Tears of the Desert
by Halima Bashir and Damien Lewis
Hodder & Stoughton, HK$91
Mia Farrow has done her bit to expose the genocide in Darfur. Halima Bashir makes people pay attention. By telling her story to Damien Lewis, a former war reporter who helped write her memoir Tears of the Desert, she will make most readers feel uncomfortable. But that is a good thing because, as she says, 'It is high time that the phrase 'prevent and punish' was made a reality.' Born in Darfur in 1979 to an African tribe, Halima tells of a relatively happy childhood, although from a young age she is aware of the tensions between Africans and Arabs. At school, she is on the receiving end for being a black girl from the bush. Despite unfair treatment from her Arab teachers, however, she tops her class and ends up studying medicine. As a doctor, she comes face to face with the victims of an attack by the janjaweed Arab militia. Her punishment for reporting the rapes of scores of girls to a UN team is to be raped herself. Bashir's descriptions - not only of the attacks but also of her circumcision and infibulation at age eight - punches the conscience. The book will make readers understand what the foreign reports are all about.
