Far and Away: Reporting From the Brink of Change (75 page)

307
 Statistics on wartime rapes in Rwanda are supported by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs news report “Our bodies, their battle ground: Gender-based violence in conflict zones,”
IRIN News
, September 1, 2004. Estimates of the numbers of wartime rapes and births come from the introduction by Marie Consolée Mukagendo, “The struggles of Rwandan women raising children born of rape,” in Torgovnik, op. cit.

307
 The expression “children of bad memories” (
enfants de mauvais souvenir
) comes from Nowrojee, op. cit., but is used widely.

307
 The phrase “living legacy of a time of death” comes from Wax, op. cit.

308
 The quote “I could not even die with this baby inside me . . .” comes from Wax, op. cit.

308
 The quote “To be taken as a wife is a form of death . . .” comes from Nowrojee, op. cit.

308
 The quote from Catherine Bonnet occurs in Nowrojee, op. cit., page 79, citing to Bonnet’s paper “Le viol des femmes survivantes du génocide du Rwanda,” in
Rwanda: Un génocide du XXe siècle
(1995), page 18.

308
 The quote from Godeliève Mukasarasi (“The women who have had children after being raped are the most marginalized . . .”) comes from Nowrojee, op. cit.

308
 The work of Avega is described in Alexandra Topping, “Widows of the genocide: How Rwanda’s women are rebuilding their lives,”
Guardian
, April 7, 2014.

309
 Jean Damascène Ndayambaje examines psychological roots of the Rwandan genocide in his thesis, “Le genocide au Rwanda: Une analyse psychologique” (National University of Rwanda, 2001).

310
 The loaded baby names chosen by some Rwandan rape survivors are catalogued in Wax, op. cit.

319
 Figures on annual growth of GDP and ease of doing business in Rwanda rely on “Rwanda overview,” World Bank, October 6, 2015; and “Ease of doing business in Rwanda,” World Bank, 2015.

319
 Assassinations, atrocities, invasions, and exploitation by Paul Kagame’s regime are outlined in Howard W. French, “Kagame’s hidden war in the Congo,”
New York Review of Books
, September 24, 2009; Judi Rever and Geoffrey York, “Assassination in Africa: Inside the plots to kill Rwanda’s dissidents,”
Globe & Mail
, May 2, 2014; Siobhan O’Grady, “Former Rwandan official worries that Kagame’s administration is backsliding into mass murder,”
Foreign Policy
, September 29, 2014; and Global Campaign for Rwandan Human Rights, “Crimes and repression vs. development in Rwanda: President Paul Kagame’s many shadows,” Africa Faith & Justice Network, July 13, 2015.

319
 Information on relative rates of political exclusion, and the reference to Rwanda as “a country on lockdown,” come from Marc Sommers, “The darling dictator of the day,”
New York Times
, May 27, 2012.

319
 The claim that Paul Kagame sought to abolish term limits in Rwanda in response to “popular demand” comes from Agence France-Presse, “US opposes third term for Rwanda’s Kagame: Diplomat,”
Guardian
(Nigeria), June 5, 2015. The success of his campaign is reported in Clement Uwiringiyimana, “Rwandan parliament agrees to extend Kagame’s rule,” Reuters, October 29, 2015. The referendum required to approve extension of term limits is described in British Broadcasting Corporation, “Paul Kagame’s third term: Rwanda referendum on 18 December,” BBC News, December 9, 2015.

319
 The inability of Rwanda’s Green Party to obtain legal counsel for a lawsuit challenging the abolition of term limits is reported in Agence France-Presse, “Rwanda opposition says can’t find lawyer for Kagame 3rd term case—one said ‘God was against it,’ ”
Mail & Guardian
, July 8, 2015.

Circle of Fire: Letter from Libya

356
 For contemporary reports on the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, see Associated Press, “Assault on U.S. consulate in Benghazi leaves 4 dead, including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens,” Associated Press / CBS News,
September 12, 2012; Luke Harding and Chris Stephen, “Chris Stevens, US ambassador to Libya, killed in Benghazi attack,”
Guardian
, September 12, 2012; and David Kirkpatrick and Steven Lee Myers, “Libya attack brings challenges for U.S.,”
New York Times
, September 12, 2012. In 2015, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton defended her actions prior to and following the attack before the US Congress; see Byron Tau and Peter Nicholas, “Hillary Clinton defends actions in Benghazi,”
Wall Street Journal
, October 22, 2015; and Stephen Collinson, “Marathon Benghazi hearing leaves Hillary Clinton largely unscathed,”
CNN Politics
, October 23, 2015.

