Finally, the war in Northern Uganda is making it into the news. It's about time. It only took 23 years. This is an article from BBC News from November 5.

LRA rebel surrenders in DR Congo.

A senior commander of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army rebels has surrendered in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Charles Arop, believed to be behind a brutal attack last Christmas, handed himself in to the Ugandan military.

Fighters believed to be part of his unit used machetes and sticks to kill at least 143 people and abducted 160 children in eastern DR Congo.

The LRA's decades-long rebellion has spread from Uganda to several of its neighbours in recent years.

Ugandan special forces have been hunting the LRA through the DR Congo, the Central African Republic, and Sudan in an operation called "Lighting Thunder".

Until recently, Mr Arop commanded up to 100 men but Ugandan military spokesman Lt Col Felix Kulaygiye said his forces had been all but wiped-out.

"He was only left with one fighter, so what choice did he have?" he said.

Mr Arop handed himself in to troops stationed in the town of Djabir in DR Congo.

The LRA has split into small groups of fighters who are scattered across three central African countries, analysts say.

Mr Arop is understood to have been behind attacks on Christmas Day 2008, when some 200 LRA fighters attacked the town of Faradje.

A report by the international group, Human Rights Watch said the fighters came into the town pretending to be friendly, before killing anyone they came across.

This was the first of several raids which some reports say left 400 people dead.

But now local media have reported rebels are handing themselves in because of deteriorating conditions in their camps.

The LRA, led by Joseph Kony, are waging a 20-year guerrilla war against the Ugandan government.

Mr Kony has said he wanted to establish a society based on the 10 Commandments.

Last year it appeared Mr Kony was about to sign a peace deal, and several other commanders had given up fighting.

But at the last minute he refused to lay down his arms and took his fighters, many of them child soldiers abducted on village raids, into neighbouring countries.

The governments of the three countries have been co-operating to wipe out the remaining commanders.



ALSO
Invisible Children is doing incredible things right now to end this war and bring healing to the affected areas. Right now, they are calling for support for what they call this generation's mission to the moon. Just as in 1961, President J. F. Kennedy committed to the impossible dream of putting a man on the moon by the end of that decade; Invisible Children is calling this generation “to commit not to the heavens, but to humanity: the rescue of Joseph Kony’s child soldiers and the recovery of Northern Uganda.” Just as Americans gathered around their televisions to witness the first lunar steps in 1969, Invisible Children dreams of the world gathering around their TVs to witness the first step towards justice in Northern Uganda: the child soldiers returning home. They are calling President Obama to make a public statement by Christmas committing the US to end the war and rescue the child soldiers. They are also putting on pressure for the enactment of a bill drafted earlier this year committing the US to the disarmament of the LRA and the recovery of Northern Uganda.
Get Involved!! Check out www.invisiblechildren.com!!!

Decolonizing the Mind

Excerpted from Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature written by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Introduction: Towards the Universal Struggle of Language

...The study of the African realities has for too long been seen in terms of tribes. Whatever happens in Kenya, Uganda, Malawi is because of Tribe A versus Tribe B. Whatever erupts in Zaire, Nigeria, Liberia, Zambia is because of the traditional enmity between Tribe D and Tribe C. A variation of the same stock interpretation is Moslem versus Christian or Catholic versus Protestant where a people does not easily fall into ‘tribes’. Even literature is sometimes evaluated in terms of the ‘tribal’ origins of the authors or the ‘tribal’ origins and composition of the characters in a given novel or play. This misleading stock interpretation of the African realities has been popularised by the western media which likes to deflect people from seeing that imperialism is still the root cause of many problems in Africa. Unfortunately some African intellectuals have fallen victims — a few incurably so — to that scheme and they are unable to see the divide-and-rule colonial origins of explaining any differences of intellectual outlook or any political clashes in terms of the ethnic origins of the actors. No man or woman can choose their biological nationality. The conflicts between peoples cannot be explained in terms of that which is fixed (the invariables). Otherwise the problems between any two peoples would always be the same at all times and places; and further, there would never be any solution to social conflicts except through a change in that which is permanently fixed, for example through genetic or biological transformation of the actors.

