History channeled

"Is civil war still going on in the Sudan?"

Brad Pitt looked at me with something between dismay and horror. "Oh, come on. You're smarter than that. It's worse than ever."

We were at the reception for "God Grew Tired of Us," Newmarket Films' Sundance award-winning documentary about the "Lost Boys" - children, separated from their families, who walked for five years to escape civil war-torn Sudan. They found safety in Kenya - but after a decade in the refugee camp, they remained there with no future, little food and less hope.

GGTOU follows the journeys of three Lost Boys (now men) who get the opportunity to relocate in America (namely, Syracuse and Pittsburgh). It's a great film that deserves lots of tickets. Baffling as to why it didn't make the Academy's documentary short list. Pitt was there as an executive producer, as was Catherine Keener and Dermot Mulroney.

Keener and Nicole Kidman (she did the narration) had already left, but Pitt and Mulroney stayed on - as did Angelina Jolie, Edward Norton and, uh, Johnny Knoxville - in the Pacific Design Center's cramped Silverscreen lobby.

The 85-minute movie began around 8 pm; three hours later, the waiters were packing up the bar and the party was still going strong. However, I'm burying the lede. The life force wasn't the gaggle of celebs left unprotected by the likes of Kevin Huvane and Cindy Guagenti (though the hulking fellow in black who kept close tabs on Jolie could probably crush your thorax with a flick of his thumb).

The evening's stars were John Dul Bau, Panther Bior and Daniel Abul Pach - the film's subjects who received a standing ovation and spent the reception deluged by new fans. It was, in fact, easier to have a five-minute conversation with Pitt.

And Googling proved he was right - I am smarter than that. The second Sudanese civil war (north vs. south) began in January 1983 and ended with the signing of a peace agreement in January 2005. Now Sudan must contend with the genocide in Darfur, located in westernmost Sudan, as well as war with the neighboring state of Chad. (D. Harris)

Comments

[Beniamino Birnie]

Actually, Mr. Pitt was right - there is a civil war under way in Sudan, insofar as there are at least two armed rebel groups actively opposing the Sudanese government in the west of the country - one of them being a faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement, the other being the Justice & Equality Movement. (A competing faction of the SLM did sign a peace agreement with the government in May 2006.) It is of course by virtue of this ongoing civil war that hundreds of thousands of people in Darfur have been & are being displaced / murdered / raped / confined to refugee camps. It's pathetic that you could be so ignorant about the situation in Sudan and then have the gall to try to make Pitt out to be an idiot.

[Shocked and Appalled]

What part of 'genocide' don't you understand? You are truly pathetic, but no one would have known that if your insecurities could have been held in check long enough for you to do more than a quick Google search. It's sad that you don't care enough about your fellow humans to know that a holocaust is occurring in our lifetime. What do you gain by trying to tarnish the reputation of someone who cares enough to do something to stop it? I'm sorry you were momentarily embarassed and chose to seize on semantics to make yourself feel better. And he's right, you SHOULD have known better. Conditions in the Sudan ARE worse than ever, no thanks to you.

[You Protest Too Much]

How exactly are you 'smarter than that'? You DIDN'T KNOW one way or the other, which is why you asked him. You should be cringing in embarassment right now, instead of feeling righteous indignation. One part of a population killing another part of a population is by its very definition a civil war. Idiot.

[stranger]

Shame on you for slamming Mr. Pitt, he is doing a wonderful job bringing attention to issues like the genocide in Sudan.

If you do not know what you are talking about, please don't talk.

And the fact that you had to google to find out what is happening in Sudan, tells me that you were not prepared for this event. Furthermore, you did not do a thorough search!

I suppose that asking a gossip reporter to know anything about the world outside tinseltown is too much to ask. But you opened the door when you called Mr. Pitt an ignorant.

YOU are the ignorant.

[Nicky]

I think Brad is right. There is an ongoing civil war in Sudan if you care to do a thorough research on this topic. The ongoing civil war is the reason there's a Genocide in Africa. Ignorant people could care less about this issue because why care if their problem is not our problem? Well, in my opinion, it's wrong. People should care because we are all human being and neighbors and should watch each other's back. I'm glad people like Mr. Pitt is not being selfish by being selfless by using his star power to try to bring attention to the places that needs our help.

[Wise Old Owl]

Did you ever think it could have started up again???

[History Challenged]

Wow, every blog I read today is laughing at how 'dumb' Brad Pitt is, and they cite your post as a reference. And your post is a pile of donkey dung. I guess you got your little revenge, you coal-hearted creep.

[Fact Checking Fool]

From TODAY's headlines 1-11-07:
'Sudan's government and Darfur rebels have agreed to a 60-day ceasefire and a peace summit.'

Golly gee, how can there be a ceasefire if there's no civil war? The Sudanese government should know better than that.

[Fact Checking Fool]

Just for the record, it's actually 1-11-07 in NZ, where the headline comes from, so don't start with me...^_^

[lylian]

D HARRIS: SHAME ON YOU.

Your last paragraph shows YOUR PETTINESS and YOUR IGNORANCE. How dare you sit there in your centrally heated room, and belittle the real suffering of the people in DARFUR. In your haste to tear down Brad Pitt, you fail to acknowledge the truth in DARFUR. Brad Pitt is right, the situation is worse then ever. And if you had bothered to do more research, you would have to agree with him.

