Product Description

Like the single white eyelash that graces her row of dark lashes–seen by her people as a mark of good fortune–Halima Bashir’s story stands out. Tears of the Desert is the first memoir ever written by a woman caught up in the war in Darfur. It is a survivor’s tale of a conflicted country, a resilient people, and the uncompromising spirit of a young woman who refused to be silenced.

Born into the Zaghawa tribe in the Sudanese desert, Halima was doted on by her father, a cattle herder, and kept in line by her formidable grandmother. A politically astute man, Halima’s father saw to it that his daughter received a good education away from their rural surroundings. Halima excelled in her studies and exams, surpassing even the privileged Arab girls who looked down their noses at the black Africans. With her love of learning and her father’s support, Halima went on to study medicine, and at twenty-four became her village’s first formal doctor.

Yet not even the symbol of good luck that dotted her eye could protect her from the encroaching conflict that would consume her land. Janjaweed Arab militias started savagely assaulting the Zaghawa, often with the backing of the Sudanese military. Then, in early 2004, the Janjaweed attacked Bashir’s village and surrounding areas, raping forty-two schoolgirls and their teachers. Bashir, who treated the traumatized victims, some as young as eight years old, could no longer remain quiet. But breaking her silence ignited a horrifying turn of events.

In this harrowing and heartbreaking account, Halima Bashir sheds light on the hundreds of thousands of innocent lives being eradicated by what is fast becoming one of the most terrifying genocides of the twenty-first century. Raw and riveting, Tears of the Desert is more than just a memoir–it is Halima Bashir’s global call to action.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #314786 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-09
• Released on: 2008-09-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780345506252
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Writing with BBC correspondent Lewis (Slave), Bashir, a physician and refugee living in London, offers a vivid personal portrait of life in the Darfur region of Sudan before the catastrophe. Doted on by her father, who bucked tradition to give his daughter an education, and feisty grandmother, who bequeathed a fierce independence, Bashir grew up in the vibrant culture of a close-knit Darfur village. (Its darker side emerges in her horrific account of undergoing a clitoridectomy at age eight.) She anticipated a bright future after medical school, but tensions between Sudan's Arab-dominated Islamist dictatorship and black African communities like her Zaghawa tribe finally exploded into conflict. The violence the author recounts is harrowing: the outspoken Bashir endured brutal gang-rapes by government soldiers, and her village was wiped out by marauding Arab horsemen and helicopter gunships. This is a vehement cri de coeur—I wanted to fight and kill every Arab, to slaughter them, to drive them out of the country, the author thought upon treating girls who had been raped and mutilated—but in showing what she suffered, and lost, Bashir makes it resonate. (Sept.)
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From Booklist
Bashir’s story of her life in Darfur is difficult to read largely because so much of it is ordinary. She recounts growing up in a loving family, attending school, and, with the strong support of her father, becoming a doctor. After she enters professional life, civil war comes to her doorstep, and her life is torn apart. She witnesses horrible suffering and is herself brutally treated by the Janjaweed, the armed militias fighting with the tacit approval of the Sudanese government. As a “black African,” Bashir recalls years of discrimination from ruling Arab Africans, but the spreading war accelerates the violence to epic and devastating levels. After fleeing to Britain, she finds herself in a new battle to prove that the nightmare in her country is real. Bashir is now a powerful voice for the victims of Darfur, speaking out on numerous painful subjects, from her own genital mutilation to rape and the loss of her family. Harsh in its honesty, Bashir’s chronicle is shocking and disturbing. An unforgettable tragedy. --Colleen Mondor

Review
Advance praise for Tears of the Desert

“This memoir helps keep the Darfur tragedy open as a wound not yet healed.”
–Elie Wiesel, author of Night

“This is a brave book. And a valuable one. Halima’s story of the atrocities and immeasurable losses she has endured must be told. The world continues to turn a deaf ear to the cries from the Darfur region, and our failure to protect this tortured population is a measure of who we are as a global ‘community’. Still, Halima leaves us with hope and awe in the face of her courage.”
–Mia Farrow, actor and advocate

“Halima Bashir has bared her soul to help stop the bleeding of her people in Darfur. Attention must be paid.”
–John Prendergast, co-chair of the ENOUGH Project and co-author of Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond

“A harrowing and beautifully written tale of a rich life, untold suffering, and impossible hope told from the heart of a fellow African sister. Read this as the tragedy that has overcome our long-suffering country, Sudan.”
–Mende Nazer, author of Slave

“Halima’s story is fantastic and exhausting, perhaps all the more so because I can see and hear and feel the people and places she describes. People need to be drawn into Darfur through stories like this, to cut through the statistics and the horror and to come back to the humanity–to families, love, hope, and courage and the normality of life in such abnormal circumstances.”
–Lisa French Blaker, author of Heart of Darfur

“The genocide in Darfur has found its Anne Frank. The slaughter inflicted on the African peoples of western Sudan is one of modern Africa’s darkest episodes but one Darfuri woman, Halima Bashir, rips through diplomatic compromise and political double-speak to lay bear Darfur’s ghastly reality. A searingly frank ...

