Kys t' ou? (How are you?)

Today is International Mother Language Day and I have a few suggestions for honoring endangered languages. First, you can review previous posts from our discussion of Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages by Mark Abley, where among other things you can find a link that will teach you how to greet everyone in Manx for the rest of the day. Then for something fresh you can visit UNESCO's fascinating new interactive Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. Also, NPR reports on a new documentary, The Linguists (link opens with sound) which is set to air on some PBS stations Thursday. Looks good, though at least in my neck of the woods it's airing at midnight (fortunately I found I could save it in my Netflix queue).

Spring Cleaning

Lately I've accumulated a backlog of links which I should have blogged in a timely fashion so that you would have learned that Michael Ignatieff (Rights Readers selection Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond) is now the leader of Canada's Liberal Party -- and just now has taken the opportunity of his meeting with President Obama to discuss the case of Guantanamo juvenile detainee Omar Khadr.

Or you would know that Samantha Power (A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide) has taken a position with the NSC, but before she stepped up to serve she wrote yet another profile of a human rights defender for the New Yorker (and oh yeah here's a short version of the one she wrote a whole book about.)

And then there's Arundhati Roy's (The Cost of Living) response to the Mumbai attacks, the fact that Jon Burge (a central figure in John Conroy's Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People: The Dynamics of Torture) was arrested last fall, and Daniel Alarcon (Lost City Radio) had a New Yorker short story with a provocative title published in October.

Fortunately, this American Scholar article about Chinese censorship by Ha Jin (Ocean of Words Army Stories and The Crazed) is the sort of thing that doesn't date that fast and a little item in my local paper-- "Last month a bipartisan group of six members of Congress nominated Greg Mortenson [Three Cups of Tea] for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize"-- might still make a you-heard-it-here-first list.

Phew! That felt good! Perhaps we'll do that again sometime, sooner rather than later.

For June: The Cellist of Sarjevo by Steven Galloway

For June we have selected The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway,

In a city under siege, four people whose lives have been upended are ultimately reminded of what it is to be human. From his window, a musician sees twenty-two of his friends and neighbors waiting in a breadline. Then, in a flash, they are killed by a mortar attack. In an act of defiance, the man picks up his cello and decides to play at the site of the shelling for twenty-two days, honoring their memory. Elsewhere, a young man leaves home to collect drinking water for his family and, in the face of danger, must weigh the value of generosity against selfish survivalism. A third man, older, sets off in search of bread and distraction and instead runs into a long-ago friend who reminds him of the city he thought he had lost, and the man he once was. As both men are drawn into the orbit of cello music, a fourth character—a young woman, a sniper—holds the fate of the cellist in her hands. As she protects him with her life, her own army prepares to challenge the kind of person she has become.

A novel of great intensity and power, and inspired by a true story, The Cellist of Sarajevo poignantly explores how war can change one’s definition of humanity, the effect of music on our emotional endurance, and how a romance with the rituals of daily life can itself be a form of resistance.

Anna Politkovskaya Update

The New York Times reports reports that three men were acquitted of murdering Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya (Rights Readers selection: Putin's Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy) CPJ responds. The Guardian has more.

Update: AIUSA responds.

Our February Author: Louise Dean

Our February author, Louise Dean (This Human Season) has her own website and here's a BBC profile. Bookbrowse has an interview,

How did you research The Human Season? Did you meet any resistance?
Over a year, a week a month in Belfast. 500 hours of taped interviews from all sides. Protestant, catholic, terrorist, mother, priest, child, prisoner, prison officers, you name it. Some prison officers were terrified of being tracked down. Most of the former terrorists were keen to tell, even if they pretended otherwise. You have to stay angry to stay alive when you've killed.

And the Guardian,

The cadences of Northern Irish speech are vivid, not just in the dialogue but, subtly, in the body of the prose, and Kathleen, in particular, is a triumph of a character. You might expect Dean to have few difficulties in articulating the feelings of a mother for her children; more startling, perhaps, is the empathy with which she creates the inner life of Dunn, a man of principle but limited education now living under the shadow of retaliatory attacks from the IRA. 'I showed drafts of the book to some of the people I'd interviewed and become close to so that they could point out any inconsistencies,' Dean says, 'and perhaps the greatest compliment I've ever had was for one of the Catholic women to say she'd never seen it from the officers' point of view until she read the book.'

Speaking of research, one of our Esteemed Readers passed on the Wikipedia link on Maze Prison and I found this BBC timeline helpful. Some lyrics to some prison songs can be found here. I know I felt a larger glossary for the book wouldn't have hurt and Esteemed Blogger Joyce came to my rescue with this.

For some very recent news about how the reconciliation is going in Northern Ireland check out these posts at Chasing The Flame and Talking Rights.

For May: Dreams and Shadows by Robin Wright

For May we have selected Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East by Robin Wright,

A magnificent reckoning with the extraordinary changes engulfing the Middle East, by one of our greatest reporters on the region. Robin Wright first landed in the Middle East on October 6, 1973, the day the fourth Middle East war erupted. She has covered every country and most major crises in the region since then, through to the rise of al Qaeda and the U.S. invasion of Iraq. For all the drama of the past, however, the region's most decisive traumas are unfolding today as the Middle East struggles to deal with trends that have already reshaped the rest of the world. And for all the darkness, there is also hope. Some of the emerging trends give cause for greater optimism about the future of the Middle East than at any time since the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948. Dreams and Shadowsis an extraordinary tour de horizon of the new Middle East, with on-the-ground reportage of the ideas and movements driving change across the region-and the obstacles they confront. Through the powerful storytelling for which the author is famous, Dreams and Shadowsties together the players and events in Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, Turkey, the Gulf states, and the Palestinian territories into a coherent vision of what lies ahead. A marvelous field report from the center of the storm, the book is animated by the characters whose stories give the region's transformation its human immediacy and urgency. It is also rich with the history that brought us to this point. It is a masterpiece of the reporter's art and a work of profound and enduring insight. At the end, Wright offers perspective on the United States' most ambitious and costly foreign policy initiative since the rebuilding of Europe after World War II. The stakes are far greater than winning the war on terrorism, stabilizing Iraq, or achieving a lasting Arab-Israeli peace. Transforming the greater Middle East is the last great political challenge of the modern era. Yet the early burst of activity in a region long stagnant is already becoming one of the first grand surprises of the twenty-first century.

Doo Dah 2009 - Slavery Is Not History ... Yet!

AI Group 22's entry in the Pasadena Doo Dah Parade directed attention to modern-day slavery in the form of human trafficking. In keeping with the traditional raucous nature of Doo Dah, sex slaves were portrayed by guys in drag, while women took the roles of villainous traffickers.



We carried signs and distributed information to the spectators that emphasized the seriousness and magnitude of this human rights issue. To take action on issues concerning human trafficking and women's rights, visit this AIUSA page. More information on human trafficking is located here and here.

Congratulations and thank you to Marie-Helene and Robert and their talented associates for organizing yet another wonderful Doo Dah event for Group 22!