356
 The capture of Sirte by ISIL (also known as ISIS or Daesh) forces is reported in “ISIL ‘brutally’ quells rebellion in Libya’s Sirte,”
Al Jazeera
, August 17, 2015.

356
 The relationship between ethnic conflict and human trafficking is explored in Callum Paton, “Libya: Scores killed in ethnic clashes for control of south’s people-trafficking routes,”
International Business Times
, July 23, 2015.

356
 Amnesty International documented the assassination of hundreds of Libyan citizens by Islamist forces in “The state of the world’s human rights,” Amnesty International, March 11, 2015.

357
 The quote from the French foreign minister (“two governments, two parliaments, and complete confusion”) comes from Nathalie Guibert, Yves-Michel Riols, and Hélène Sallon, “Libya’s Tripoli and Tobruk dilemma no nearer to resolution,”
Guardian
, January 27, 2015. Responses to proposals for a “unity government” are discussed in Suliman Ali Zway and Carlotta Gall, “Libyan factions reject unity government plan,”
New York Times
, October 20, 2015. Khalifa Haftar’s threats to form yet another government were reported in Mary Fitzgerald, “Libyan renegade general Khalifa Haftar claims he is winning his war,”
Guardian
, June 24, 2014.

357
 Saif Qaddafi’s troubling words (“There will be civil war in Libya . . .”) are recorded in Lindsey Hilsum, “Saif al-Islam Gaddafi: The prophet of his own doom,”
Guardian
, August 5, 2015.

357
 Saif Qaddafi describes the amputation of his fingers by his captors in Fred Abrahams, “In his first interview, Saif al-Islam says he has not been given access to a lawyer,”
Daily Beast
, December 30, 2012.

357
 The conviction and sentencing of Saif Qaddafi is reported in Chris Stephen, “Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam sentenced to death by court in Libya,”
Guardian
, July 28, 2015; and Hilsum, op. cit.

357
 The chant of the August 2015 pro-Qaddafi demonstrators (“Zintan, Zintan, free Saif al-Islam”) was described in Hilsum, ibid.

All the Food in China

370
 Food-oriented television programming in China is described in Li Xiaoyu, “A bite of food culture,”
BJ Review
, July 2, 2015.

370
 Statistics on the proportion of Chinese who regularly share photos of their
meals online rely on Angela Xu, “China’s digital powered foodie revolution,”
Lab Brand
, January 6, 2015.

370
 Efforts to persuade UNESCO to include Chinese cuisine on its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity are described in Li, op. cit.

370
 The growing popularity of organic food in China is the subject of Cai Muyuan, “Eat green, think greener,”
China Daily Europe
, June 5, 2015.

370
 The apparent health benefits of spicy food are documented in Jun Lv et al., “Consumption of spicy foods and total and cause specific mortality: Population based cohort study,”
British Medical Journal
351 (August 4, 2015).

370
 Shanghai’s dominance in Asian restaurant ratings is reported in Jessica Rapp, “Locavores, health food, and celebrity chefs: The hottest trends in Shanghai’s dining scene,”
Jing Daily
, August 24, 2015.

370
 The widespread contamination of Chinese soil is discussed in British Broadcasting Corporation, “Report: One fifth of China’s soil contaminated,” BBC News, April 18, 2014.

370
 Sources on food adulteration in China include Yanzhong Huang, “The 2008 milk scandal revisited,”
Forbes
, July 16, 2014; Peter Foster, “Top 10 Chinese food scandals,”
Telegraph
, April 27, 2011; Associated Press, “Vinegar contaminated with antifreeze kills Chinese Muslims at Ramadan meal,”
Guardian
, August 22, 2011; Patrick Boehler, “Bad eggs: Another fake-food scandal rocks China,”
Time
, November 6, 2012; Patrick Boehler, “Police seize chicken feet in storage since 1967, smuggled from Vietnam,”
South China Morning Post
, July 8, 2013; British Broadcasting Corporation, “Chinese police arrest 110 for selling ‘contaminated pork,’ ” BBC News, January 12, 2015; and Elizabeth Barber, “ ‘Gutter oil’ scandal raises food-safety fears once again in greater China,”
Time
, September 8, 2014.

370
 Chinese skepticism regarding the “organic” label is noted in Dominique Patton, “Cashing in on health scares, China online food sales boom,” Reuters, August 11, 2013.