Customer Reviews

Pride and Prejudice
Tears in the Desert is a memoir of genocide in the Sudan, Muslim against Muslim over skin color. Halima Bashir is a black African raised in the Zaghawa tribe in a family of comparative wealth. The Zaghawa men are proud of their history as fierce warriors who protect their village territory and their families from invaders. Halima is proud of her heritage and her intellectual gifts, particularly mathematics. Her gifts and her family's wealth allow her to attend a private school for girls and later university in Khartoum.

The history of tribal pride has led to competition in Darfur and throughout the Sudan for land and prestige. But there is more than tribal rivalry. The Khartoum government is run by white "Arab" Muslims whose proud heritage causes the people to despise the black tribal Africans. Although Halima's advantages paid off in education, her M.D. degree is fully useful to her only if all Sudanese are treated equally. Of course, in the Sudan they are not.

After being mistreated for many years, African tribes attacked Arabs and regrouped in the hills. Government attacks on villages were carried out leaving few surviving men and a great many women and children. For the survivors like Halima, brutal female circumcision, rape, and mayhem were perpetuated by the Arab Muslims in the rationalization of jihad. Halima survived, but barely. Many others died or left their villages to stay in large refugee centers.

The memoir is written like a novel with the help of Damien Lewis, a BBC reporter and writer who has covered conflicts in Africa for many years. Halima and Lewis have produced an exciting and important work that will give the reader great insight into activity in Darfur and explain why humanitarian activists have demanded that the United Nations and specific countries like the U.S. intervene and stop the genocide. China has blocked this intervention because of reliance on Sudanese oil.

Interesting parallels are drawn between Darfur and the holocaust in Nazi Germany. Do the people of the world claim ignorance of the situation in Darfur as German citizens claimed ignorance of Buchenwald and Auschwitz? The book suggests that irrational cultural pride provides an excuse for domination and extermination of perceived rivals.

This is a fascinating book that will inform, shock, and perhaps drive the reader to some action. The graphic descriptions of mutilation and assault are disturbing and the story puts hope for the future in some doubt. Is this an inevitable human condition in which individual misery is irrelevant? Halima is attempting to fight back by publishing this memoir at some risk to her and her family's safety.

Moving Memoir of Courage and Tragedy
Dr. Halima Bashir's autobiography is a testament to the tragedy taking place in Darfur as well as a picture of her life. She begins with her happy childhood in her village - although the chapter of her "cutting time", when she underwent the gruesome ritual of Female Genital Mutiliaton, is wrenching, and progresses to her work as a medical doctor.

Targeted just for speaking out against the violence, and for serving her people, Dr. Bashir is kidnapped and viciously tortured and raped, then released as the ultimate punishment since rape victims are shunned in her society. She could have suffered in silence, as so many women of her culture do, or at least kept her torment private to heal. No one would have blamed her. Instead she bravely speaks out about her ordeal in an attempt to both help her violated country, and to help other victims of sexual assault.

I'm delighted that she has found joy in her marriage and child, and has been granted asylum in England, but as of publication, the fate of her other family members is unknown. I will not close my eyes at night without a prayer for her relatives and the people of Darfur, which also raises the question: WHERE IS THE WORLD??? Why is my USA, as well as the other countries who cried "never again!" after the Holocaust of the last century, so strangely silent? Dr. Bashir chose to become a voice for her oppressed people. The remainder of humanity has a moral obligation to join theirs to hers.

Excellent, Heart Rendering Read!
Dr. Bashir writes an incredible story of joy, pain, suffering, accomplishment, respect and above all, love for her fellow man. This book truly makes for a smaller world. Suddenly you are inside the heart of a small girl that grew up in the African bush and suffered severely simply because of where she happened to be born. I cried often as I read this book. The characters are, on the face of it, as different from me as I could possibly imagine..African, poor, Muslim, etc. In reality, they are no different. These are men, women, and children just like you and me. This is a heartbreaking story that I highly recommend.