My approach will be different. I shall look at the African realities as they are affected by the great struggle between the two mutually opposed forces in Africa today: an imperialist tradition on one hand, and a resistance tradition on the other. The imperialist tradition in Africa is today maintained by the international bourgeoisie using the multinational and of course the flag-waving native ruling classes. The economic and political dependence of this African neo-colonial bourgeoisie is reflected in its culture of apemanship and parrotry enforced on a restive population through police boots, barbed wire, a gowned clergy and judiciary; their ideas are spread by a corpus of state intellectuals, the academic and journalistic laureates of the neo-colonial establishment. The resistance tradition is being carried out by the working people (the peasantry and the proletariat) aided by patriotic students, intellectuals (academic and non-academic), soldiers and other progressive elements of the petty middle class. This resistance is reflected in their patriotic defence of the peasant/worker roots of national cultures, their defence of the democratic struggle in all the nationalities inhabiting the same territory. Any blow against imperialism, no matter the ethnic and regional origins of the blow, is a victory for all anti-imperialistic elements in all the nationalities. The sum total of all these blows no matter what their weight, size, scale, location in time and space makes the national heritage.

For these patriotic defenders of the fighting cultures of African people, imperialism is not a slogan. It is real; it is palpable in content and form and in its methods and effects. Imperialism is the rule of consolidated finance capital and since 1884 this monopolistic parasitic capital has affected and continues to affect the lives even of the peasants in the remotest corners of our countries. If you are in doubt, just count how many African countries have now been mortgaged to IMF — the new International Ministry of Finance as Julius Nyerere once called it. Who pays for the mortgage? Every single producer of real wealth (use-value) in the country so mortgaged, which means every single worker and peasant. Imperialism is total: it has economic, political, military, cultural and psychological consequences for the people of the world today. It could even lead to holocaust.

The freedom for western finance capital and for the vast transnational monopolies under its umbrella to continue stealing from the countries and people of Latin America, Africa, Asia and Polynesia is today protected by conventional and nuclear weapons. Imperialism, led by the USA, presents the struggling peoples of the earth and all those calling for peace, democracy .and socialism with the ultimatum: accept theft or death.

The oppressed and the exploited of the earth maintain their defiance: liberty from theft. But the biggest weapon wielded and actually daily unleashed by imperialism against that collective defiance is the cultural bomb. The effect of a cultural bomb is to annihilate a people’s belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves. It makes them see their past as one wasteland of non-achievement and it makes them want to distance themselves from that wasteland. It makes them want to identify with that which is furthest removed from themselves; for instance, with other peoples’ languages rather than their own. It makes them identify with that which is decadent and reactionary, all those forces which would stop their own springs of life. It even plants serious doubts about the moral rightness of struggle. Possibilities of triumph or victory are seen as remote, ridiculous dreams. The intended results are despair, despondency and a collective death-wish. Amidst this wasteland which it has created, imperialism presents itself as the cure and demands that the dependant sing hymns of praise with the constant refrain: ‘Theft is holy’. Indeed, this refrain sums up the new creed of the neo-colonial bourgeoisie in many ‘independent’ African states.

The classes fighting against imperialism even in its neo-colonial stage and form, have to confront this threat with the higher and more creative culture of resolute struggle. These classes have to wield even more firmly the weapons of the struggle contained in their cultures. They have to speak the united language of struggle contained in each of their languages. They must discover their various tongues to sing the song: ‘A people united can never be defeated’.

wild ride

The others, they laugh, they shake their heads, they feign maturity, but we know the truth. We know you are only truly mature when you can take life by its horns and dare it to give you its best ride. When you can go through that gate and handle whatever it gives you, with the others watching, secretly wishing they had your courage, but voicing to their neighbor your insanity. Perhaps it is insane, but you never know the fullness of sanity, or existence, or reality for that matter, until you push it to its very edge. Then you can look back and see it for what it truly is.

And so that is what we do. We fight off the terrifying man-eating spiders and claim their place for our own; we dare the lake scum to give us another limb, and let us show how we will be better off for it; we defy the storm and dance in its face, challenging it to show us its power; we taunt the mother coyote and test her bravery when we find her young; we taste the breath of the train as it urges us to take just one step closer; we defy gravity and inertia as we hang on the edge of our ride, daring it to throw us off; we fight the mud and the heat and the rain and the dust and the exhaustion and the thorns, day after day after day.

