Arguments in Different formats

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/bljonstewartcrossfire.htm Jon Stewart arguing with Tucker Carlson, video and transcript.

http://www.ushmm.org/genocide/analysis/details.php?content=2007-06-07 Sudan debate transcript and video.

http://www.slate.com/id/2203800/entry/2203801/ Republicans debating via e-mail what to do after most recent presidential election.

Thoughts After compiling planned bibliography

"...he measured the achievements of others by what they had accomplished, asking of them that they measure him by what he envisaged or planned. " -Jorge Luis Borges

Sweet merciful crap. This is a lot of theoretical reading I am going to do. Prof has said my topic is very broad and may need to be narrowed down. Among the works to be cited are I think 4 books that I will certainly not have time to read in their entirety (one I have read in part before, the Gourevitch book, and I know what I'm looking for in it, more or less).

Rwanda is more or less the germinating point of the ideas and thoughts behind this paper, and the Frontline "Ghosts of Rwanda" film is how my interest with it started. I think that fits into the multiliteracies trends we've been discussing in a big way. My entire life I've been someone always most easily reached by printed words and nothing else; something about the simplicity and plainness of it. I've read hundreds if not thousands of passages, fiction and non-fiction, that describe horrible things being done to people, and been affected by it. But there's a part of that film where a girl who has survived an Interahamwe assault is being treated.

She's looking at the camera the same way a kid does when he scrapes his knee and is trying to be brave and not cry but he knows you're watching and is embarrassed and tears just flood out, except of course her knee hasn't been scraped. She has a giant split on her head where someone tried to machete her but didn't use enough force to break the plates of the skull, only the skin. She's holding up a hand and all the fingers stop suddenly at the first knuckle, and flies are landing on her the way they would a dead person only she's still alive and looks right at you watching her. That hit me in a way that films about say the Holocaust, however realistic, simply don't, and even unflinching descriptions of warzones can't using only words. You can watch it online here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSJjfd4V2Mc&feature=PlayList&p=6660341BAE01BF62&index=10 that part starts at the 9 minute mark.

So Rwanda in 1994 is the starting point, the peak of interest. I don't want to leave it behind, but I also see that it cannot be the main focus if I want to write something besides a history paper (and I do). I intend still to stay with my plan of a project that has 5 parts with the greater focus on what has gone wrong in the past and what can be changed in the future, but I can certainly see that this would mean sacrificing depth in one topic for a wider scope. Need to focus on International Criminal Court and UN Security Council.

Input/Advice on what to focus on welcomed, anyone from class viewing this/facebook stalkers.

Tentative Planned Bibliography

Works Cited

Dallaire, Roméo. Shake hands with the devil the failure of humanity in Rwanda. New York, NY: Carroll & Graf, Distributed by Group West, 2005. Print.

"Ghosts of Rwanda." PBS, 2008. Web. .

Gourevitch, Philip. We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families stories from Rwanda. New York: Picador/Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, Distributed by Holtzbrinck, 2004. Print.

LeBor, Adam. "Complicity With Evil" The United Nations in the Age of Modern Genocide. New York: Yale UP, 2006. Print.

Michael, Barnett. Eyewitness to a Genocide: The United Nations and Rwanda. Cornell UP, September 2003. Print.

Quigley, John B. The Genocide Convention An International Law Analysis (International and Comparative Criminal Justice) (International and Comparative Criminal Justice) ... and Comparative Criminal Justice). Grand Rapids: Ashgate, 2006. Print.

Sharamo, Roba. "The African Union's Peacekeeping Experience in Darfur, Sudan." Conflict Trends (2008): 50-55. The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes. Web. .

Strauss, Scott. "Darfur and the Genocide Debate." JSTOR. 2005. Web. .

Weller, Marc. "Undoing the Global Constitution: UN Security Council Action on the International Criminal Court." JSTOR. 2002. Web. .

Wheeler, Nicholas. "Humanitarian Intervention in World Politics." CADAIR. Oxford University Press, 2008. Web. .

Xtranormal video

Thought on Xtranormal

The first thing I noticed about trying to use Xtranormal to explain my project was how flippant I wanted to be. It's so easy to make the characters do goofy or outlandish things, and the voices are fairly robotic, so there's a temptation to just make the scene comedic. And at the same time I have to use it to explain a pretty somber choice of topic. I changed the voice of the woman who explains the project to a British accent, because it seemed to lend what she was saying a little more weight. I also noticed that using two characters essentially made me feel like I was already defending my choice of topic; I had to have the female explain that she was aware that she had chosen something that was going to be a sad thing to look into in many ways. I chose the black and white setting because it was the most serious setting, and obviously this is going to be a project that has some grave tones to it.

Research Proposal

I have decided to focus my research project on the recent genocides in Africa (Sudan/Rwanda; perhaps others if large-scale genocide I am not familiar with becomes a factor after research) and the international community’s role in them. I would like to focus most on why armed intervention did not take place and the reasons for this in the United Nations. I would also like to examine the consequences of inaction and the process by which the international community is supposed to respond to genocide.

As I currently envision it, the project can be broken into a few distinct parts. 1) A brief history of what happened during the Rwanda and Sudan and possibly other genocides, 2) the response in the UN and militarily powerful countries that might have acted independently, 3) the difference in response when ethnic cleansing took place in Bosnia, 4) positives and negatives of armed response and intervention in genocide, and 5) examination of and possible improvements to the process by which the UN and international alliances decide whether or not to intervene. I would like to focus primarily on 4 and 5, as the first three parts currently seem like background research that has been very well covered elsewhere.

Brainstorming for research project

My initial thoughts on what to do for a paper that is going to be longer and more time-consuming than anything I've ever done are to pick something that is of great interest to me. Lately I have been following the presidency of Joseph Kabila of Congo and the continuing fallout from the Second Congo War that killed over 5 million people while the international world focused largely on the Middle East. A large faction of the forces involved is the Interahamwe militia that conducted the 1994 Rwanda genocide and fled across the border, never dealt with by the UN or international community and still active. This train of thought also led me to consider the Sudan, where a genocidal force is likewise operating with impunity from the UN and international forces. From this comes my initial list of topics.

-Role of propaganda in 1994 Rwanda genocide
-History and present whereabouts of Interahamwe
-Prosecutions relating to the 1994 genocide
-Modern prosecution of war criminals in general
-International criminal law and its reach
-Role of the UN legally in Rwanda and Sudan
-A synopsis of the Second Congo War and its effects
-Politics in ravaged African countries (Sudan/Rwanda/Congo/Uganda) and the interconnectedness of these countries
-Role of foreign countries in modern day genocides, possible intervention
-Path to intervention in genocide under international law
-Length of time reuired for legal intervention in genocide; why it took so long/ did not happen in Rwanda/Sudan as opposed to Bosnia

I like the idea of an international law-related project, as I do not particularly want to become a teacher with my English degree and law school is probably my next step, career wise. So I can choose a project that is both A) interesting and B) something that can be included in an application.