A Return Journey with Medicine and Hope for Sudan
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Issue 87 April 2012 A NEWSLETTER OF THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY A RETURN JOURNEY WITH MEDICINE AND HOPE FOR SUDAN Z EENA N ACKERDIEN Social media has amplified the message of ers started walking again. This time they supplies to the clinic. Medical supplies are atrocities suffered by Africans and others headed towards Kenya where those that en route via Mombasa in Kenya, but more and helped to mobilize millions of people survived the treacherous journey stayed for donations are needed for the perilous sec- into action across the globe. The North/ nine years. Thanks to the efforts of dedicat- ond leg of the trip through rough terrain to South Sudanese conflict is a specific -ex ed private citizens and the us government, Maar. Since arrival of the supplies in good ample of war brought to the attention of Jacob was brought to the us in 2001 and condition has to be carefully orchestrated millions of people through the efforts of he became a foster child in Michigan. The with the rotation of qualified medical per- the media and celebrities such as George complete story of Jacob and Michael can be sonnel through the clinic, the sshco and Clooney. Flickering television images of found on the Web site of the Southern Su- dedicated volunteers are reaching out to war-ravaged Sudan and the occasional New danese Health Care Organization (sshco, their real-world and online communities York Times article also provide overworked www.sshco.org). to raise the anticipated $13,000 needed to Americans with glimpses of what is hap- Television specials at the time recapped achieve their immediate goals. If all goes pening in an African country that officially stories of the “Sudanese lost boys” (a mis- well, the sshco will be opening the clinic became two countries with the secession of leading moniker as both genders endured at the end of April 2012. Donations are wel- South from North Sudan. While education these hardships), culminating in adoption comed on their official Web site. of an increasingly interconnected world is stories and images of them in leafy white The sshco has also been entered in the important in stopping violence, the truth suburbs. Jacob would later marvel about the Dell Social Innovation Challenge. After is sustainable development in any war-torn amenities and shelter that Americans take registering on the Dell site and confirm- region can only be achieved through the for granted. He obtained his high school ing his or her e-mail address, a prospective active participation of its own citizens. diploma in record time, followed by a Bach- supporter can type in “Maar Health” in the Who will help carry the developmen- elor’s degree at Spring Arbor University in search box and vote for the organization. tal torch once the media spotlight has Michigan and a Master’s degree in Public A People’s Choice Award from Dell, facili- dimmed? In the case of the Republic of Health (mph) from Michigan State Univer- tated by numerous “likes” on Facebook and South Sudan, newly established in 2011, sity. Jacob is currently pursuing his ph.d. tweets, would go a long way to making the one of those people is Jacob Atem. After in Health Services Research, Management dream of Jacob and his countrymen be- losing his parents (members of the Dinka and Policy at the University of Florida. come a reality. tribe) during the Second Sudanese Civil Along the way, he married a girl from his To encourage your local representatives War (1983-2005), six-year-old Jacob accom- hometown. That is traditionally where the to help change the global issues in South panied by his fourteen-year-old cousin, story would end, with a young man finally Sudan, please visit http://www.enoughpro- Michael, walked for miles towards Ethio- being able to live the American dream. ject.org/take_action. ◉ pia and the safe harbor offered by President However, Jacob has been inspired to be Primary Source: Interview with Jacob Magisto. They were two children lost in a a conduit, i.e., a liaison between American Atem. sea of refugees, with the threats of wild ani- and African cultures who applies mals, hunger, thirst, and death constantly knowledge gained in the us for lurking over them. As he would later recall: the benefit of his countrymen. “If four or five people went to sleep at night, Together with Lual Deng and the chances were great that two people would assistance of others, he formed not get up the following day.” the sshco, which aims to provide Jacob converted to Christianity in Ethi- healthcare and a sense of hope to opia and stayed in the refugee camp for the people of South Sudan. Jacob two years. President