Oh, you say, both warring sides in Sudan signed some sort of cease fire back in 2005. So, on paper, that means its over so you are technically right, which is all that counts to you right?. It makes me wonder whether you think the WAR on Terror is over too. After all, its been 5 years since anything happened on US Soil. No paper cease fire perhaps, but surely, based on the actual reality??

Well, here is the REALITY in darfur.

(a) Over 1.0m people have been displaced due to fighting in Darfur.
TENS of thousands of Sudanese people are living under UN protection because of the VIOLENCE PERPETRATED AGAINST THEM by their FELLOW COUNTRYMEN. Thousands of civilians of a particular race or religion in Sudan are continually shot at, killed, maimed, raped by his/her fellow country men, abeit of a different race or religion. What do YOU, D HARRIS call this situation - just a little riot or civil unrest like what you saw in the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans?

Sudan isn't just experiencing civil war. It is indeed worse then ever. Sudan is experiencing GENOCIDE. The word Genocide is "Coined in 1944 from Greek genos (‘race,’ ‘kind’) and -cide, from Latin -cidere, ‘to kill’." (see Wikipedia)

Genocide is "(1) The systematic killing of substantial numbers of people on the basis of ethnicity, religion, political opinion, social status, or other particularity.
(2) Acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group." (see wikipedia)

(b) This statement, found on wikipedia is up to date until 31 August 2006:

"After fighting worsened in July and August 2006, on August 31, 2006, the United Nations Security Council approved Resolution 1706 which called for a new 17,300-troop UN peacekeeping force to supplant or supplement a poorly funded, ill-equipped 7,000-troop African Union Mission in Sudan peacekeeping force. Sudan strongly objected to the resolution and said that it would see the UN forces in the region as foreign invaders. The next day, the Sudanese military launched a major offensive in the region."

Now, just so that there is no misinterpretation of my views:

(1) The war on terror is on going and world wide even though the US hasn't suffered an attack in 5 years because the terrorist groups havent' given up wanting to attack the US and its allies (of which, as an Australian national, I can proudly say we are).

(2) The GENOCIDE in Darfur is on-going even if some piece of paper has been signed in 2005 because the Janjaweed and the Sudanese government havent given up trying to eradicate and exterminate its non Arab citizens.

[lylian]

BTW, D Harris, if you are trying to suggest in your last paragraph that the civil war in Sudan has been reduced to just a small corner of the country, you might like to know that the Darfur area is about the size of FRANCE.

[lac]

Sounds like to me Brad Pitt was right and he deserves an apology.

[Freya]

If Brad Pitt is ignorant, I wonder what we could say about all the other citizens.
Brad is not ignorant and is getting more informed every day, and he is making himself useful.

[Faith]

D. Harris, you are a damn idiot! Too bad you're too stupid to realize it.

[Dana Harris]

From the (less-ignorant) Writer:

For all the flamers who said I was ignorant, you have me dead to rights. My face flushed when Pitt said "you're smarter than that" because I knew I should have known the answer. And I didn't.

However, my question was: Was the civil war, the one detailed in the movie we had just watched, that he executive produced, still going on? And, as it turns out, the answer is, No. That specific war has ended, with conflict diminished to the point that (I later discovered) some Lost Boys have been able to visit their homelands. That had been the original intent of my question to Pitt (although, at that moment, I was sufficiently embarassed to not ask him).

And the last sentence of my post, were it better written, would have communicated its intent: One war has ended only to have others take its place. I never believed (or suggested) that all war in Africa, or in the Sudan, had ended -- or that the conflicts currently taking place were in any way less significant. Or that Pitt was, as one poster said, an "idiot."

Maybe Pitt misunderstood me and thought I was asking the status of all Sudanese wars. Or maybe he didn't realize the exact status of the North-South war. I don't know and it doesn't matter -- he was still better informed than I.

Finally, a great article here about tensions surrounding the celebration of the peace accord's second anniversary: http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-01-10-voa47.cfm

[an academy award winning documentary filmmaker]

i am glad that at least you have the courage to admit you were wrong. but you should still be fired from your job.
best wishes and happy new year.

[One Less Reader]

Maybe Pitt misunderstood me and thought I was asking the status of all Sudanese wars. Or maybe he didn't realize the exact status of the North-South war.

*************************************

Or maybe he didn't realize he was speaking to a journalist with an agenda.

[Faye]

D. Harris,

I, for one, can respect a person who can admit his/her mistake. Unfortunately, your story was picked up by other blogs which then went on to portray Mr. Pitt in a negative light. I doubt many of his ignorant naysayers will get an opportunity to read your new thoughts, buried in the comments section. Please be careful with your words in the future. You owe it to your readers. As a journalist, your integrity is your most important asset.

[MightyHeart]

A proper and sincere admission of a mistake should have merited a new thread/post (from the blogger) instead of it being buried in users' (readers') comments.

You may have admitted your ignorance but you are still a COWARD.

[Monica C.]

Angry Mob,
One point worth noting is that D. Harris, unlike most journalists covering parties, did not ask Brad Pitt about A) being a Dad or B) Angelina's lips. She asked a simple question that was relevant to the film he produced. His response -- "You must be smarter than that" -- was hardly educating. She wasn't trying to trip him up and he could have been more gracious in his retort.