety in neighboring Chad, Daoud volunteered to serve as a translator for non-governmental organizations and journalists. While some of his childhood friends chose to take up arms against the Sudanese government, Daoud’s education afforded him a unique opportunity to advocate for his people by assisting in the distribution of aid and spreading word of the atrocities unfolding in his native lands. THE TRANSLATOR: A TRIBESMAN’S MEMOIR OF DARFUR is the story of Daoud’s risky work as a translator: sneaking across the Chadian border into Sudan (and back again), cultivating relationships with rebels and militia groups, navigating the shifting alliances and, above all else, trying to guide his employers safely through their travels so that they might bring awareness to the plight of millions of Sudanese refugees through their reporting.
Curiously, Daoud’s account of his journey back into Sudan from Chad in order to find and flee with his family has a strangely detached feel to it. I can’t help but compare it to Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s INFIDEL, which I recently finished. Born in Somalia and raised in Ethiopia and Kenya, Hirsi Ali eventually settled in the Netherlands and, later, the United States. While she was living in Kenya, a civil war broke out in Somalia, and many of Hirsi Ali’s clan members unsuccessfully sought refuge in neighboring countries. At one point, she volunteered to travel to Somalia with a friend of her brother, who wanted to find his wife and children and smuggle them across the Kenyan border to safety. In contrast to Daoud’s journey, Hirsi Ali’s account is filled with danger and suspense. Perhaps this difference is because Hirsi Ali’s situation was more precarious; she and her companions, of which there were many, had to bribe their way into Kenya, which was not accepting Somali refugees. In contrast, Chad has opened its borders (however grudgingly) to Sudanese peoples displaced by the conflict. Either way, and without revealing too much of the THE TRANSLATOR’s story, I found Daoud’s subsequent forays into Sudan to be increasingly tense and gut-wrenching. His last mission, the climax of the book, is truly amazing.
While Daoud’s life certainly is extraordinary, the true message of THE TRANSLATOR is in how ordinary Daoud is. After all, Daoud is just one of three million plus Sudanese tribespeople to be killed or displaced by the genocide in Darfur. These three million people are fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, grandparents, grandchildren, cousins, friends and kin. They are three million individuals with unique life stories – and a shared fate. Every few weeks, you might read about “them” in the paper, or see a brief segment about the war on your local 6 o’clock newscast. “Them.” “The Other.” It’s simply too easy to think of “them” as a mass, a crowd, a faceless throng suffering a world away. What Daoud has done in THE TRANSLATOR is give these refugees names, stories, lives. THE TRANSLATOR bears witness to their unquantifiable suffering, and entreats you, the reader, to care about their stories, and act on their behalf.
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Tagged: book book review the translator daoud hari sudan darfur genocide ethnic cleansing politics war civil war memoir autobiography religion godbags atheism