370
 The popularity of imported food, particularly fruit, is the subject of Rebecca Kanthor, “In China, imported fruit is the must-have luxury item for the New Year,”
The World
, Public Radio International, February 20, 2015; and Nan Zhong, “China has a healthy appetite for food imports,”
China Daily
, March 2, 2015.

371
 The secretive cultivation of organic food for the Chinese political elite is described in Barbara Demick, “In China, what you eat tells who you are,”
Los Angeles Times
, September 16, 2011.

371
 For more information on the increasing popularity of alternatives to rice in the Chinese diet, see Te-Ping Chen, “In latest mash-up, China puts spotlight on spuds,”
Wall Street Journal
, August 17, 2015.

371
 Recent increases in obesity and diabetes in China are discussed in Laurie Burkitt, “Selling health food to China,”
Wall Street Journal
, December 13, 2010;
and Lily Kuo, “By 2015, China will be the world’s largest consumer of processed food,”
Quartz
, September 23, 2013.

Adventures in Antarctica

395
 Global warming’s impact on the ability of scientists to reach their posts in Antarctica is the subject of Michael Safi, “Antarctica’s increasing sea ice restricting access to research stations,”
Guardian
, May 11, 2015.

396
 The deterioration of the West Antarctic ice sheet is discussed in Chris Mooney, “Scientists declare an ‘urgent’ mission—study West Antarctica, and fast,”
Washington Post
, September 29, 2015.

396
 The potential fate of the Totten Glacier is described in James Hamblin, “How the most important glacier in east Antarctica is melting,”
Atlantic
, March 20, 2015; this article is also the source of the quote from NASA.

396
 Record temperatures in Antarctica are reported in Katia Hetter, “Antarctic hits 63 degrees, believed to be a record,” CNN News, April 1, 2015.

396
 The effects of warmer temperatures on fungi, crustaceans, and penguins are discussed in Australian Associated Press, “Temperature affects fungi in Antarctica,” Special Broadcasting Service, September 28, 2015; Chelsea Harvey, “Next up from climate change: Shell-crushing crabs invading Antarctica,”
Washington Post
, September 28, 2015; and Chris Mooney, “The melting of Antarctica is bad news for humans. But it might make penguins pretty happy,”
Washington Post
, August 13, 2015.

396
 China’s intent to expand operations in Antarctica is detailed in Jane Perlez, “China, pursuing strategic interests, builds presence in Antarctica,”
New York Times
, May 3, 2015.

When Everyone Signs

397
 Bengkala is the focus of I Gede Marsaja,
Desa Kolok: A Deaf Village and Its Sign Language in Bali, Indonesia
(2008). The first report in the medical literature of the strain of deafness prevalent there is S. Winata et al., “Congenital non-syndromal autosomal recessive deafness in Bengkala, an isolated Balinese village,”
Journal of Medical Genetics
32 (1995). For a general, accessible discussion of syndromic deafness within endogamous communities, see John Travis, “Genes of silence: Scientists track down a slew of mutated genes that cause deafness,”
Science News
, January 17, 1998. Additionally, for an opinionated overview of the academic research on the subject, see Annelies Kusters, “Deaf utopias? Reviewing the sociocultural literature on the world’s ‘Martha’s Vineyard situations,’ ”
Journal of Deaf Studies & Deaf Education
15, no. 1 (January 2010).

398
 The complex webs of relations among the Balinese are the subject of Hildred and Clifford Geertz’s oft-cited
Kinship in Bali
(1975).

403
 “Deaf” with a lowercase
d
refers to hearing impairment; the same word, capitalized, refers to the culture of those who communicate with each other in sign language and identify themselves as part of a community. For an exploration of Deaf politics in the United States in the nineties, see my article “Defiantly deaf,”
New York Times Magazine
, August 28, 1994.

405
 The postscript on the Kata Kolok language relies on the work of Connie de Vos of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, who has emerged as the most prolific scholar of the language. See, for example, Connie de Vos and N. Palfreyman, “Deaf around the world: The impact of language,”
Journal of Linguistics
48, no. 3 (November 2012), which describes the relative numbers of deaf and hearing users of Kata Kolok; Connie de Vos, “Absolute spatial deixis and proto-toponyms in Kata Kolok,”
NUSA: Linguistic Studies of Languages In and Around Indonesia
56 (2014), which examines the relocation of Kata Kolok signers from Bengkala; and Connie de Vos, “A signers’ village in Bali, Indonesia,”
Minpaku Anthropology News
, 2011, which chronicles the lack of new transmission of the language.