Magisto’s government and his colleagues have complet- was overthrown and the new regime forced ed the first phase of their dream, the refugees back to their home country. namely the construction of a clin- Caught between warring factions and fear- ic in his hometown of Maar. The ing retribution from the Sudanese govern- second phase involves the ship- ment of President El Bashir, Jacob and oth- ment of medical equipment and 1 Culture Desk: A Lifetime of Hamlet Editorial Board B ERNIE L ANGS EDITORIAL BOARD There are certain monu- cafeteria, he feigns Lauren Brenner ments in the history of an excuse for de- Disan Davis art, literature, and music parture and heads Sasha DeWitt so culturally prevalent for the door. Carly Gelfond that they seep into our In the 1990s, I Melina Herman consciousness at a very spent a lot of time Jim Keller early age and remain with reading art history Collene Lawhorn us throughout our entire and there was one Joseph Luna lives. Try, for example, to book in particu- Aileen Marshall recall the first time you lar that discussed Engin Ozertugrul saw a photo of Leonardo Hamlet at length in Tobias Reichenbach da Vinci’s Mona Lisa or a way that was truly heard the opening strains enlightening. Man- Susan Russo of Beethoven’s “Fifth Sym- nerism, by Arnold selections.rockefeller.edu phony.” Included in this Hauser, centers on [email protected] list would be the opening the theory that af- words of Shakespeare’s ter the High Re- tragic character’s most fa- naissance and the genius of Michelangelo, art spiraled into mous soliloquy: “To be, or a crazed crisis, i.e., the Mannerist movement, from which Title page of the 1605 printing of Hamlet not to be: that is the ques- it never truly emerged. He sees the character of Hamlet as tion.” an indication of how far this movement spread. Hauser calls I can trace images of Hamlet’s lament to my 1960s child- Hamlet “the first fully fledged representative in dramatic lit- hood and to an episode of the television show Gilligan’s Is- erature of the enigmatic modern character…with his inner land, where the island-stranded cast rehearses a musical conflict, his alienation from the world, his resentment of hu- version of the play to impress a Broadway producer briefly manity which throws him back on himself.” Labeling Hamlet marooned with them. I can still sing part of Hamlet’s song, as a “narcissist,” Hauser says, “from now on, the criterion of psy- well as the one sung by Polonius in his advice to his departing chological plausibility is lack of wholeness and integrity and a son, Laertes. In addition, in the Jerry Lewis film, The Nutty sense of inadequacy.” Professor, I can recall a very funny scene where Lewis’ char- In 1996, I sat in the Paris Theater in Manhattan watch- acter convinces a school administrator to recite the famed ing Hamlet, Kenneth Branagh’s four-hour-plus film. For the speech (with hilarious ensuing results). first time, I could “hear” and make sense of all that is great in When I was in my mid-teens, my uncle went through a Shakespeare. Branagh sets the play in late nineteenth century phase, in which, during family gatherings, he would impart dress and Derek Jacobi and Nicholas Farrell give absolutely his theories on the play. He believed it was a psychological first-rate performances as Claudius and Horatio, respectively. study of a young man who wrongly believes his father was Branagh is excellent as the Prince, but often does go over the murdered. By that point, I must have read it, because at one top. I’ve watched this movie probably six or seven times at dinner I cornered my uncle and asked him why, if there is no this point, which means I’ve given it more than an entire day murder by Claudius of the elder Hamlet, does Claudius ad- of my life! mit to the crime in Act III? He laughed and simply declared, Most recently, I was very moved by the book Specters of “That’s the flaw of the play!” Marx by French philosopher Jacques Derrida. In it, he exten- It was in high school that I first considered what Ham- sively uses Hamlet and, in particular, the chilling ghost of the let is actually saying in his speech. I came to this awareness murdered king to discuss a similar “spirit” that haunts us in by watching the television show Happy Days in which “The today’s society, Marxism. Derrida’s book gives the front piece Fonz” is forced to play the lead role of Hamlet, but interrupts to a quote from the play: “The time is out of joint,” and then it his performance to chastise his distracted audience, explain- introduces the first chapter by quoting dialogue from the end ing the woes and tribulations of the protagonist and the seri- of young Hamlet’s first meeting with his father’s ghost, which ousness of his situation.