And it brings us together, this wild ride. Because together we have endured it, have come to the edge and have dared it to throw us over. We have pushed eachother, pulled eachother, held eachothers hands as we plunged through that gate. And together we are not afraid.

We are like soldiers, in the mud, the heat, the sweat, the blood, day after day. And when the battle wanes, when we are crouched in the dirt, to pass the long hours, we search the depths of eachothers souls, and we discover, and learn, and grow together.

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And somehow there's also 80's roller skating, canoeing, sleeping under the stars, bon fires, dancing, a tap dancing dance off, lots of ice cream, caring for numerous baby birds, the beach... its a full life. As it should be.

Hugh Jackman

After weeks of frantically searching, dropping off a thousand resumes, and selling myself to various employers I have finally found a job.

At the same place I worked last summer.

I don't know how to feel right now. It's going to be a good summer: working outside with a bunch of friends and having fun after work and on the weekends with everyone that's around Hamilton; but if not for this job I would have been going home in three days. I miss home. Friends, long days outdoors, beaches, bon fires, over-loaded-very-chocolately-ice-cream-sundays/ family, greasy-angry-customer-fast-food work, prairie grass. Its a tough decision. Honestly. Family trumps a lot of things.

I feel like I'm passing up my last summer to live at home. How did that happen? I feel like I left home after high school, studied a little, met some people, went to sleep, woke up, and suddenly I was thinking about graduating and the rest of my life. I have a year left, my friends are graduating already, finding careers and further education and getting married, and instead of just dreaming about it, I am actually planning life in Africa and hoping that I can convince some African guy that one wife is enough.

I feel like I could use a couple more years of home cooked meals, sibling banter, and mom telling me what to do.

I'm turning 22 this year.

On another note, I'm reading "When People are Big and God is Small" by Edward T. Welch. I know mom, you told me to read it like a year ago, but other books controlled my life. So anyway, that book is precicely what my tattoo is all about. Fearing God instead of man. It even uses that terminology. Good book. You should all read it.

Also good: Habakkuk 3. Who knew such a comforting passage could come from a book nobody can pronounce?

Also good:

Haha. yessss.

Life is good.

Question: What is more fun than being soaking wet and freezing and hanging out and attempting to sleep in a park in downtown toronto all night?
Fact: There is nothing more fun. Not a whole lot anyway.
It was the invisible children rescue yesterday. Minus the slightly-more-than-a-fender-bender accident on the way and whiplash, it was a great night. It rained pretty much the whole night, but we made a shelter from tarps and picknick tables, and embraced the wet and the muddy. There's something about being dirty that brings your child side out. We puddle jumped, wandered around downtown barefoot (i did at least. Bad idea? my foot is itchy, i think i have a fungus), were gargoyles for a bit in the windowsills of a beautiful old building, and basically chatted and goofed around all night, except for the couple of hours where we tried in vain to sleep, because we were wet and cold (I can honestly say i have never felt so close to ree. We shared body warmth), not tired, and the subway made minor earthquakes underneath us every half an hour. We were some of the few that braved the night. Probably 3/4 of the abducted left as soon as the rain started and many more left as the night went on. We are hard core.

We were "rescued" early on my Jack Layton, Rick Mercer, CTV (i think), and MTV. I got an interview with MTV. Should air in a couple of weeks.

Good times.

Here we are!



Rick mercer!!

Jack layton

To make my week complete, I had a visit from my very own father and sister. It was awesome. I've been feeling homesick lately and really feeling the hole of being far away from my family. I showed them my "stomping grounds" and some other cool places out here. I had a great time and I wish they could have stayed longer.
Here's some pics:




Life is good.

For my Family

This is more for my family since you don't visit me.

Just some pictures...

This is my room
the stuff on the far left is ree's, she was my room mate for a while.. then we got in a fight.
(we didn't actually)
this is my painting

this is my fish
I forgot about these... we had an engagement party for Ree and James and everyone had to dress up like seniors. This is what they will look like in 50 years:
Trine and I. I'm gunna be a crazy missionary grandma, and Trine is going to be Hitler's wife
That's all.

Join The Rescue

Check out www.invisiblechildren.com to find out how you can help save the 3,000 Ugandan child soldiers and end Africa's longest running war.