Most Americans are ignorant of Africa, sometimes willfully so, and for the rest of us it can be impossibly complex to understand. I'm sure that for many people the last time they thought of Africa was when they saw Black Hawk Down. Black Hawk Down exemplifies the average American reaction to Africa: we don't even know something's happening until it's over. For example, the genocide in Rwanda wasn't reported on until the Tutsis had mounted an attack and were killing Hutus. Even when the news finally did start reporting, they muddled it and made hash of it until most Americans didn't know who was who and who'd started killing first. The same could be said of Sudan, althouth their struggle is ongoing.
In this book, Peterson examines troubled Africa through the lens of these three conflicts. Don't get me wrong, he's not one of those who still thinks of Africa as the "dark" continent, full of savagery and constantly at war. But sub-Saharan Africa has long been deeply troubled with internal conflict and riven by wars fueled by racial hatred and industrial nation's money. Some Americans are familiar with the idea that skin color doesn't mean race. An example is people who still consider themselves Irish or Italian or Polish or even Jewish. Even so, most Americans tend to look at Africa and think, "Well, they're all black." The subtext of that, of course, is that they're all the same. Such an attitude couldn't be more wrong. Hutu and Tutsi are not ethnically distinct people. These are artificial categories simly distinguishing the upper class (Tutsi) from the lower class (Hutu). The Belgians used the Tutsi to enforce their will in order to keep their own hands clean. In short, class resentment lead, through a long string of events, to the genocide in the '90s.
Peterson goes into detail on these three conflicts and succeeds in achieving his goal of humanizing the people involved in the struggles. Sometimes it's hard to read, as such brutality is unknown here in America. Here, a man might strangle some children, or a mother chop of her baby's arms. These are brutal, yes, but not on the same scale as a group of machete-weilding men grabbing children out of their mother's arms and dismembering them in front of her while she screams in horror before they turn on her and either rape her and kill her or just kill her. But these things are not unknown in Africa, nor is the sight of children carrying guns uncommon. Peterson is no armchair analyst though. He was a journalist on the ground in these countries when atrocities were happening daily. He also has another side to tell of the American intervention in Somalia, something that may undercut any notions that Americans knew what the hell they were doing. According the Peterson, the incident detailed in Black Hawk Down was not inevitable and was probably the direct result of Americans killing some of the most powerful clan leaders at a peace meeting.
As I said, Peterson uses these three nations and events to cast a light on the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa. He does a pretty good job of that, I think, and this book would serve to enlighten many an American if they would read it. He explores some more general themes along with the specific incidents, although I did feel that this book would have been better as a beginning for a series of works about modern Africa than as a stand-alone. As far as I'm aware though, he hasn't written another book. I'm sure plenty of his journalism has been published though.
I recommend this book, but I caution you, it's not always an easy read. There are color plates, but they're not the kind of pictures you see in National Geographic. Still, this is a book most Americans need to read.
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