Somalia: The Untold Story. The war through the eyes of Somali women
- Product information
- edited by Judith Gardner and Judy El Bushra
- Publisher
- CIIR and Pluto Press
- Product number
- ISBN 0 7453 2208 5
- Star rating
The work of Judith Gardner and Judy El Bushra in bringing this book to fruition has been a collective labour of love with their Somali collaborators. Harrowing accounts of women’s wartime experience run the gamut here: atrocity, fear, destruction, flight, starvation and courageous efforts to make the dying and the fighters stop.
But the most powerful impression of what Somali women went through as their society descended into a vortex of chaotic savagery is the way in which their own inner beings – along with families and affiliations – were torn apart. Particularly dreadful things happen to women when a society splinters and re-splinters along ethnic fault-lines and every social code breaks down.
Somali women belong to their father’s clan, their children to their husband’s. This meant that many families were forced to break up and women fled to their ancestral lands. Their mothers had to go somewhere else again. And then there were targeted and systematic sexual attacks on women, an unheard-of breach of warrior convention. So acute is the shame of rape in Somali society that the pain of confronting what men did to them is still difficult to face.
Somalia: The Untold Story also provides much context and history. After all, except for warlords and ‘Black Hawk Down’, almost everything about Somalia is ‘untold’– especially when it comes to women. Hard as some of this material is, it is also a surprisingly good read and a fine contribution to debates on the roles women play in war.
Join over 10,000 people just like you. Get e-mail updates about new content, issue alerts, contests, and more!
Voices from the margins:
Multimedia: video, podcasts, and more.
- Poetry Slam in Zimbabwe
- The House of Hunger poetry slam held in Zimbabwe in 2006, and organised by the Pamberi Trust, showcased young artists performing inspirational work on issues from corporate power to child soldiers. The video features four of the poets.
Published by Pambazuka News.
- Iranian women speak out
- 3 March 2007, London. Women's rights activists marched through the English capital last week to celebrate International Women's Day with a protest against the misogyny of the Islamic regime in Iran and the threat of invasion by the US. Hear the voices of Iranian feminists Azar and Leila Parnian and the sounds of the demonstration as it passed through the heart of the city. Click here to learn more about the campaign.
Produced by Heidi Bachram.
- Raised Voices audio:
- Benny from West Papua on Corporate Power
- Vinayan from India on agriculture
